Page 97 of Corrupt Game

My hair felt stringy and oily after not washing it for almost a week. I rinsed the shampoo out and rewashed it a second time before putting the conditioner in.

It felt like I was stalling, but I had to figure out what to do with all the emotions that I was feeling.

Even with all of the doubts I’d had about Ian, he’d still managed to sneak into my heart. I couldn’t decide if it was the real thing or because I wanted it so badly.

Was it because I was so needy? Did I have a sign flashing over my head that said ‘needs attention’ that drove everyone away? Why had Ian taken on the task?

I didn’t want to be someone’s project, but I felt like he was being genuine with his words. Like I was someone he cared about. Did that make it better, though?

Now, ninety-five percent certain that he wasn’t Andy’s killer, I wanted that last bit of proof.

The hallucination that I’d had of Andy caused me to pause as I thought about what it meant.

He wanted me to find the killer, but what if I died in the process? Dying had never worried me before. It had always been a foregone conclusion that it would happen someday. This instance had been a close call.

Now that I was an adult, I hadn’t had issues with staying alive. As a child, it had always seemed like I was about to die when I’d been tossed into the dark closets. From the perspective of a small child, it had always seemed life or death. Starvation had been the norm. I’d even dreamed about what it would be like to die from lack of food.

Now I wondered if maybe it had only been a few hours instead of days when they’d put me in the closets. To a child, my perspective could have been way off and it might not have been as drastic as I’d always imagined.

When Ian had first stuck me in the dark basement, I’d felt like it had been weeks, maybe months. Instead, it had been five days, less than an entire week. Time felt different in a place where things seemed timeless.

Perspective was a much different thing as an adult and I wasn’t sure that I’d had any of it right before.

The hot water would never run out in his fancy condo, but I needed to finish up so that I could eat. The thought of food made my stomach rumble.

I cut off the shower and got dressed. Clean clothes, and a clean body, always made things feel better. Circumstances might not have changed, but the way I was thinking had.

Ian was about to come into contact with the real me. The one that I didn’t let anyone else see.

For the moment, all my walls were gone. He had complete access, and it was time to let all the emotions in and see where it led me.

***

The doorbell rang just as I walked out of the bathroom and hurried into the living room.

Ian smiled as he gave the driver a tip before holding out the bag of Chinese food with the words Golden Kim Tar on the side.

“Dumplings? Noodle soups?” I peeked and gave an excited little squeak.

I knew he’d paid attention to me, but this was above and beyond. He’d managed to order everything that I wanted to have as comfort food.

“My favorite foods, thank you.” Impulsively, I kissed his cheek before prancing to the table.

Only Andy had ever done something like this. The similarities between the two men were amazing. The more I got to know Ian, the more I felt that they would have been great friends. I would have been the thing that brought them together.

Dinner was spent telling funny stories of food orders gone wrong. My past was full of them.

Laughter filled the air.

“You’re serious. You actually would wait for the pizza guy to be buzzed in and then meet him in the hallway to take it from him?” Ian was incredulous. “No way.”

“Yep. Then my friend would meet him when he came back because of course we’d eaten all of the first set. Sometimes it would be a couple of different types of food in some of the larger complexes.” I grinned.

“When you’re a hungry foster kid, you take whatever you can get. We’d eat everything we could until we were stuffed. Then the leftovers were snuck into the basement. In the winter, they didn’t have to be refrigerated if we sat them near the window. In the summer, it was a little harder to pull off, but we’d find an ice bin that wasn’t used often or keep the stuff in an ice chest down there.”

“You were something else, weren’t you?” He chuckled. “All those brains and the best you could do was swipe food to help you survive. No one ever called the cops on you?”

“We didn’t do it often enough to have them called. It happens enough in the big city that most people don’t report it and the delivery companies wind up taking the loss because they made the mistake.”