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Then Drew reached for her. He caught her arm, but Phallon jerked backward and dragged Nicole with her, and he lost his grip. He stumbled into the side of the bed. “Fuck. Nicole. Stop!”
An arm locked around her waist from behind. Nicole dug her heels into the carpet and held on to Phallon’s hair.
“Let me go, Drew!”
“You’re gonna get yourself arrested. Let her go. Baby, please.”
He pried at her fingers until she finally let go, and a clump of that blond hair came away with them. Phallon fell back onto the edge of the bed, sobbing, and Nicole lunged for her again.
Drew pulled her back against his chest. “Enough. Baby, enough.”
“Don’t touch me.” She shoved at his arm. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
He let her go.
She couldn’t look at him. Not with that girl’s lipstick still on his face.
Nicole stood there breathing hard. Her camel coat was twisted halfway around her, her silk scarf was hanging out of her collar, and now her hand was stinging, three nail marks across the back of it beading up red. Her chest burned, and a cough came up out of nowhere and bent her in half. She’d been cleared to travel. She hadn’t been cleared for this. When she straightened up, she wanted that girl out of this room. Out of his shirt. Out of their lives.
Two men in dark blazers came through the open door, stepping around her suitcase. One of them hit the light switch, and the whole room went bright.
In the light, it was all so much worse. A sweater in a heap by the bed. A skirt half under the comforter. A bra hanging off the edge of the mattress, and a pair of heels kicked over by the toppled chair, like she’d made herself right at home. Phallon’s lip was split and bleeding onto Drew’s white shirt. Nicole looked down at her own hand and shook loose the last few strands of blond hair stuck to her fingers.
“Everybody stop. Right now.”
Phallon looked right at Nicole and screamed it. “Get away from me, you ghetto bitch!”
Ghetto? Nicole had grown up behind a guardhouse in Great Falls, Virginia. She almost laughed.
The guards didn’t even look at Phallon. The bigger one went straight for Nicole, with his hand out flat in front of him, and she didn’t have to wonder why. A white girl was crying, and a Black girl was standing over her. “Ma’am! Back up!”
“Whoa. Whoa, hey.” Drew put a hand out toward the guard, still swaying. “Back off her, man. She didn’t do anything.”
Neither guard so much as looked at him.
“She needs to get out of here,” Nicole said, pointing at Phallon.
“I said back up!” The guard was yelling now, right in her face. “Or I call the cops and let them deal with you!”
“I heard you.”
“Then do it,” the guard said. “Now!”
Nicole took one step back. Her heel hit the overturned chair.
“Don’t you fucking yell at her.” Drew came forward and got right up in the guard’s face, close enough that the man had to lean back. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Huh?”
The second guard was on him in two steps, one hand flat against Drew’s chest and the other on the little canister clipped to his belt. “Sir! Back up. Right now.”
Drew looked down at the hand on his chest. “Get your fucking hand off me.”
“Back. Up.”
Was that pepper spray? Nicole’s stomach dropped. “Drew. Don’t.”
He held there another second, breathing hard, then took one step back. He didn’t take his eyes off either of them.
The second guard watched him a moment longer before he went to the bed, where Phallon was pulling the shirt closed and crying. He crouched in front of her and lowered his voice. “Miss. Are you hurt?”
