“Later, Anya,” Charlie said meaningfully, I looked at him, his face told me to close my damned door because Dick was a dick and Charlie didn’t want him around me.
“Right, later,” I replied and did as I wasn’t told but still was.
Then I locked the door that would soon have a deadbolt and chain but my mind wasn’t on Dick or Charlie or deadbolts or sudden activity making my apartment building safer at what had to be a serious cost. My mind was on the bubble wrap envelope that had no address, no last name and I hadn’t ordered anything.
I took it to the kitchen, ripped it open, upended it and a shiny, black box slid out as did a small, business card sized card.
I stared at the box. Then I pulled out the cardboard tag that held it secure, opened the side and slid out the innards.
Then I froze and stared.
In my hand wrapped up shiny and new, nestled in protective foam packaging was a cell phone the likes I’d never seen. Glossy black on its curved shield-shaped outside, the entire front was a screen. I looked at the box and saw the brand. I’d never heard of it. I looked back at the phone and its accoutrement. Then I realized my heart was beating and doing it hard.
I put the box and phone down and tagged the card. It had fallen face down on the counter so I flipped it and stared at the black slashes that formed words.
Anya,
No woman should be without a functioning cell.
K
The tingle came back and it didn’t start at my spine. It just straight out covered my entire body.
I knew no “K’s”. No friend. Definitely no family. No workmates. No one.
Except Knight Whoever.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, my home phone rang and I jumped.
Then I dropped the card and dashed to the one in the kitchen.
“Hello,” I greeted when I put it to my ear.
“Get this, day four almost done, no… fucking… call.”
Sandrine.
I pulled in a breath, tried to shake off what was happening all around me, who I figured was responsible for it and what that might mean and started, “Honey –”
“I helped him clean up for… like, three hours, in, like, the wee morning hours,” she reminded me of something she’d already shared several times. Then told me something that made my breath catch. Something she hadn’t yet shared in her two days of bitching about Nick Sebring. “His brother came back, was a total, freaking ass**le to both of us, and I took that, I cleaned and after that I gave him all my good moves which means he got off twice plus twice more on Sunday. He promised he’d call and he hasn’t. Player zone I get, it could take two days. Even three. But four?”
I powered through the knowledge that Knight was Nick’s brother and reminded her, “Sandrine, this guy has jerk written all over him.”
“I gave him my best moves and four orgasms!” she shouted and I winced.
Then I settled in and I did it silently. She had to work this out and I had to let her even though I didn’t have time. I had groceries to put away. I had a freak out about the possibility that Knight had roughed up my landlord and sent me an extortionately expensive cell phone to recommence and figure out my next move. I had to make a sandwich and get on the road so I didn’t miss class. I had things to do.
“Now, I know, I know, no one gave him that,” Sandrine informed me. “No way. And no way he was faking it. I know that too.”
Men, for obvious reasons, couldn’t fake it so I didn’t know why she felt the need to point this out and I didn’t ask. I kept silent.
Sandrine didn’t.
“And he doesn’t come back for seconds? He doesn’t ask me out? He doesn’t do anything?” she asked and kept ranting. “I’ve called him four times and, as you know, this breaks my golden rule of one call only. Four times! Four voicemails! And, I will add, two texts. And nothing.”
She shut up. I gave her a beat.
Then I told her, “Honey, I’m sorry. He’s a jerk. They’re all jerks. And we’ll gab about this but you know I have to get to class.”