Ahh. Sweet, sweet marriage.
“I’m sure you will, Beth. Have a good night.” I leave through the back without a kiss goodbye. Not like it matters. I haven’t kissed my wife in almost a year, her doing, not mine. The second I cut her access to my trust, she turned cold. Makes me think maybe my family was right.
I don’t pull the phone out of my pocket until I’m hidden in the darkness of my car. Doors locked with no one around, I open her message and blow out a shaky, desperate breath.
“Ohhh, my pretty girl.”
The innocence of her dazzling smile robs me of oxygen. I choke on air, needing only her to supply me with life. I’m still so caught off guard by the vicious need I have for her, but for the first time, guilt doesn’t follow because I know this is right. She’s right.
Location. Now.Throwing my arm behind the passenger’s seat, I peel out of the parking lot, carefully dodging the cars parked too closely at my side. Scarlett’s grinning face still lightens up my phone, until a new message pops up underneath. With one hand, I click on the location. It’s somewhere in the middle of an industrial lot, near the tracks where kids go to smoke, drink, and fuck on the rails.
I wouldn’t put it past Beth to check the GPS on the car. It doesn’t matter if she’s unfaithful; I still have to have all my stops under her monitoring. It doesn’t affect me on most days, but what I’m about to do could go south if she found out.
As they say, hell hath no fury as a woman scorned. Beth would make it her mission to ruin me if she found out about Scarlett.
Shit, knowing her, she’d go after Scarlett as well. And her entire family.
I won’t let that happen. My bullshit can’t touch her.
Ever.
Disconnecting my phone from the car, I follow Siri's voice on my lap. The burnt sienna and rich shades of violet have long darkened into navy blue. Sparse clouds that coated the sky have turned into a thick blanket, promising an oncoming storm. When, I don’t know. It could be now, tomorrow, or two days after. But rain or shine, I’m seeing Scarlett.
Right now.
After a twenty-five-minute drive, I pull into an empty lot. Up ahead, I stare into the blackened windows of vacant lofts. They all ring of emptiness. All except the very last one on the lowest floor.
“Is that you?” I whisper in the silence of the night as I step from the car. Glancing around, I see no one but the local kids hanging out on the tracks. They pass around bottles of liquor, laughing as their faces light up by the fiery embers of their cigarettes. They pay me no mind, too busy making memories under the moonlit sky.
With a click of the lock, I enter the brightly lit lobby. Behind a plexiglass shield, an older gentleman with thick, horned-rimmed framed glasses and a skinny frame sleeps, arm crossed over his wheezing chest, utterly oblivious to the man in his presence.
I decide to keep him unaware, softly creeping until I pass the stairs. By my count, Scarlett’s loft is at the very end.
It’s eerily silent throughout these pathways, with no sound to be heard but my clicking heels on the freshly mopped floor and the striking patter of my heart. The walls of my chest beat with it, crack with it.
Break from it.
My feet pick up to match its hammering tempo as I maneuver the halls, doing my best to remember the direction I saw the light. My heartbeat sticks in my throat all the way to the door, and as my hand lifts to bang on the metal surface, it all goes still once again. Because that’s what Scarlett Dane does to me; she makes me crazy.
So utterly mad.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
I knock on the door three times, each one louder than the last, in case the metal is as solid as the walls.
Sticking both hands inside my pockets, I wait. But after a few moments of nothing, I press my ear against the door, straining to listen in on the inside for movement or the sweet sound of her light breathing.
That’s how she catches me.
Quickly, the door swings open, and I come crashing in, about ready to collapse on my face if she hadn’t caught me in her arms.
“Woah! Shit, are you-” she starts, but I cut her off with my tongue in her mouth.
I kick the door closed with the back of my heel, tightening my grip on her face when it slams shut. Her nails claw at my wrists, drawing blood when I trap her lip between my teeth.
