A Smile as Sweet as Poison (8 page)

“How do you know it’s a guy?” Ward asked.

Hazel snorted, unamused. “
That’s
the part you want to quiz me about? Fuck if I know… Point is, it’s out there. I tried to get it taken down like I’ve done before. I say I don’t consent to having it posted, I threaten legal action. Usually, it works.”

“But not this time.”

She shook her head. “I may have tried to name and shame the webmaster for ignoring my emails. That backfired.”

“How bad?”

Hazel scratched a hand over her neck. There weren’t enough floggers in the world to match the sting of gleeful, anonymous insult. “Use your imagination.”

“My imagination’s a pretty scary place,” Ward pointed out, curling his hands around the white mug. Steam eddied around his face, washing him out even more.

Don’t I know it?
Hazel pushed the thought aside.

“Look… I need your help. I know you have…contacts. Legal counsel.” Maybe if her threats had the backing of a real, live law firm, she could force the webmaster’s hand. “I’d pay you back, of course. But I
have
to do something. Most of these guys are only brave and bold behind a computer screen.”

Ward crooked an eyebrow. “You know that for a fact?”

She thought of Travis and his ill-disguised allusions. “I’m hoping.” Either way, the sooner the video came down, the sooner she could disappear into the dusty vaults of obscurity.

Ward held her gaze as though peeling back the layers of skin and flesh to peer into the marrow of her bones. Whatever he found there warranted a tired sigh.

Bet you’re sorry your best friend hooked up with me now, aren’t you? Bet you wish you’d told him everything from the start?

Hazel fought to curb the flash of hurt. She pressed her palms into the surface of the table, elbows square with the scored edges. She had known it was a risk going to Ward. She had to accept the consequences, whatever they were.

“Do you know the web address of the video?” he asked.

“Yes.” It was embedded onto the back of her eyelids, along with the shame and revulsion that rose within her like bile every time the autoplay engaged.

Ward produced a ballpoint pen from an inner pocket. “Write it down.”

“What are you going to do?”

“You want this settled, don’t you? Once and for all?”

Hazel dithered. “Yes, but—”

“Then trust me,” Ward said. “I’m going to fix it.” He offered no further details on the how and why.

Unconvinced, Hazel snatched the pen off the table and, like Dylan had once inscribed his name and digits on a diner napkin, hoping she’d call, she wrote down the web address of an intimate moment that was never supposed to become anything more. She didn’t go as far as to hope that Ward would succeed where she’d failed.

“There’s another problem,” Ward pointed out.

“My apartment,” Hazel finished for him. “I’m taking care of it.”

She expected Ward to scoff, but he only nodded, turning the napkin toward him with thumb and forefinger.

“How much do I owe you for the coffee?”

“On the house,” Hazel replied, heart lodging in her throat. “About Dylan—”

“He should know,” Ward said.

Hazel sucked in a breath, readying arguments that she knew wouldn’t hold water.

“But I won’t tell him.” Ward pushed away from the table. “Just tell me one thing… Moving your stuff into Dylan’s room, asking him for a key—was that because you wanted to, or because of this shit?” The napkin was a white flag in his hand, but Ward’s features were hard, lips pressed tightly together.

Of course he’d made the connection. Behind the arrogance and the convenient inheritance, there was a sharp mind to contend with. Hazel sighed. She couldn’t lie anymore. She also couldn’t tell him the truth. Ward already knew that she was weak and foolish. He didn’t need to believe she was manipulative, too.

“I
did
want to,” Hazel offered hesitantly, trying to straddle that fine line.

“Right.” Ward’s chuckle was mirthless, shoulders slumping beneath the distressed leather jacket.

Hazel wanted to drop to her knees, to beg him to forgive her. She didn’t. That wasn’t the kind of relationship they had. She wasn’t that girl anymore.

Knuckling the sticky table, she levered slowly to her feet. “I’ll walk you out.”

She could tell Ward was ready to protest, but he submitted to the touch of her hand on his shoulder without complaint.

“Thanks for coming to meet me,” Hazel added. “And for listening. Even if there’s nothing you can do, it—it means a lot.”

Get all of it out now,
a voice whispered at the back of her mind,
while you still can
.

“Sure. What are friends for, right?”

Ward swung open the diner door, bell chiming overhead, and was gone before Hazel could ask,
is that what we are?

She lingered in the doorway, pretending to ease it shut as quietly as she could. Her ribcage took a few seconds to knit itself back together, cracked slats of bone soldered into some semblance of functional shell around her aching heart. A tentative believer in multiple, concurrent realities, she could almost imagine a universe in which she ran into the street and begged Ward to forgive her.

In this one, the clock above the bar read eight-fifteen. She had another eight hours to go before she could leave the diner.

Chapter Six

Shrouded in mist and the faint, dying glare of streetlights, four-seven-one Aulden Way was forbidding in a way Hazel hadn’t experienced in a while. She blamed the shiver that threatened on fatigue and the Volvo’s busted heater. She hadn’t been anxious coming here since the night she’d met Dylan. She didn’t want to start now.

With a mental ass-kicking, Hazel shoved her way out of the car and grabbed her purse. Her sneakers made soft, nearly soundless noises on the sidewalk. By contrast, the creaking of the front door seemed a shrill clarion call. Hazel hitched up her shoulders around her ears as she eased it shut. She was still shivering as she took the stairs two at the time, climbing hastily under the flickering glare of a neon lamp.

Nothing moved in the converted warehouse, but Hazel had a hard time shaking the expectation that someone, somewhere was waiting for her.
Wishful thinking
, she decided as she slotted her key into the latch. Even ghosts were asleep at this hour.

The loft was no exception. Hazel dragged the door shut behind her and locked it, feeling like an intruder. She had toyed with the thought of heading to a motel all through the night. Fear of having to answer more questions—from Dylan as well as Ward—was the decider in the end.

Hazel told herself absent funds never played a part. She told herself she wasn’t just looking for excuses.

It would’ve been easier if Ward had told her to stay away. Now, standing in the apartment he shared with Dylan, Hazel didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

The way the place was laid out, she couldn’t see into Dylan’s bedroom from the entryway, much less peer up the stairs, into Ward’s. Her view of the living room revealed minimalist furniture and monochrome abstracts largely wreathed in shadow.
Not exactly home sweet home.

Well, they hadn’t thrown her out yet.

With a shudder, Hazel peeled off her knitted plum cardigan and hung it in the cloakroom by the front door. No alarms blared. No one stopped her. It was a likewise hazard-free journey down the semicircular, bookshelf-lined hallway to Dylan’s room.

A pang of tenderness stabbed between her shoulder blades like an ice pick at the sight of him, sprawled on the bed with one arm thrown over the portion of the mattress where Hazel should have lain. It was enough to make her shelve her doubts.

Hazel kicked off her shoes and wriggled out of her baggy jeans. She didn’t bother with taking her makeup off before she crawled into bed beside him, heavy with some nameless emotion.

Her back to Dylan, she felt him stir when she dragged his arm around her waist, but he didn’t wake. His slurring, sleepy mumble might have been her name.

“I’m here.” Hazel sighed. “I’m staying right here.”

For as long as they allowed her to, anyway.

* * * *

The loft was empty by the time Hazel crawled her way from beneath the warm covers draped over Dylan’s bed. She hadn’t heard him move, much less putter about getting ready, but there was coffee waiting for her in a pot on the kitchen island, and French toast.

Ward must have left him in the dark about their chat, as promised.

Hazel helped herself to breakfast with a heavy heart. The coffee was lukewarm, but she drank it anyway. It was almost noon, her stomach growling for something more consistent than toast. All those acrimonious ‘fat skank’ comments online couldn’t keep her away from the leftover lasagna.

She showered while the microwave whirred, then made the bed. It seemed like the least of courtesies after crashing in Dylan’s room without so much as asking. Still dripping shower water over the hardwood floors, Hazel knelt beside the king and peered under the drooping coverlet. Her rucksack was where she’d left it, presumably still containing the laptop.

The urge to pry it out ignited in Hazel’s chest, then faded just as quickly. She’d been disappointed before.

There were no new messages on her phone when she finally sat down to eat and nothing remotely interesting on TV. The microwave had left the slice of lasagna soft and a little soggy, cheese melted to a watery glaze on top. Hazel ate it anyway, trying to follow along with some afternoon telenovela she only partly understood.

By the time Sadie called, she would’ve agreed to a whole battery of dress fittings and cake tastings. Sadie only wanted coffee. That would do, as well.

They agreed on Newport Beach, good for people watching and far enough from Marco’s diner than they wouldn’t run the risk of running into any regulars. The coffee shop was an indulgence, the kind of place that could afford to sell six dollar coffee and stick ‘organic’ signs on every pastry.

Hazel arrived first, a good ten minutes before Sadie sauntered up to the boardwalk terrace in a polite, knee-length dress, her dyed-blonde hair pinned up in a tight ponytail. Hazel barely recognized her until Sadie was standing over her table.

“Hey. You look—”

“You like?” Sadie twirled in her wrap dress. “Frank got it for me.”

“Ah,” Hazel murmured. That explained it. “It’s nice.” Oddly demure, for Sadie, but people did far stranger things out of love than altering their wardrobe. “How is he? You two busy planning the wedding?” Sadie’s stories rarely seemed to involve her groom, but Hazel hadn’t exactly been paying attention. It was possible she’d missed out on his contributions.

“Oh, no. He’s way too busy.” Sadie flagged a waitress as she sat down across from Hazel, ankles folded and sunglasses pushed into her hair. “Iced tea.”

“Um, a latte,” Hazel told the waitress.

“Regular or soy?”

Hazel looked up into a freckled, vaguely Nordic face and thought about Travis asking her if she liked her job. “Regular.”

“Diet or—”

“Regular everything,” Hazel said, regretting her tone almost at once. She had been on the other end enough to abhor rude clients. Now she was one of them. “Since when do you drink iced teas?” she asked Sadie once they were alone again.

The parasol over their table allowed just enough sunlight to peek through the gaps. The thin sunbeams brought out the once-vibrant pink highlights in Sadie’s hair.

“Frank likes ‘em.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t serve ice tea all day…”

Sadie rolled her narrow shoulders into a shrug. “I’m trying new things. And you? I saw boyfriend
numero dos
last night.” She licked her pale pink lips. “Looked pretty pissed.”

Got every reason to be when he’s putting up with me.

“We’re still learning how to play nice together.”

“Is ‘nice’ what they call it these days?” Sadie asked, lips curving into a wide, knowing grin.

“Shut up,” Hazel mumbled.
They?
It wasn’t so long ago Hazel had been waiting for Sadie to finish having kinky, dirty sex with a stranger she’d just met so she could drive her home—preferably alive and unharmed. That Sadie was nowhere to be seen. In her place sat a preppy young woman in a conservative wrap dress that made Hazel feel oddly out of place.

She locked down the thought. Envy, especially of other women, had always come easily to her.

“I know you have your rules or whatever,” Sadie went on, batting the thought away like a fly, “but you know I’m dying to ask how you’re coping with
two
of ’em.”

The rules she referred to were Hazel’s way of blocking out the part of her that knew Sadie had slept with Dylan. It was supposed to make it easier to forget that Sadie had seen his playroom first, that she’d been in his arms and in his bed long before Hazel had stumbled into orbit. She was still working on excising comparisons whenever they sprang to mind.

“You’re telling me you never had a threesome?” she deflected.

Sadie scoffed. “Oh, ages ago. Way before I figured out the part about the whips and gags…” Back in Dunby, Sadie had possessed something of a reputation. She’d had a cadre of boys, then men, to surround herself with, and had incurred the wrath of the town’s female population as a result. “Must be intense,” she mused, a wistful tinge in her voice.

“You and Frank don’t—?”

“He’s not into that kind of thing,” Sadie replied.

“Oh.”
But you are. You love it.

The two of them had grown up in the same small town in Missouri, and yet they’d lived completely different lives until college, when they’d discovered a shared interest in all things kinky. For Hazel, Sadie’s friendship had come at a moment when she couldn’t have been more alone. And as far as she knew, Sadie didn’t hang out with other submissives, either. They had been each other’s sounding board for a long time.

It was strange to discover barricades suddenly erected where before they’d been so free with one another.

Sadie shrugged again. “It’s not like I
need
it or anything. Besides, I love Frank.”