Page 74 of A Fighting Chance
She opened her door and gestured inside. “Come on in.”
Isaac rushed past her.
She let the door close behind her, walked over to the bed, took a seat, and kicked off her shoes. This situation would have never happened had Curtis been alive. Still, she pulled her legs onto the bed and tucked them under her to give a hypothetical scenario some real consideration.
Curtis wouldn’t toss Isaac off the balcony, as there was too much risk to those passing by at the street level. However, she could see him locking Isaac up somewhere he couldn’t escape, and when all was quiet, return for him later. Then he might have dropped Isaac in the middle of the woods and played a sordid mashup of Duck Hunt and Pinball with a sniper rifle.
The guys never shared precisely what they did or how they did it, but she knew enough to imagine versions and scenarios she was sure weren’t far off.
A fist pounded on the door.
“Eesh? Open up. It’s me.”
“Joel?” She left the bed, went to the door, and dragged it open. “What are you—”
“And Dez and Giorgio.” He stepped inside the room. “Are you alone?”
Dez and Giorgio entered with him.
Giorgio remained by the door while Dez sat at the desk, reclining in the flower-pattered desk chair. Something had happened, and though she didn’t know why, the fact that all three had slipped back into their tuxedo jackets made her uneasy.
“I’m not alone,” she said. “Isaac’s in the bathroom.”
Joel frowned. “Doingwhat?”
“He said he needed to use the bathroom.”
Dez snorted.
Giorgio looked like only his physical presence was in the room, and it was never a good sign when he started mentally checking out. If Isaac hoped to live to see his next birthday, hopefully, Tayler’s cousin hadn’t accidentally breathed too close to Mo.
The bathroom door opened, and Isaac stepped out, wearing only a pair of briefs. On the crotch area was a picture of a mouth suggestively licking an ice cream cone.
“Ayesha, I know you felt the energy betw—”
Joel grabbed him by the neck and shoved him in Giorgio’s direction. Giorgio brandished some kind of wire that looked like it would slice right through Isaac’s neck, but Gage entered the room and used Isaac’s dark, wavy hair to steer him away from Giorgio.
“What’s going on?” Isaac asked.
Ayesha returned to the bed and sat on the edge. “Isaac, I was rooting for you,” she said. “Just once, I want a man to surprise me.”
Gage dragged Isaac toward the door. “Don’t worry, mate. We won’t harm you. I mean, all you did was make unwanted sexual advances toward my sister, but why would we harm you for that, right? Also, my lovely wife told me you stole money from my father-in-law and nearly left him destitute. Is that true? Choose your answers wisely, now, because I lied earlier.”
Giorgio and Dez left with Gage.
Joel stayed behind, and she watched as he rechecked the bathroom and then the chest of drawers, like she was secretly about to sleep with a Ken doll.
Once finished with his search, he sat beside her on the bed. She sighed, rose onto her knees, and “walked” behind him to remove his jacket. She slid it off his shoulders and arms, left the bed to toss it over the desk chair, and then returned to her spot, moving further to the center of the mattress.
He sat with his back against the headboard, one long leg stretched on top of the duvet while the other remained on the floor. Before doing so, he’d removed his shoes, and she smiled when she noticed his socks. They had to be Josiah’s handiwork, a marshmallow draped in chocolate and squeezed between graham crackers with the words, “There’s s’more where that came from” around it.
“Want to tell me why you’re here?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
“I guess that’s fair.”
“Gage asked me a really good question earlier,” he said. “Want to know what it is?”