Chapter Fifteen
~Foreign~
Horrified, I gasped as the air fled my lungs, then covered my mouth with both hands, and whirled around in my seatbelt on him, putting my back to the door. Christian peered at me as we eased forward.
“What is it, Foreign?”
I dropped my hands muting my mouth, then plopped back in the seat. “I didn’t get rid of the disc. It’s still in my laptop. Fuck!”
My gut churned violently, warning me that I had screwed up again. If released, the disc could make him look just as bad in his potential business partners’ eyes as it could me in everybody else’s, stunting his business. As a woman, I would catch more blowback than he would, but he would still be affected in some way that counted because that was how bad my damn luck ran. It could get worse, he could walk away.
With his mouth compressed into a thin line, he glanced at me then hit the gas. His urgency to get home fueled my urgency to correct my mistake. I wanted to think that we were overreacting. That no one would dare breach the privacy of my apartment, but vindictive, rich bitches wouldn’t honor boundaries. They wouldn’t mind slipping over the side of the fine line between right and wrong, just to settle a grievance, or pay someone else to get the job done. It wasn’t like my apartment was impenetrable like Fort Knox. Locks only kept out honest people. And no, I don’t think Natalia would just let me get away with giving her a pool bath, while fully clothed. If she could pay me back, her retribution boomeranging on Christian and me both for years to come, unable to be topped, then I had no doubt she would.
Petrified, I whispered, “I’m so sorry, Christian. I just didn’t think about the disc anymore after I called you that night because I assumed you had another copy and it really didn’t matter if I got rid of that one or not, so I didn’t worry about it. More worried about you and what you’d do with your copy when I wasn’t worrying about what you was doing to me emotionally. It never occurred to me that there was only one. And then, it was no biggie because I had the only one and I was stupid to not think that there might not be any repercussions from Natalia.” And if I didn’t get home in time, someone else could possibly get their hands on it.
“It’s not your fault, Foreign. I shouldn’t have made it.” That was true, but…
“You shouldn’t have left me with it either evidently. I fucked up because I got complacent.” As long as that disc existed, I was not safe, or my reputation.
“Foreign!” My name shot out of his mouth like a warning. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
I knew that, but it didn’t feel like it, not with my instincts screaming that Natalia wasn’t done with us, and that it was already too late to get rid of the disc. I could be overreacting, but just to be on the safe side, I decided not to talk anymore—had nothing good to say and the tongue was a powerful weapon, so I held mine to keep from speaking more troubles into existence.
Ear-piercing silence reigned as we took curves a little sharply, committed rolling stops at two more stop-signs, and barely caught the yellow light in town at an intersection before it turned red as we hauled ass to the county line. My apartment sat at the edges of it. I could walk down the street and step back into the city, but we were ten minutes away from my home. Long enough for someone’s reputation to change irreversibly.
Once it plunged lower than the sewer, the stench stuck like glue to people’s character. Starting over somewhere else was the best option or the only one to get rid of the taint. There just wasn’t many places you could go these days where the reach of the internet didn’t follow you or wasn’t already there. A name in shambles would spread like wildfire. My name, and I couldn’t stomach it.
My belly started doing flip flops. Though the heater was on full blast I blew hot breath into my freezing hands, pushing the imaginary muzzle from my lips. If we didn’t get to the disc first… I didn’t even want to think about it, but I had to do something.
“If that disc is released—”
“Don’t even think it,” Christian growled. “Releasing it without your permission is illegal, punishable by law, and if you’re blaming yourself, you damn well better blame me just as much. I made it, remember? We’ll deal with this together.”
It was somewhat comforting to know I wouldn’t be alone in this shitstorm, and that he was never going to publicize our night together. Someone vindictive would however, and I had left the disc damn near in plain sight in my home. Unable to feel better until I had the disc in my hand, all I could do was bow my head, pressing my wrists into my eyes—my go-to position for when things were dire.
I began to rock, distraught enough that even crying wasn’t conceivable, wanting to just sink into the floorboard. It would swallow me up if life was fair, but it wasn’t, therefore there was no running from this. If I was almost hysterical from just thinking about the disc being released, how would I feel if it was? You don’t want to know.
Let’s hope I never have to find out.
“Foreign, sweetheart, talk to me,” he implored.
I kept rocking, my escalating apprehension probably amping up his own. “At least you gave me the disc, Christian. It was the right thing to do, but I didn’t do what I should’ve with it, so I have to think about what could happen next. Consider all options so there are no surprises. I can prepare for the fallout that way.” If there was any, there would be no point of going to California.
One major screw up with my family may be forgivable, but twoone of this magnitude—and all bets were off of reconciling with the Torres’, if there were any chances in the first place. Not to mention that I could lose everything. Who would hire me as their chef if the contents of the disc got out? No one. There were some things even being royalty couldn’t save me from.
Christian rubbed the back of my neck, his cell phone beeping in his pants’ pocket, but he couldn’t actually check it with one hand on the wheel, the other trying to be comforting. “You’re getting ahead of yourself again, Foreign. Natalia would have to break into your apartment or have someone do it to get the disc. That’s another crime and we’re damn well going to press charges. Besides, I have a security measure in place. It activates when someone plays the disc and can be used for tracking it if anyone has been in your place looking for dirt… which I believe they have. Your front door is open.”
He stopped the car, putting it in park in my downward view. A light bulb went off in my head.
“The bug on the disc!” I proclaimed while popping upright at the same time his words sunk in. My front door was open.
Sure enough there was a noticeable two-inch crack between my front door and its frame. My mind screamed ‘NO, jaw dropped, stomach plummeted. I was about to be fucked again, right out of my future—there may be a tracker on the disc, but it didn’t prohibit the copying and sharing of private moments.
He nodded. “And you can bet your ass I’ll crash their system first before the disc is uploaded to the web. Call the cops while I take a look around and knock on doors to see if any of the neighbors saw anyone suspicious moving around the entry points into your apartment while I was gone. Don’t get out the car,” he instructed while doing the opposite.
I panicked then. Entry points consisted of standard windows, one per room, back and front door that would allow a bullet to break out of the apartment whether the accesses were open or closed. Hell no, he wasn’t going anywhere near that place.
“Christian, don’t go! It might not be safe.” The person that had been in my apartment could still be there.
He stood up then bent down, to peek at me reaching over the seats for him. “I’ll be okay, love. I swear I’m not going inside. I just want to make sure the place is empty and ask around if anyone saw whoever broke in.”
I panicked some more. “I don’t care if they’re still in there or if anyone has seen anything, Christian. I don’t want you hurt, not over a damn CD. I’ll deal with the fallout as long as you’re okay. Just get back in,” I pleaded, crying suddenly. It was a very real possibility.
“Baby, just trust me, please.”
“Christian, I do, but I need you alive to be trusted.” One teardrop fell. “Just wait until the cops get here, please!” I couldn’t lose him—just the thought of it was breaking me down faster than my bedroom antics being on display for the world.
He glanced at the apartment, then slid back into the driver’s seat, shutting the door. I locked them from my side, keeping him in, instead of keeping someone else out. Swinging an arm across my body to clutch at my farthest thigh, he leveled his thumb to dial out from the phone in his other hand, then cursed.
“Someone has played the disc from your apartment, Foreign. If they were hoping to find dirt on you, I think they’d consider what’s on the disc the motherlode, then book it the hell out of there.”
So, whoever had broken in was probably gone. Good. While I was thinking positive thoughts, there was a good chance they left the disc where they found it too. All positive thoughts that could come from this situation exhausted, I wrapped my body around his arm then clung to it—he would be safe if I had to adhere to him like a koala bear did a tree. He finished dialing out, moving into explaining the situation to the dispatcher at Arrow’s Sheriff Department. Shannon’s front door swung wide. She shuffled outside toward the car in lavender and pink striped pajamas, coat, and slippers, with strawberry-blond bed head.
I rolled down the window. “Shannon, did you see anyone come or go from my apartment today?”
Clutching her coat closed with long graceful fingers expert at playing the piano, hair in a messy ponytail atop her head, she ducked to get eye level with me. Scrunching up her almond-shaped brown eyes and upturned nose that was so cute on her, she searched her thoughts.
Her tanned skin tone flushed red as the cold crept into whatever flesh was exposed. “Out the front window, I saw a tinted, black, four-door sedan drive by a couple times while I was up getting some coffee but thought nothing of it. We have strange cars come through here all the time.” We would on this side of the street with mostly one-bedroom, gray duplexes filled with college students and young, single parents.
If it wasn’t a baby daddy driving by, it was a hook-up looking for the address of whoever they were coming to hook up with. On the other side were family homes that didn’t get so much traffic, so it was easy to assume the car was scoping out something or someone on our side. It was easy to park down the street then meander back up through the front and backyards rarely used during the day unseen, because most of us weren’t home. Everyone worked or had classes on campus or both, as was Mahogany’s case when she lived here as a student and single parent. Since Shannon worked third shift, we were lucky she was even up to see the strange car ride by.
“Okay,” Christian blurted out. “We’re sitting in front of the apartment now… No, we haven’t gone inside… Thank you, Bailey.” He hung up, swinging his blank gaze to us. “The sheriff is on her way. Hey, Shannon. I’m Christian, Foreign’s boyfriend.”
Shannon jerked her head in my direction with a ‘you go, girl’ expression, then extended her long fingers into the window, offering them to him. “Nice to meet you.”
He shook her hand, then asked her to repeat what she’d told me, which she complied. Then he asked, “You didn’t happen to see some or all of the tag, did you?”
“Nope, I don’t usually move past the coffee pot until I’ve gotten the first cup from it at about two in the afternoon after I’ve worked night shift at the diner and have stopped yawning. I would still be in the kitchen now if I hadn’t heard Foreign’s car too early in the day. You must be special because she doesn’t let anybody drive her baby.” Then she grinned.
“You heard nothing strange at all around Foreign’s apartment?” he asked, seemingly uninterested in hearing what Shannon was retorting over my car.
She shook her head. “If anyone was in there, they were very quiet going in, moving around, and coming back out. These apartments hold no sound.” Then she jerked her head toward my place, panning in on the opened door. “Wait, they did come back out right?”
“We don’t know,” Christian and I confessed together.
I added, “I won’t let him go anywhere near the apartment to find out.”
Shannon’s shocked gaze wrenched back to us. “Oh hell no, let me in the car. I am not standing out here while you two are safe in there. With my luck, I’ll be running back to my apartment, just as whoever’s been in there comes back out and decides to take a hostage.”
Unable to put anything past anybody, I unlocked the doors, then folded at the waist before pulling the top of the seat up, so she could dive headfirst into the backseat, half-on, half-off it in a heap. Christian snickered. I relocked the doors then re-clung to his arm.
Shannon’s head appeared over his and my shoulder, cheesing from ear to ear. “It’s never a dull moment around you, Foreign.”
“If this is exciting, I want no part of it,” I remarked, just as blaring sirens broke the quiet on the street.
Two patrol cars sped toward us. Sheriff Astrid Powers, another candidate for the black queens, white kings club, parked in the first vehicle, blocking us in. She may be the only person in Arrow that I was half an inch taller than, but she had combat skills I didn’t. Her long, jet-black ponytail swung from side to side behind her as she approached the car, unclipping her gun. A deputy that could easily be mistaken for a clean-shaven skyscraper got out of the second vehicle docked behind hers. I’d never seen him before today.
Astrid paused at Christian’s window, “Don’t get out until I say it’s… who the hell are you? Foreign doesn’t date men publicly.”
Shannon snorted, absolutely agreeing with the Sheriff, but at least she didn’t voice her astonishment over my obvious relationship with Christian and well known non-relationships with everyone else.
“Hey, Astrid.” I leaned over Christian, showing my face in his rolled down window, getting a good look at Astrid’s astounded countenance—I didn’t have to lean far, the top of her head barely reached the roof of my car.
Christian chuckled. “I’m Christian.”
Astrid nodded. “Uh huh… ah, as I was saying, don’t get out the car until I say it’s okay. Me and Deputy Greene will clear the apartment then come back for your statement. I’ll have to ask you to look around and make sure nothing’s missing, Foreign.” If there was, I wouldn’t have to go all the way inside to tell, the disc was all I cared about at this point.
Deputy Greene emerged at Astrid’s left side. “I’ll go first, Sheriff.”
I couldn’t see much of him, besides his tapered waist, brown slacks molded around his thick thighs and firm ass, his hand cupping the butt of his gun drawn and held low. Shannon leaned sideways, eyeballing the deputy, then uttered, “Day-um!” under her breath. Obviously liking what she saw in the tall drink of chocolate, he seemed to stand at double Astrid’s height. The Sheriff nodded at him. They made their way single-file and slowly toward the front desk, announcing their arrival to the culprit who may still be in residence. Then they vanished inside. I began to get antsy, which was an appropriate description, since it seemed as if ants were crawling all over me.
Christian kissed my temple. “They’ll be fine and out in a few minutes, sweetheart.”
His promise only made the nagging buzz in my flesh worsen; he could’ve been hurt while trying to save my reputation that I could’ve saved my damn self if I had done what needed to be. It felt like hours before the cops reappeared in the doorway, mere minutes actually, Astrid motioning for us to come in with her hand. I sat stiff as a board, shaking right down to the roots of my hair. My life could change in the blink of an eye just from going inside, and dammit, I wasn’t ready for that.
Christian squeezed my leg. “It’s okay, Foreign. I got you. Let’s go.”
I knew that to be the truth, which kickstarted my sound reasoning—the faster we got inside, hopefully, the faster we could prevent any upcoming shitstorms from hitting my world. I scrambled out of the car, then to my front door. Christian took up the rear with Shannon behind him. My neighbors had made their front porches into front row seats for the spectacle. Stepping over the threshold of my place, I looked to my left at the kitchen table where my laptop sat, with the built-in disc compartment sticking out of its side, empty.
No… no… no… it’s… gone, I thought, the words floating lazily through my head as if time had slowed down. Astrid rushed toward me. She was speaking but I didn’t understand her, drowning in what would surely come next, and I couldn’t stop it. The world folded in at the corners. I sunk to my knees in front of the entrance, mouth hanging wide. The room blurred before hands encased my waist and lifted me up until heavily-muscled arms that felt like Christian’s bore all my weight. I rolled in his hold towards his hard chest. The impulse to hide away was already taking over. Physical contact with him made time speed back up. He was too damn competent in inducing reality. I buried my head between his black t-shirt and leather coat, then let the emotions clashing into each other and ricocheting around my chest overtake me.
He shushed me. “It’s going to be okay, baby. Do you want the cops to handle it or do you want me to?”
I had no clue what to do except cry until there was nothing left of me. “Give me ten minutes, Christian, please! I… just… answer whatever you can of their questions, then we’ll take it from there,” I begged to wallow in my misery, put the world on mute before I had to face the travesty head-on and make decisions for getting ahead of the disc coming to homes near me.
Those that would be affected the most were mainly in California.
Christian lowered down until he was in a sitting position, cradling me like a baby. I cried until a part of my skull either ached or was clogged up. Needing a break from that brought back awareness of my surroundings. Someone was stroking my back. Presences hovered behind me and over me. It was like a cemetery in the apartment, dead silent. The tips of my shoes were resting on a cushion, my knees curved into his chest, nose buried in his armpit. God, if I thought I could stay right here forever, I would. But like all good things, burrowing in the shelter of his arms had to come to an end at some point.
I unearthed my head, then almost covered it back up. Astrid, with a tissue dangling in my face from her fingertips, and Greene stood behind the couch with grave looks as if we were all at a wake for someone, or something like my reputation. And yeah, I should be making funeral arrangements for it. You can’t do that when playing ostrich with your ass buried in the sand and your ass sticking out. Gotta cover your ass too like it wasn’t on the disc, as in getting the disc back before it hits the internet. So quit hiding and crying.
That never solved anything either.
With a hand still stroking my back, I took the tissue and blew my nose as ladylike as I could. “Thanks, Astrid. What now?”
She tucked her thumbs in her utility belt. “First, I say I’m sorry about you being targeted. The break-in looks hella fishy because they didn’t take the laptop too after damaging your front door lock to get in here, which is why you found the door open. Thank God you stayed in the car because you could have easily walked in on whoever broke in. Greene and I’ll take your laptop, have it and your door dusted for prints, then file a report and hope arrests are made. You and Christian pray like hell we find some evidence of the break-in and theft.
“Keep your internet and eyes open for the disc, and hope this Natalia makes a demand in exchange for return of the footage. Go nowhere near her. You might tip her off and she’ll start covering her tracks and move her plan along faster than she wanted it to go. I make no promises that she won’t have watched and made copies of the disc to cause future problems between or for you two if she has it. Call me if your program sends you digital confirmation that someone is playing the disc, Christian. Follow it back to their address if you can from your computer only and forward the address to me. I can search their home for it with a no-knock warrant since it’s part of a theft.”
In other words, she couldn’t do much without proof or a lead. We had no real ones until the bug in the disc pinged Christian again, and we couldn’t go off half-cocked looking for it.
“Greene, call the airport and see if Natalia’s booked a flight out. I’ll text Amari and see if she’s checked out and to pull up any camera footage of Natalia’s coming’s and going’s and visitors.”
Christian cupped my head, looked me directly in the eyes, while preventing me from looking away. “We will get whoever’s helping Natalia and her too. Do you hear me? She isn’t the type to get her hands dirty by robbing a place in broad daylight. She’s petty, not stupid, and I bet she’s already ran back to LA.”
Oh, I heard him alright, but the mission would be to get to her and her accomplice before they exposed me who wasn’t sure if that was possible, not if the same dread that hitched a ride over here and still crowding me was any indication. I nodded anyway, preparing for the backlash and humiliation incoming.
“I have to fly to California as soon as possible… warn my mother. She’ll… she’ll tell everyone else.” Not having to face all the members in my family was a consolation—I needed all the good things I could get at the moment. A woman could take only so much before she snapped on somebody.
Christian’s thumb stroked across my bottom lip. “If that’s what you want to do, we will, but I don’t want you to have jumped the gun if we can stop the disc from being leaked and kept private like it’s supposed to be.”
“I’m so sorry, Christian, and I don’t have a good feeling about this. Didn’t have one before we got here. Somehow, I knew the disc would be gone, just like I know it’s going to go public. I don’t want my mother to be surprised. It may give her a heart attack too. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”
Thank God my father wasn’t here to witness this FUBAR—fucked up beyond all recognition—that I’ve made of my life. He’d die all over again for sure.
Christian swallowed hard, his eyes like pools of green misery. “I get it, sweetheart, and I wish to God I hadn’t made that damn thing.”
Even though the disc allowed me to see the love that Christian felt for me, I was a little sad that he did make it. I couldn’t help but be sad, because if the disc hadn’t been made, then none of this would have been happening. If you hadn’t seen the disc, then you would still be living a lonely life. No Christian. No love. That was honestly the only thing that kept me grounded. I had to keep telling myself that. Without the disc, then I wouldn’t be with the man of my dreams.
I looked at him, feeling that love as strong as ever. “Then, I wouldn’t have you, Christian,” I whispered. “This is the bad that comes with the good. I can deal with it if you can. You didn’t leave it for someone else to get their hands on it. I did.”
He gave me a determined look. “Oh, you can bet your sweet ass that this situation and whoever had a hand in causing it will be dealt with. They will rue the fucking day they broke in here. I won’t stop until I’ve made this right, Foreign. I promise, baby.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Christian. That damn disc changed me, saved us even. You wouldn’t have me if it hadn’t, and now, I need to own it. Maybe there’s a reason this is all happening. Maybe it’s just a scorned woman inflicting her wrath, looking for ways to get you back. I do know watching that disc isn’t going to make her feel any better. Actually, if she thinks she’s mad now, wait until she watches it.” And it would serve her ass right.
That was enough to make me feel somewhat better about the situation, not much, but enough to cause giggles to spew like lava from a volcano when I pictured Natalia’s face as she observes me soaking up the love from Christian.
He snickered beneath me. “She’s definitely not going to like what she sees.”
Shannon sniffed behind me, the phantom hand disappearing from my back. “What’s so damn funny, guys? What is she going to see?”
I laughed a little harder. “Should I tell her, or do you want to, babe?”
His eyes lightened with sparkling-emerald humor. “Natalia will see firsthand me falling in love with Foreign, and Foreign discovering that she had the ability to love me right back when she thought her parents had taken that from her.”
A trio of ‘ah’s’ broke loose in the apartment. Suddenly, I was feeling sappy as hell myself, realizing I wasn’t being judged by the people surrounding me, they were supporting me. Even if they had been judgmental, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. People’s opinions were like butt holes; everybody had one, whether it was about the weather or a sextape that captured a turning point in life for me.
“Oh yeah, Natalia-what’s-her-face is going to be pissed if she’s doing all this to get Christian back,” Shannon reported. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. Ole boy is not going anywhere, and now, I have to see this sextape for myself.”
Oh hell, the disc already had a potential viewer salivating to view it. Wasn’t a damn thing I could do about that either, especially once even more people found out about it. Besides, it was no longer a secret now, could already be circulating in cyberspace. I needed to treat the situation as if it was already gone bad, easier to put things in perspective to save my sanity. Basically, find a silver lining in this clusterfuck and locate a path to get through the fifteen minutes of fame the disc was sure to bring. Then everyone will move on, and so should you… like to California to warn your mother.
So okay, I had a sextape drifting around that I couldn’t find yet. May not find it in time to prevent public consumption, but at least it held the one meaningful moment in my life that I would not be made to feel ashamed of. Christian and I weren’t just a hook-up that got caught on camera. Well, we were supposed to be, but we were so much more than that before his home security activated. Our hearts had tethered to each other by then. I just didn’t want to admit it then. However, I had no problems doing it now, and suspected this FUBAR would only pull him and I even closer together. Silver lining found in this clusterfuck, check.
If I didn’t find it, I’d lose my shit completely, couldn’t enjoy Natalia not getting what she wanted the most. Nonetheless, I owed it to my family to give them a chance to get out ahead of the repercussions that may fall on them too. Then I silently vowed to make a grand production of telling Christian I loved him when the ordeal over the sextape had died down. Nothing was going to upstage me proclaiming my love.
Astrid clucked her tongue over our heads, while checking her phone. “Right now, the only thing we need to see is if there’s anything else missing while I take photos as evidence of the burglary. Natalia checked out last night, her suite already occupied by someone else. She could be anywhere. Come on, Foreign. If you’re giggling like a school girl that just saw her crush, you can damn well investigate your apartment for missing items.” And I could, right before I packed for an impromptu trip to the nearest coast.
Maybe get a motel for the night. I wasn’t sure if I could stay here anymore, which reminded me I needed to call someone to repair the door.
I cupped Christian’s ear then pecked him on the forehead before standing up between him and Shannon perched on the coffee table. “Let’s get this over with. I need to call my landlord and report this, then check motels. I don’t think I’m going to get much sleep here with people breaking in and out when they damn want to.”
Deputy Greene gave me an empathetic glance, then closed his eyes and shook his head before strolling toward the front door with his phone to his ear. “I’ll call the landlord while you go with Astrid after I’ve talked to someone at the airport.”
Christian stood up. “I’ll make flight plans and pack for you while you look around, Foreign.”
“Count me in with getting the hell out of here, at least for now,” I agreed as we followed Astrid to the bedroom, to work our way back toward the front.
I’ll worry about where I was going to stay afterwards. My castle had been breached, and for once, it was possible to afford a place a little more secure. Of course, it would be pricier, but a gated community wasn’t out of my range since Christian had took the burden of tuition off my back. I didn’t think I’ve ever been more grateful for unsolicited help before. He’ll be glad for you to thank him too.
That he would.