Home > Still Waters(9)

Still Waters(9)
Author: Anne Malcom

“Earth to Lucy.”

I snapped my head up from my perusal of the faux fur throw I’d been fingering. “What?”

Polly smiled at me, shaking her choppy layered hair. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

I pursed my lips.

Her blue-violet eyes—the only thing we shared—flared as she jumped onto my sofa in front of which we’d been pacing.

“My levelheaded and ever-focused sister was trapped in her head?” she exclaimed in shock.

I gave her a look. “You’re calling me levelheaded? Really?” I asked, going for avoidance of the question.

No one knew about Keltan and the kiss. A miracle, really. We’d done it on the main street of a small town where gossip was almost as valuable as Benjamins. But the secret stayed just that.

A secret.

Something I wouldn’t tell my best friends about, even though Rosie had grilled me to see if he did indeed turn up at my house in the middle of the night wearing only his socks like she’d suggested. I’d lied to her, hating doing it, but if I didn’t speak of it out loud, I could convince myself it never happened.

If it weren’t for the thoughts of him that invaded my mind when I wasn’t paying attention to actively not thinking of him.

And the e-mails.

Those damn e-mails.

They’d started exactly one week after he left.

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Glass Slippers

 

First of all, you’re gonna have to tell me who exactly this Lagerfeld guy is so I can kick his ass. But then again, maybe you’re not his girl anymore considering the way you kissed me that morning. Still, I’ll need his information. You know, just in case.

Second of all, I’ve just arrived in an undisclosed location with a company of men who have unfortunately found your Facebook profile and become obsessed with you. It’s not my fault, really. See, I don’t have Facebook. Don’t believe in the institution of it all. Social media? That bloody site is the reason why kids know how to “like” something before they can ride a bike. Not my thing.

That is until I met a girl with hair as black as night, skin as white as snow, lips to make a priest forget his vows and a body that a certain soldier can’t seem to get out of his mind.

Anyway, getting off track. So, I needed to see all that again. Just to make sure I hadn’t dreamed you up in some very detailed and excellent hallucination. Therefore, I borrowed my buddy Duke’s phone and his account. And proceeded to almost crash our Humvee because I was staring at your photo. You know, the one of you in the red dress?

My mates were unreasonably angry at me for almost getting them killed (strange fellas, these are), and they wrestled me to get the phone. And then they saw you.

The obsession began.

I’m just writing you to let you know that, if I do perish over here, ensure an extensive investigation is done to make sure it wasn’t my own men who decided to trim the fat on the competition and take you for themselves.

 

And the image of you in that fucking red dress is the only thing getting me through these miserable fucking days. And what’s making me determined not to get blown up by an IUD.

I need to see that in person, baby.

Who needs glass slippers when I’ve got the red dress?

 

K

 

I had stared at it for hours. Not an exaggeration. My editor had yelled at me for not filing a story on the cost of a new drinking fountain on Main Street.

I hadn’t even written it.

Nor did I after he yelled.

Instead, I wrote something far more dangerous.

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re – Glass Slippers

 

Okay, firstly, how did you get this address?

Was it Rosie? I know it was her. I just need confirmation before I can pay the hitman. They get annoyed when I make mistakes and have to call them back for round two.

Second, I’m almost personally offended that you have no knowledge of the man, the myth, the legend and the only one who will own my heart. If you kick his ass, then you’ll break it. My heart, that is. And then I’d have to pay my hitman double.

And third, didn’t anyone tell you that texting and driving is illegal? I don’t know the laws in this undisclosed location, but the same sentiment must exist there. Please don’t do it again. You don’t want to be remembered as the only soldier whose demise was pinned on a cellular device and not an explosive one.

Actually, let’s just stay away from the explosive ones too.

Come back alive. I can’t promise the dress. Or anything, actually. But I can promise if you don’t, I’ll be very mad, and my wrath translates even beyond the grave. I’m like Jennifer Love Hewitt, with smaller boobs and a lesser penchant for boho.

 

Just so you know, and you can tell your friends this too, I’ll always be Lagerfeld’s girl.

No other man can steal my heart. Best tell your ‘fellas’ that before you die in vain.

 

L

 

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Hitmen

 

Firstly, I’ll never tell you how I got this address. I don’t want you wasting money on a hitman. They’re hardly ever reliable anyway.

Plus, I’m a soldier, and a good one at that. Stealth and information acquirement are two of my many, many skills. I’ll need that, the basic skill of finding out a beautiful woman’s e-mail address when I finally get out of this fucking sandbox and into a city where marginally less people try to shoot me.

Near your neck of the woods, if I’m not mistaken?

A little town called Hollywood? Heard of it? Though I think the locals call it Los Angeles.

Setting up shop there after your country was finally smart enough to give me a visa. Good thing too, since I’ve saved its ass a couple of times. The country, not the visa.

But enough about me and my heroism.

Let’s talk about your boobs. Which are the perfect size, by the way.

Or how about what your favorite food is so I can fashion our date around it.

One day, that e-mail address is changing, and so is your loyalty for an old man who always seems to be wearing sunglasses (yes, I Googled him).

 

K

 

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re – Hitmen

 

Firstly, I don’t rightly need to order a hitman anyway. I can do my own dirty work. But I’d just had a manicure and didn’t want a pesky murder ruining it.

 

My hands had paused at this point, much as they had when I read the sentence about him moving a mere two hours from me. I’d known he was doing it, but this was right in front of me. In words. He was moving. To the City of Angels. And Devils. And everything in between. The place I’d been tossing up becoming another in between for years now. I hadn’t found whatever it was I needed to make the jump.

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