Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Feenix Blaylock

T hrough the dark rain clouds, the waning sun fights to be seen, and the wind pushes the rain at an uncomfortable angle for anyone who has to walk in it. The sky opened up mere minutes after I stepped into this restaurant, and I’m grateful I hadn’t been caught in it. I don’t like my Converse to get wet.

I toy with the edge of my menu, curling the page and not giving a shit if this expensive place dislikes that I’m ruining it. I come here enough that they won’t say anything. At least, not to my face.

Lifting my wrist, I check my watch for the fifth time since I got here. Noll is late per usual. I’m supposed to meet with him, but I have half a mind to walk out. I know I won’t because he’s my childhood best friend, but I fantasize about it for a few seconds.

We’re polar opposites, Noll as the good person, and me . . . not a good person. We’ve grown apart, but for some odd reason, we refuse to give up on one another. We’re all we have left of a life of innocence.

In truth, maybe it’s just me holding onto the innocence because the past is all I have left of it. After all, I’m the one who schedules these get-togethers. That’s how our relationship works. He texts; I rarely answer. I much prefer the face-to-face, so I schedule the dinners instead of responding to his questions: How’s life? How you doing today? How ya holding up?

He always checks on me, especially around this time of year – the time that I’ll never get over and the person I’ll never forget.

“Can I get you another whiskey?” the waiter asks when he approaches.

I refrain from lashing out in frustration and nod instead. It’ll be my third whiskey, and that fact annoys me because I wouldn’t be drinking my night away if Noll had just shown up on time.

The waiter bows his head and scurries off. Noll will come; it’s just a matter of how long he makes me wait.

The whiskey shows up at my elbow, the waiter disappears to another table, and I watch at least four other couples enter the restaurant before Noll finally steps inside. If he were any other person, they’d be praying for peace for making me wait. But it’s Noll, and Noll will never receive my wrath.

He has an umbrella that he shakes free just inside the door, splattering the fine carpet with raindrops that the nearby table frowns at. As he folds the umbrella back up, his eyes catch mine, and a smile spreads across his lips.

Noll is about half a foot shorter than I am. His dark skin is a stark contrast to his bright white teeth. Full lips encase those teeth, and high cheekbones shine in the restaurant’s dim lights as he smiles. His head is clean- shaven, and his dark brown eyes always glitter with kindness.

He’s a better person than I am. It’ll be plain as day when he sits across from me. He always has been and always will be.

Like me, Noll isn’t married. He has no kids, no girlfriend, no ‘someone’ special in his life. He’s married to his career. It’s the only thing we have in common.

The hostess takes his rain jacket, revealing his white polo shirt and black slacks, and as soon as he’s free from what remains of the rain, he strides in my direction without being escorted. He’s not used to the rich life, and it shows by his mannerisms. He lives a simple, blue-collar life, and sometimes, I admire that about him. Everything seems so black and white to him when, really, the world is full of darker colors.

He sits down, and before he can even offer a greeting, our waiter is at his side, asking for his choice of drink. I almost grin when he asks for a beer, bottled. To his credit, the waiter doesn’t bat an eye, and he takes off to go fulfill Noll’s request.

“How have you been, Nix?” is the first thing Noll asks me.

I lift an eyebrow at him. “Did you have to make me wait for so long?”

His grin broadens, causing me to roll my eyes a little. “I like to make you sweat. That’ll never change.”

“Did you get hung up at work or something?”

“Something like that.” He picks up the menu and starts to skim what this place offers.

I take of sip of whiskey and swallow down the burn. “I don’t know why you look at that. You always order the same thing. ”

He glances at me from over the menu. “Just for saying that, I’m going to order something different.”

This time, a ghost of a smile takes over my mouth. A rare smile. A crack of emotion to my carefully confined expressions. “Yeah, you do that, man.”

He sets down the menu, having chosen his meal for the night. He opens his mouth to say something, but my phone chirps. I hold up a finger, pick my phone up from the table, and quickly read the text from Andre. I keep the small grin on my face for show as I read. There’s another shipment of Russians, and he’s inviting me to view again. I don’t know why he invites me, but I don’t think he realizes that, by doing so, I’m learning the ins and outs of his job and just exactly how I can take it over once I figure out how to get rid of him. Scratch that. I know why he invites me. He wants to flaunt the job he has, the job he thinks I’ll never be able to take away from him.

“Work?” Noll asks after the waiter drops off his beer, murmuring that he’ll be back in a moment to take our order.

I grunt in response and set my phone on the table, face down.

The waiter returns, and we place our orders. Noll watches me with a keen eye until the waiter leaves, and I work like hell not to fidget under his gaze. He always sees more than he should.

“You know, this kind of fancy place isn’t what we came from. I know you make the big bucks these days, but there’s no need to flaunt it in front of me.” It’s said in a joking manner, as if he knows that I need another smile.

I don’t give it to him though. “I like the food.”

He nods slowly and glances around as if noticing everyone else for the first time. “It is good food, but I think you come here to prove to yourself that you're not that poor child fighting for food anymore.”

I only shrug because there’s a chance he isn’t wrong.

He studies me again. “Tomorrow’s the day.”

My jaw flexes. “I remember, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You have to talk about it, or it’ll eat you alive. You and I both know this.”

“It’s not going to bring her home, Noll,” I nearly growl.

He holds up his hands. “I miss Megan as much as you do, but you should still remember the day she disappeared.”

Megan is my cousin, but she might as well have been my sister. I spent the majority of my time at her house since my own mother would forget to fill the fridge every damn week. If it weren’t for my aunt making sure I was fed every few days, I’d have been skin and bones. Noll dated her until that day…

Noll and I were in college when she disappeared, ten years ago tomorrow. It’s eaten us alive every day. She just… was gone. Poofed from her walk from her job to her car. No one could find her, and there’s very little trace of where she might have been taken – because she was definitely taken. She’s not the type to run away.

That woman at the auction? She looked so much like her, and since that night, I’ve had a hard time not seeing her in my nightmares.

“There’s no way she’s still alive.”

“Don’t say that,” Noll says. His eyes narrow at me.

I pick up my drink and swallow a big gulp. “She would have been found by now.”

“I still have hope, and so should you.”

I say nothing and, instead, stare at the amber liquid in my glass cup. He’s wrong, and he’s an idiot for having hope in the first place. There’s no use telling him though. He’ll deny it until his last breath.

“You used to be such an optimistic guy.” I glance up at him and the shamed tone his words carry. “Your job has changed you. Money has changed you.”

“Not that much.”

“Sure, dude.” He chuckles darkly and leans back in his seat. “Anything new about your job? Anything you want to share?”

Noll knows I’m in the porn business. He doesn’t know the rest of it, but he is privy to what I do. I hid it for a while from him, but he’s too good at digging. He’s the reason we knew that Megan was taken in the first place.

I shake my head and drain the rest of my whiskey.

“Oh come on, Nix.”

Eyeing him from the side, I decide to give him something. “A new girl interviewed last night.”

“Oh?” He leans forward once more, ready for this tidbit of information. “What kind of money is she going to roll in?”

“I have no idea.” I haven’t looked for many reasons.

He squints at me. “If she gets the job, you’re not going to ‘participate’ with this woman, are you?”

I know what he means. He’s asking if I’m going to be part of the videos again. Before my cousin, it was common for us to share girls, so he knows I’m more of a watcher than I am a participant. Rarely did I get ‘involved’, so when I was a participant in the videos, he knew I didn’t like it.

I wet my bottom lip, and he whistles low because he knows that’s my tell when I haven’t decided something yet. “She must be some woman.”

I shrug, but even I know that she’s more than that. “She’s just another employee. ”

He laughs. “I know you too well, Feenix. The few girls we had together, who you actually involved yourself with, you liked for more than just for their beauty. If you’re considering this, she must have really gotten your attention.”

I don’t answer him. Instead, I flag the waiter for another whiskey. As soon as he brings it, I have half a mind to drain it all because Charlie is not something I want to talk about. In fact, I’ve spent my day actively trying not to think about the way she cums.

He leans a little more forward into the table, and I know there is advice coming by the look in his dark eyes. “A word you should heed: Don’t get involved. You have a job to do if you want to keep it. A woman will make it messy.”

I hum in agreement, and, satisfied, he rights himself to more of a proper sitting position. “Did you get that envelope I had delivered to your place?”

“I did.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Did you look at it?”

I shake my head. What he had delivered was part of a life I no longer keep, even though he thinks I do.

“You need to look at it.”

“I will,” I lie. The large yellow envelope is under my bed, and I have no intention of opening it.

The waiter comes with our tray of food and quietly sets our plates down before us. My steak steams as if it has just come off of the heat, and the smell makes my stomach growl.

My phone pings again, and I reach for it, but Noll places his hand over mine, causing me to look up at him. “It could be your way to the top, Nix. Don’t lose sight of what you want most. Not now, not ever.”

I clench my jaw as his hand retreats, and I pick up my phone to check the notifications. It’s an email from our tech guy, and I open it quickly, having been waiting for this news all day.

Last night, after I dropped off Charlie, I called our tech. With some extra cash thrown her way, she looked into Charlie for me, and hopefully, if she knows what’s good for her, she’ll keep what she found to herself.

I quickly scan through the email and find the background check to be generic, which is a red flag. No arrests, no family, not even a speeding ticket. So what the hell is a girl like this doing in my neck of the woods, trying to get a job that’ll ruin herself?

Another email quickly follows on the stats of Charlie’s videos, CC’d to my boss. My eyes widen a fraction at the views she’s gathered in half a day. I expected her to do well, but I hadn’t expected her to be the top viewed.

I grip my phone a little tighter. Shit.

She’ll make a shit-ton of money, and I’d hoped it’d be the opposite and I could send her on her way, save her from this life, and never think about her again.

But with that kind of money . . . even if I tried to turn her away, Andre has to know what she’d bring in. Without a doubt in my mind, I know he’d take her. Not only Andre, but there’s not a chance in hell the boss will let her go.

There isn’t a way to get her out of this, and that’s confirmed when the big man himself replies with, “Sign her on,” almost immediately.

My stomach coils as the realization hits me that my hands are tied and there’s not a damn thing I can do for Charlie now. She’s either in this with me, or she’ll become Andre’s ticket for another expensive suit.

I clench my jaw and glance up at Noll, who is watching me as he chews thoughtfully. He sighs when he sees the look on my face. “You have to go, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question. He knows that expression well.

I nod and start to stand up. As I pull enough cash from my pocket to pay for us both and drop it on the table, I say, “We’ll talk soon.”

Turning, I stiffen a little when he adds quietly to my back, “Look at the envelope, Nix. I mean it.”

And with that, I make my way to the hostess for my coat.