Chapter 40 Took You Long Enough
“Nora–”
“OH! OH!” I gasp, jumping around my bedroom as the realisation sinks in. “OOOOOH!”
“Will you BE QUIET?!” She hisses into the phone.
“YOU LITTLE BITCH!”
“Nora!”
“YOU SLEPT WITH MARCUS?!” I yell into the phone, unable to control the bursting feeling in my chest any longer. “WHAT THE FUCK SELENA?!”
“Okay are you done?!”
I flop back onto my bed, staring at the ceiling as a giant smile starts spreading over my lips.
“I think I’m done.” I breathe. I hear her sigh on the other end. “SERIOUSLY?!”
“YOU JUST SAID–”
“No, okay, I’m done. Jeez I knew you two were massively flirting, but one night out is all it took? You kids move fast.”
“You can talk, Miss ‘He comes to the club once and now I’m his sub’, and you’re saying that I moved fast?!”
“Yes, okay, point taken.” I laugh. “So how was it?”
“Amazing, I think. We were both pretty drunk. I had a great time anyway.” She laughs.
“So he’s still there?”
“Yeah he’s in bed snoring so I’m in the bathroom. Haven’t really planned what happens when he wakes up yet though.”
“Hmm, you don’t tend to bring them back to yours do you? Can’t make a clean getaway.”
“Exactly!” She chuckles. “Now what, I have to make him coffee? Gross.”
I laugh for a few seconds with her, then suddenly gasp and sit up.
“No, no you don’t.” I say quickly. “Selena you need to wake him up, now.”
“What? Why?”
“Because, the reason I called is because no one is here. Like in the flat, nobody is here, not David, or Theo or Harlan. I think Marcus is supposed to be, but I tried to call him and it went to voicemail. ”
“Oh shit. Okay, wait a minute..” I hear shuffling, doors opening and closing, and then Selena’s muffled voice, and a consequential, low groan. I hear Selena speak again, probably poking him some more, and a snipped ‘What?!’ from Marcus.
It is silent for a few seconds. Then I hear a loud ’FUCK!’ and a lot of noises. Clattering, banging, slamming, then Marcus’s voice is on the other end of the phone.
“Nora, I am so sorry–”
“Marcus, it’s okay–”
“My bloody phone died, I had an alarm set and everything. I just… shit!” I hear more banging, almost like he’d tripped or walked into something. “I’m on my way, don’t go anywhere.”
“When do I ever go anywhere?” I muse.
“I mean it. Close all the doors to the rooms you don’t need, then go to the front door and lock it, I’ll knock when I’m there.”
“Not a problem!” I say cheerily into the phone, hanging up with a grimace on my face.
Well, if anything, at least they’d always remember their first time together.
I set about going through the apartment, just like Marcus instructs, closing every door I don’t need. I check the window locks are all in place as well. Finally, I go to the front door, check the peephole, and lock it.
It doesn’t feel great, being this paranoid about being in an apartment by myself, but I don’t really know much about the organisation Trent Hayes had worked for. Whether they are the kind of people to sneak in through a window to grab me, whether they even know where David lives, what would happen if they actually get me in one of their cars. So, it is probably best to err on the side of caution for now.
I sit in the kitchen, finishing my coffee, waiting for the knock to signal that Marcus has arrived.
It comes 12 minutes later.
Checking through the peephole first, I unlock it when I see him shifting anxiously on the other side.
“Nora, I can’t even BEGIN to tell you how sorry I am–”
“That’s just not good enough, Marcus. Leaving me all on my own?” I say angrily, propping a hand on one hip as I frown at him. “I wonder what David is going to say when he gets home.”
“You...” His eyes widen. “Did you tell him? God, Nora I don’t know–”
Marcus stops when I burst out laughing.
“Oh, you were joking.” He scoffs. “Ha. Ha.”
He shoves the door shut behind him and walks to the kitchen, picking up the cup of coffee I’d left out for him.
“I think I’m hilarious personally.” I chuckle, wiping a tear from my eye as I join him at the kitchen island.
“I almost had a heart attack, that’s not funny.” He exhales before taking a sip of his coffee. “Did you actually call him?”
“No, of course, I didn’t.” I say, watching the relief wash over him, his shoulders deflating.
Then it is silent for a beat.
“So,” I say. “You and Selena huh?”
“Umm,” He replies, his face instantly blossoming red, scratching the back of his neck in awkwardness. “I guess so.”
“Took you long enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’ve been making googly eyes ever since you first met her, Marcus. It’s nice you guys finally did something about it.” I knock his arm with mine as he smiles.
“Yeah, yeah she’s… great.”
“Oh I know, I’ve been her friend for years.”
“So, you gonna give me the talk?” He chuckles. “You know... the usual, I hurt her and you’ll kill me or something?”
“Fuck no, there’s no need. She’d kill you herself.” I reply, taking my coffee back to my bedroom as I hear him laugh from behind me.
After we have both had a shower and gotten properly dressed, Marcus and I spend most of the afternoon in the lounge, watching different TV shows and eating crap to heed off the hangovers. It isn’t until about 5pm that I finally have a text from David, one that just says ‘Will be home late.’, making my mood deflate noticeably.
An hour after my text, Marcus’s phone rings, and he scurries away to the study to take the call, much to my disdain. The study has been practically soundproofed, which I’d found out quite early on, whenever I tried to eavesdrop on David’s meetings and was met with absolutely no sounds whatsoever.
So I know it would be pointless to try and follow Marcus to find out what is going on.
20 minutes later, Marcus returns to the lounge, but he has a weird look on his face as he rushes over to the windows, checking the latches and locks.
“What is it?” I ask, a mouth full of popcorn as he goes from window to window.
“I uhh…. that was David.” He says, hesitant, while he starts leaving the lounge altogether.
I hear him opening doors from the hallway, and decide to follow him.
“I figured.” I retort, but Marcus keeps rushing around, checking the window in the study. “What is it?”
“He…” Marcus lets out a loud breath, finally turning round to face me. “We need to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
Marcus ignores my question, instead walking past me, out of the study, and towards my bedroom. I follow him automatically as he goes into my en-suite first, and I hear him re-clicking the window locks into place. He reappears and does the same to my bedroom window before going to my closet and opening it, grabbing a bag from the bottom and throwing it on my bed.
“Marcus?” I ask again, cautiously this time, as the scene before me bears an uncanny resemblance to when David first brings me over here. “Where are we going?”
Marcus finally stops moving, his hands on my clothes hanging up in the closet, and he closes his eyes for a second.
“David thinks that they know you’re here.” He finally mutters.
“Sorry what?” I blink. “Who knows I’m here? Like, here here?”
“Trent Hayes’s boss. Whoever works for him, I guess.” Marcus replies, pulling some of my clothes off the hangers and starting to shove them into the bag. “He thinks they’re on the way here. So we need to go.”
“Wait…” I step forward, putting my hands over Marcus’s to stop him moving, making him look down at me. “I can pack. You get your own bag sorted. Meet you in the hallway in 5.”
He nods at me, rushing out of the room. I figure that all the guys have some stuff here, for when they are ‘overseeing’ me, and it would be idiotic for them not to have a Plan B in case this ever happens.
Taking out half of the things Marcus has shoved into the bag, I set about packing what I actually need automatically. Not knowing where I am being shipped off to for the second time, I pack an array of things, giving myself something to wear for any kind of weather or situation.
In 3 minutes, I am walking down the hallway to see Marcus already by the door with two duffel bags.
“Right, we use the elevator, only to the second floor,” He says as I start pulling my shoes and jacket on over my pyjamas. I nod to show him I am listening as he leads me out of the front door, him locking it behind me before we both hurry to the elevator. “From the second floor we use the stairs to the first floor, then go along to the maintenance room. There’s a side door that leads to the back alley, and Harlan’s waiting with the car there.”
“Second floor, stairs, maintenance, car. Fine.” I reiterate. Looking at him as the doors close, I see the worry in his face. “It’s gonna be fine Marcus. I’ll text Selena when we are in the car.”
“You can't tell her–”
“I don’t even know where we’re going. So even if they have a way of tapping my phone, I’m hardly going to be saying anything incriminating, am I?” I point out, and he nods, looking forward again as he takes in what I say.
When the doors open, I see Marcus’s hands tighten on the bags he is holding, his left hand held up slightly, close to his hip.
Just in case he needs access to his gun.
I get to the first floor perfectly fine. I walk through the maintenance room with no issues. The side alley is silent as I step onto it, seeing Harlan leaning against the side of the car looking very bored.
“Fancy seeing you guys here.” Harlan muses, a smirk on his face as he opens the boot for us both to dump our bags.
“Yeah, what a coincidence.” I tease back, making him laugh.
I get into the back of the car, while Harlan gets into the driver seat, and Marcus gets into the front passenger seat. It isn’t the usual car that David and I take to work, not as fancy. No partition, or speakers, or even cup holders. Just a bog-standard, all black estate car.
I relax into the seat as Harlan starts the engine, him and Marcus already talking in hushed voices, slowly driving out of the alley. Turning onto the main road, I look out the window, blocking out their conversation completely, hoping that wherever I am going, I’d at least get to see David this side of midnight.
A few minutes go by, my brain lulled into calmness as I watch the lights and the people whizz past me. I feel as though, despite Marcus and Harlan’s clear tension at tonight’s events, maybe the journey would be uneventful at least.
And that is true. Up until…
BANG!