A head swivels around to look back at us. It belongs to Rickie. He winks at me.
When we get home, I get ready for bed, but I’m strangely wired. That’s why I end up standing in front of the bathroom mirror, checking my phone. There’s a text from my ex. It says: Happy birthday, Daphne. Hope it’s a good one.
I eye this little missive the way you might look at a venomous spider. It makes no sense, for starters. The last time we spoke, he threatened me.
The result was that I didn’t tell Reardon I wasn’t returning to Harkness. After our ugly argument, if you can even call it that, I just quietly made my escape plans. I quit my job and finished my semester, head down, behaving as if nothing had changed.
Only then—after the last final exam—I went to the dean of my program and announced my departure. I never told Reardon. I don’t even know if he’s heard the news.
He’s probably on a golf course somewhere, summering. How does he even know it’s my birthday? Did I tell him that sometime? Some night after sex, when I still believed all the lies that came out of his mouth?
Just thinking about kissing him makes me squirm now. How could I have ever been so dumb?
And yet I’m afraid to ignore his weird little message. I’d like to leave him with the impression that our breakup had no lasting consequences. He should think that as long as he can.
So maybe a quick reply makes sense. I want to appear completely nonthreatening, at least until I figure out how to deliver him the justice he so richly deserves.
Thanks! I add a really banal smiley emoji and I hit send.
Five seconds later the phone rings in my hand.
“Shit!” I almost drop it on the tile floor.
My phone seems to ring for a year before finally going to voicemail, and I pause in the hallway to see if he leaves a message.
Nope.
“Shit. Shit shit shit.” I do not want to talk to him. And now he knows I'm awake and evading his call.
My heart beats wildly, and all for a ringing phone. But I feel as though I’ve summoned a monster. On my birthday, no less.
Before I make it into my room, the door to Rickie’s room swings open, and there's Rickie in nothing but a pair of boxers and—bizarrely—a silk bathrobe, his tats on full display between its open halves. “Hey. Is everything okay?” he asks.
“Yes.” No. But I’ve been cursing it up out here. “I was just, um…”
In my hand, the phone rings again. And I give a full-body jerk that probably makes me look like a nervous freak.
“You sure?” he asks.
“No,” I finally admit. “Can I ask you a weird favor?”
“Of course. The weirder the better." He gives me an easy grin. Then he beckons me into his room.
Hastily, I close the door behind myself. “I do not want to talk to this man. Would you answer my phone? Maybe, um, pretend like we're hanging out together and he's interrupting?" It’s a good thing the light is so dim in here, because my face is probably crimson right now.
Rickie’s smile widens. “Oh, that’s no hardship.” He grabs the phone out of my hand and swipes to answer the call. “Hello? Awful late for a phone call, pal.”
I lean in, my head close to Rickie’s. And he tilts the phone a little to make it easy to hear the reply.
“She won’t pick up, huh?” The sound of Reardon’s voice actually makes me shiver. “Can you give her a message for me?”
“Sure, man,” Rickie says. “This better be important. Just saying.”
“Oh, it is. You tell Daphne that if she so much as breathes my name to anyone in our program I will bury her. Vermont isn’t that far away, you know?”
My heart might actually detonate, it’s pounding so hard. And I feel my legs start to shake.
“Interesting,” Rickie says in a strangely light tone. “Got some anger issues there, pal. I’ll let her know you called, so she can get that restraining order prepared.”
“Who is this?” Reardon demands. “Have we met?”
“Nah,” Rickie says. “But if you want to keep your face in one piece you’ll keep it that way.” Then he ends the call and drops the phone onto his bed like it’s made of hot coals and it’s burning his hand.
Eight
Rickie
That voice. Like Lucifer himself. The moment I heard it, I felt cold inside.