Chapter 6
Six
Hallie
The metal bleachers were scorching under my thighs, even through my denim shorts. Mid-July in Illinois didn’t mess around. Cayden was up to bat, his little helmet wobbling as he stepped into the box.
Brooke was already on her feet, clapping loud enough to drown out half the parents on our side. “You got this, baby! Just run when they tell you to run, okay?”
I smiled despite myself. My nephew was the cutest kid on the planet, and his mom was the loudest cheerleader in the suburbs.
My dad was filming on his phone, and my mom was snapping photos.
Anna ignored us all, spending the entire game texting away, and Adrian dropped onto the bench beside me with two blue slushies in his hands.
“Mom gave me cash,” he said, handing me one. “Don’t judge.”
“What are you, six?” I teased, taking it anyway. The artificial blue-raspberry flavor brought back memories of county fairs and the concession stand at the public pool, and it was just what I needed. “You’re a full-grown man and you asked Mom for concession money?”
He shrugged, sucking down his slushie. “I was only kidding, but she went along with it.”
Just down the bleachers from us, my dad was quietly working a sudoku puzzle, only halfway paying attention to the game.
Meanwhile, my mom was chatting with Mrs. Lang, who’d lived just down the street from us for as long as I could remember.
They were both grandmas now, and together, they were almost insufferable.
I’d been trying to tune them out, but Mrs. Lang’s voice carried like a megaphone.
“So Hallie’s still doing that remote thing?” she asked Mom, loud enough for half the bleachers to hear. “Must be nice to work from home. How’s the company treating her? Is it the same company she moved to Milwaukee for?”
My stomach tightened. I stared harder at the field, pretending I couldn’t hear.
Mom beamed like I’d just been named employee of the year. “Oh, yes. She’s their digital design coordinator now. They love her up there! We’re all so proud.”
Mrs. Lang turned to me with that bright, invasive smile. “Hallie, how many hours a week are you putting in? Is it pretty flexible? I’m thinking of suggesting something like that to my sister-in-law. She’s in marketing, like you!”
I forced out an awkward laugh, shifting on the bleachers. I didn’t look up from my slushie. “It’s… pretty flexible, yeah. Just, you know, something different every week.”
Brooke glanced over from her cheering post, her eyebrows raised like she knew I was fibbing.
It almost looked like Anna and Adrian exchanged a quick glance, too, like they all could tell I was being evasive.
Thankfully, that answer satisfied Mrs. Lang, and she and my mom turned to cheer on their grandsons as the teams swapped places.
Just when I gave Cayden a quick wave through the chainlink fence, my phone buzzed hard against my thigh.
It was from an unknown number. Assuming it was spam, I swiped open the message without thinking.
But there was a photo.
There were my black lace panties, the ones I’d worn while DoorDashing all day, clutched in a big, familiar fist.
Heat flooded my face so fast I felt dizzy. I slammed the phone facedown on my lap like it had burned me.
“You good?” Adrian asked, slurping down the last of his slushie like a little kid. “Who is it?”
“Uh, just–somebody,” I croaked. I stood up too fast, handing him my little styrofoam cup. “I’m gonna hit the bathroom real quick.”
I didn’t go to the bathrooms. I veered left, around the chain-link backstop, past the dugout where the kids were shouting and high-fiving. There was a narrow strip of shade along the side of the little brick equipment shed, out of sight from the bleachers.
I pressed my back to the warm brick and opened the message again.
There was no text. Just a photo of my panties in Knox’s hand. My thighs clenched involuntarily at the thought of him sneaking into my apartment while we were all here at the game. Did he know I was here? Had he hoped I was home?
I typed a quick response, my hands shaking the entire time.
Hallie: Knox?
The three dots appeared almost instantly.
Unknown: Just reminding you I can walk in and take whatever I want, whenever I want. You’re mine.
I stared at the screen until the words blurred, and then I pressed the phone flat against my chest. A rush of heat flooded low in my belly, equal parts terror and thrill, the kind that made my knees weak even though I was leaning against a brick wall.
Knox kept surprising me at every turn, and my doubt that he’d follow through on our plan crumbled bit by bit.
This was happening.
I stayed there longer than I should have, the sun beating down on me and making the sweaty ends of my hair stick to my neck. Somewhere behind me, the crack of a plastic bat against a tee rang out, followed by Brooke’s clapping and an encouraging, “That’s okay, buddy!”
And here I was, hiding beside a shed with my pulse racing because a man I’d known half my life had just casually admitted he could violate my space and my body whenever he felt like it.
And I wanted him to.
When I got home after the game, I discovered Knox hadn’t just taken something–he’d left a surprise for me, too.
A small sunflower bloom was waiting for me when I got home from Cayden’s game, carefully laid across my Kindle where I couldn’t miss it.
I picked it up, rubbing the silky petals between two fingers as I sucked in a deep breath and imagined Knox creeping around my dark apartment.
While I’d been sitting on hot metal bleachers pretending to care about T-ball, he had walked through my door, wandered my apartment, and stood right here beside my bed.
He’d touched my things. Maybe he’d sat on the edge of the mattress.
Maybe he’d opened my drawers. Maybe he’d stood exactly where I was standing now and pictured me walking in, finding this.
The thought sent a shiver across my skin that had nothing to do with the blasting A/C.
I considered putting the flower in a little vase, but the stem was snapped. So instead, I laid it atop my Kindle where I found it, as though I didn’t want to disrupt a crime scene.
Sleep didn’t come easy that night. I lay there in the humid dark, eyes open, listening to the house settle and the distant hum of cicadas outside.
Every little sound sent my pulse racing.
Could I really be sure he wasn’t still lurking in here somewhere?
He could’ve stayed and waited for me in the darkness, ready to pounce when I was most vulnerable.
But the hours ticked by, and Knox didn’t show.
He didn’t come the next night, either.
In fact, I didn’t hear from him at all. There wasn’t a single taunting text, and I hated how much I checked my phone while I was out making my DoorDash runs.
I pulled it out between deliveries while I idled in strangers’ driveways, my heart skipping a beat every time the screen lit up with a notification that was never him.
I took every shift I could, late ones especially, because the alternative was sitting in the apartment letting the quiet drive me insane.
I’d weave through suburbs adjacent to my own, handing off bags of tacos or pizza under flickering porch lights, always half-convinced I’d come home to find the door ajar or his shadow in the corner.
I never did.
As tempting as it was to text him and ask if he’d changed his mind, I fought the urge. After all, we’d agreed on a two-week timeframe, and he still had nine days.
I had to be patient.
In the meantime, the sunflower on my bedside table began to wilt, its petals turning brown and curling a little more each day.
I stared at it as I took my hair down one night, exhausted from running deliveries from one suburb to another.
I avoided Elmhurst at all costs, not wanting to run into anyone who knew my parents–or vice versa.
Nobody on earth knew I’d traded my respectable marketing career for DoorDashing, and I wanted to keep it that way.
Like the dying sunflower in front of me, I was barely hanging on.
I let out a long, slow sigh and tossed my hair elastic atop the dresser.
I stared at my face in the mirror, distracted by the smudged make-up beneath my eyes as I tugged at the bottom of my shirt to peel it over my head.
I was so ready to collapse into bed I almost considered slipping under the covers now.
But just in case Knox decided to finally show, it wouldn’t hurt to get a shower first. I’d already had one that morning, but the brutal July heat had a way of making that second shower necessary just to feel human again.
I stepped out of my shorts, kicking them in the direction of the hamper. My blinds were open, but unless someone was wandering around the back of my neighbor’s property, nobody would be able to see me like this.
I reached back to unhook the clasp of my bra when a glint of metal flashed through the leaves on the trees at the edge of the neighbor’s yard. That was unusual. Nothing should be reflecting light back there unless–
Unless there was a car parked there.
Swallowing, I took a step toward the window, knowing there was the perfect little spot where a car could discreetly pull in back there.
My siblings and I all knew about it–at some point or another, we’d all arranged for someone to pick us up in that very spot, out of our parents’ view.
Was someone parked there now, or was I just imagining it?
I touched the blinds, pulling two slats apart to see better. Something was definitely reflecting the moonlight down there beyond the trees. I let myself think it might just be a scrap of trash or a bottle, but my heart stuttered at the thought of Knox watching me from down below
What if it was him?
What if he could see me now?