Hoax

  I was mortified. I wedged myself out of Fancy’s hug enough to get behind her. I wasn’t about to take the heat for this.

  Axel held the door shut, jaw tight, his other hand in a fist.

  The man said, “Honey, don’t do this. You know it doesn’t mean anything.”

  The wife yelled, “You do this every time!”

  “I can’t help it. It’s an addiction. I can’t say no.”

  “You’re gay,” she said, exasperated. “What will the press think? They’re going to find out.”

  “I’m not gay,” he said. “I’m just addicted to sex. Doesn’t matter who I’m with…”

  There was a hard slap of flesh on flesh. “Don’t give me that line. I’ve had enough. I’m not about to be completely embarrassed by your—”

  “Honey, listen to me.” Shuffling noises. “Look at me. I love you. I always have.” Kissing noises. “I think you actually like the excitement.”

  “Don’t do this to me,” she said in a mortified tone.

  “I can see it in your eyes,” he said. “You wouldn’t be this upset and hurt, and you wouldn’t come after me if you didn’t love it, too.”

  I choked on a laugh. Fancy whipped a hand around, covering my mouth. With her other hand, she made a silence gesture with a single finger pressed to her own lips.

  Tell them to go away, I glared my words at her. Get them to go!

  There were suddenly more kissing noises, and then there was the sound of something unzipping.

  Holy crap! He was going to have sex with her right here? What was wrong with this guy?

  Fancy waited for a minute, then whipped around and looked down at the tile, finding a pair of flip-flops. She shoved both Axel and me out of the way, into the tub again.

  Before Axel could stop her, Fancy opened the door. Axel pulled me back into him in a secure hold. I covered my face with an elbow, but I peeked out.

  I saw everything happening reflected in the mirror. The man was in one of Fancy’s robes still. The woman was wearing a dress, but the back was unzipped, about to slide off.

  Fancy aimed a flip-flop at the man and hurled it toward his face. It landed with a smack against his eye and quickly fell to the floor. He ducked and she missed with the second one. He was clearly unhurt and held out a hand toward Fancy.

  “Wait,” he said. “Hang on a second.”

  “Fuck you, motherfucker,” Fancy shouted at him, her voice getting deeper with every syllable. “Fuck you for fucking around on your goddamn wife, and then having the audacity to flaunt it and tell her she needs to get over it. Show the woman some respect.” She bent over, breasts hanging. Her manhood was in clear view, even though softened. She picked up some more shoes, and a belt, and pitched them like baseballs at him, aiming for his crotch.

  “Stop that!” the man called out, dodging and then darting toward the door. “You’re crazy.”

  “You promised me, fucker. You were making promises to love me forever! I didn’t care if they weren’t true, but fuck you for trying to fuck with my head when you had a wife.” Fancy was using her man voice now, booming enough to rattle the room. She continued her pitching of shoes. She missed on occasion and struck the wall, and some bounced and hit the wife, but the barrage of flying footwear never ceased.

  How many shoes does she have? I wondered.

  Axel held me tighter, shielding me. “Goddamn her…” he mumbled. “Crazy…” He said more, but it was too low to hear.

  The wife ran out into the hallway, and the door auto-swung closed before the husband could get to it. Still wearing the sheer robe over his swimsuit, he slowed a bit, backing away, but Fancy wasn’t giving up. He backed up, close to the door, fending off shoes and other things within Fancy’s reach as he went. He must have been reluctant to leave wearing just the Speedo and the flimsy bathrobe, but Fancy wasn’t giving him a moment to reach for anything else.

  Finally, he opened the door and ran out, trying to shove it closed behind himself.

  Fancy opened the door, leaned out and yelled, in the deepest man voice I’d ever heard from her: “And fuck your small micro dick, too. I couldn’t even suck that, fuckhead, it was so tiny. And you are gay, idiot.” She slammed the door and threw the lock.

  I stayed still, hiding with Axel, stunned for several long moments. I listened, wondering if the man would try to come back.

  Axel eventually released me, stepping toward the bathroom door, looking out into the stateroom.

  I slowly climbed out of the tub to stand in the middle of the bathroom, stunned, frozen. I peeked out around Axel’s shoulder at the miscellaneous shoes all over the place. Fancy was breathing hard, seething in her mostly naked form.

  I think I was scarred forever from just the most incredulous event I’d ever witnessed. Everyone must have heard that. I looked around, questioning my life decisions that had led me to this place and seriously considered hopping off the boat again on my own. Swimming to shore all over again and just walking away from it all didn’t sound so awful at the moment.

  Fancy fumed for a minute, then turned toward Axel. She looked past him to me, blinked a few times, and then her face lit up like she’d thrown a switch. Smiling, she came toward me with open arms. “Kayli-Bayli!” she squealed in her female voice.

  “You just did this,” I croaked out. I started to back away, tightening my hold on the towel when she came in toward me. Axel managed to get out of the way just in time.

  “I couldn’t do it proper.” She hugged me again, picking me up off the floor. We were the same size and height, but she was strong. “Girl, oh my God, I thought you died. Doyle told me you were in trouble, and I was running back for you, and then when I got there, I couldn’t find you. I was calling out for you, but the hot one stopped me. Not him, but the other one.”

  She thought all the guys on Axel’s team was hot, so I couldn’t tell which one she meant, but I got the point.

  She crushed me against her chest. I coughed hard. “Fancy…” I said, barely able to get the word out.

  She pulled back and put me down. But when I thought it was over, I got a rough shaking of my shoulders. It surprised me, but it wasn’t full-on. Just enough to get my attention.

  “Don’t you ever fucking do that to me again,” she said. “You hear me?”

  “Sure,” I said, feeling almost a twinge of love that she’d been so worried, but then I averted my eyes. “Can I please shower now?”

  The Fire and the Storm

  Fancy put on a robe, and I was finally able to shower. The door to the bathroom was left open, and Fancy remained within sight as Axel straightened the room. I closed the shower curtain, but it was clear.

  I was beyond caring at that point, though. I washed and occasionally looked at them through the shower curtain to see where they were in the room.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked Fancy once I was under the spray. I leaned over, looking out the open door. His eyes instantly caught mine and then he turned back to her. “You drew enough attention to this room. Didn’t you hear she was up here?”

  “If I’d known, I would have kicked his ass back to the hot tub,” she said. She put her hands on her hips, standing up. The robe slid off her shoulder, revealing a boob. “Don’t you start talking about my game. Did you or did you not ask me to get some dirt on him? I was doing what you told me to do.”

  Axel’s cheeks tinted instantly as his gaze focused on her face. “I told you to make sure your earpiece was still working at every second if you were going to continue. You said you couldn’t have someone babysit you, and I agreed. But the rule was you were to be in contact at all times. You could have risked exposing her.”

  “You should have told me she was back!”

  “We tried. Through the earpiece. Which you broke or lost,” he said.

  “Fuck you, Axel. I can’t always run back and forth just for an earpiece. You wanted the dirt, I just handed you a fuckton. What else d
o you want from me?” She pulled out an earbud and held it in her palm. “My battery must have died.”

  I went back to focusing on the warm water, scrubbing all the sand away, too tired to yell at them both for bickering with each other.

  Good to be back…

  Axel went on, “I was looking for you before I went for Kayli. Someone was supposed to at least get a note to you.”

  “I didn’t see a note.” Fancy sighed and stretched. “It’s been a long day.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, looked at Axel, and laughed. “But I got the footage of the sex addict. We’ve got the dirt. His wife is in on it, too. She liked it, I could tell. All that shit he was saying was completely true.”

  I shivered, thinking of the whole scene again, and then put my face under the warm water.

  “Well, it might be helpful,” Axel said. “It depends on if he might be willing to talk about Mr. Smith.”

  Mr. Smith had thought that I, as Kitty Lane, was a secret investor. He’d demanded that I get his money to him.

  “He’ll tell us everything he knows when I get through with him. He did say he was good friends with Mr. Smith for years. He’ll know something. The dirt I got on him will keep him talking.”

  “Dirt only works if he’s willing to talk,” Axel said. “He might not care if we tell everyone about this. If his wife was into it, who are we going to tell? His kids? They don’t need to know this. And if we tell the public, his kids will find out. I don’t like that. They shouldn’t have to suffer for this. I was banking on the wife not knowing.”

  They continued to talk about how to use the information, but I tuned them out, focusing on the shower and trying to scrub more sand out of my hair and off my skin.

  I might have been in there for an hour or two, or just twenty minutes. Part of me was asleep on my feet but once I seemed clean, I turned off the water. I stood, staring at the fixtures, and then eventually found the towel and wrapped it around myself.

  By the time I got within view of the open door again, Axel was on the bed, sprawled out on his back on top of the blankets. His black shoes were on the floor. His eyes might have been closed, but it was hard to tell. Fancy was gone.

  “Where did she go?” I asked.

  Axel lifted his head, looking down his body at me. His eyes moved over my body wrapped up in the towel, but then he dropped his head back on the pillow. “She’s all fired up,” he said. “She said she was going down to get something to help her sleep. And she might sleep down in the other set of rooms. Kevin came up to escort her.”

  I was surprised it had happened without my noticing. I really must have been sleeping on my feet.

  I dried off quickly but then realized I didn’t have anything to put on. I scanned the discarded clothing in the bathroom, but after what I’d just witnessed, I wasn’t sure about touching anything of Fancy’s. Who knew what was mixed in with all the clothes?

  “Axel?”

  In a split second, he launched himself off the bed and was at the bathroom door, looking in on me. He leaned against the door frame. “Did you need something?” he asked, an eyebrow up. His hair was messy, falling out of the ponytail.

  My brain went into overdrive, and my heart started beating rapidly again. I suddenly realized it was because we were alone again. I’d told him all about Blake, but he was still here.

  “I don’t have anything to wear,” I said. “I don’t want to touch Fancy’s stuff.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said, checking out the mirror, the tub, and then my face. He stepped back into the room and peeled off his white button-up shirt and passed it to me. “Will this be okay for now?” he asked, still wearing the tank top.

  I looked him in the face as I reached for the shirt. Our hands brushed and I stilled, touching him and the shirt. Silently, I asked him if we were okay. Was this thing between us over? Did my relationship with Blake change how he felt?

  He was so unemotional, I couldn’t tell his thoughts.

  “It’s fine,” I finally said. “Thank you.”

  He released the shirt and stepped back to sit on the corner of the bed. He watched as I put the shirt over my body and buttoned it. The hem reached just below my butt.

  I turned from him, unsure what his staring meant and not wanting to press him for an answer. Maybe he needed time to process, but he wasn’t being unfriendly or acting angry. Was that okay? Was I okay with that?

  I borrowed one of Fancy’s brushes, and it took several minutes to get all the knots out of my hair. I waited during that time for him to say something and when I couldn’t stand waiting anymore, I asked flat out, “What are we doing?”

  “You get to sleep,” he said. “And—”

  There was a rap at the door, quieter this time. I looked at Axel, wondering who it could be. Fancy wouldn’t have knocked to enter her own room.

  I stiffened and then inched back into the bathroom. “Who…”

  Axel motioned to me not to move or make a sound. He went to the door and opened it. I heard the gentle clinking of glass, Axel thanking someone, and the door closing.

  The smell of food drifted to me before I saw Axel, making my mouth water. When he came into view, he was holding a tray, showing it to me.

  “Just room service,” he said.

  To my delight, there were eggs, steak, and coffee, although there was a small note that said Decaf beside another note with a heart and written next to it: With love, BC.

  Blake Coaltar. He remembered I wanted steak.

  There were other items, too, like doughnuts and fries and a couple of slices of bacon and some fruit. It was a mishmash, but to me, it was the perfect feast.

  I ran out of the bathroom and launched myself onto the bed, sitting cross-legged before Axel put the tray down near me. I started shoving food in my mouth before I even thought about what I was eating.

  I worked on the eggs as he got busy cutting up the steak. I ate the lion’s share, but Axel picked up a roll and nibbled.

  I loved Blake; he didn’t forget important things.

  As I was finishing up, Axel picked up the little note. “C….” he said.

  “Coaltar,” I said absently and then focused on a bit of egg on the plate scooping it up with my fork. “I told him I was hungry before coming back here.”

  He nodded and then his brows furrowed. “Thought it was Brandon for a second…” He was sitting back on the bed, holding himself up with one hand. With the other, he slowly put the note back in the tray. “I have to ask, and I don’t know another way to put this.”

  I swallowed what I had in my mouth and stared at the tray. Tension weighed on my chest. This was it. I felt it in the air.

  “Are you…and him…?” He mumbled something else and then coughed and sat up on the bed, feet on the floor. He sat there, looking at the wall. “You asked not to be exclusive before, but I just need to know where I stand here.”

  The intensity in the room had my insides tightening. I pushed the tray aside. I couldn’t blame him for asking. “Blake has agreed to not be exclusive also,” I said. “Where you stand I guess depends on how you feel about me.”

  He let out a low growl and then raked his fingers through his hair, undoing the ponytail. He flung the holder across the room. “I don’t understand.” He turned his head to look at me, his dark hair shadowing his eyes. “Do you want me here? Do I need to call Blake down?”

  I shook my head. “When I said I couldn’t choose, I meant it. I care about you. But I also care about Blake. And Brandon, Marc and Raven. I’m not cutting you off. Or them. What I was saying was—”

  “You’re not exclusive,” he said. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. He clasped his hands over his knees, leaning forward a little. “That’s not what I was asking.”

  I sat quietly, waiting, expecting him to say something more, and when he didn’t, I realized he was waiting for me to speak.

  He stood up, turning toward the door, staring h
ard at it. “I don’t want to be here if you’re uncomfortable with me. I can call someone else down to stay with you.”

  I slowly reached for his clenched fist. I tugged at him, looking up at his face.

  He didn’t meet my eyes and continued staring at the door, his chest moving as he breathed. His jaw was tight.

  I could almost hear his thoughts. I’d be angry, and frustrated, and confused, too, if he’d told me about another girl he was seeing.

  We hadn’t been in a relationship, though. That was the issue.

  I used his arm to help myself stand. He remained still and I moved in front of him, getting between him and the door.

  “I don’t want you to go,” I whispered. I was desperate for him to understand me, and yet I had no place to stand in this situation. I was the one asking him to feel things for me even as I was messed up, unable to pick him above all others. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I don’t understand my own feelings. I won’t stop you if you can’t…don’t want to be here with me.”

  “Do you like him?” he asked.

  “He’s not the only one I like,” I said, determined to be completely honest. I lifted my gaze, looking into his dark eyes, hoping he’d understand. “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt so strongly for more than one person at a time. I’ve never had this happen to me before.”

  His face contorted for only a second before he finally turned to look at my face. The storm was back, but this was different; where before had been a lightning storm of anger, this time it was like a torrential rain, flooding him with a mix of feelings.

  Still, he didn’t move, letting me hold on to his hand.

  “You’ve never shut me out,” I said. “After all the mistakes I’ve made, you’ve never—”

  “I do that for them,” he said, his voice deep, rumbling. “I do that for my team.”

  “But you don’t kiss them after their mistakes,” I said. I didn’t know what I was doing. My brain was tired, yearning for sleep, but I knew that I could never sleep if he walked away now. “You’re smart, and don’t treat me like I’m ‘just’ a girl. You listen to me, but you don’t simply kowtow to everything I want.”