Chapter 6

Waking up to the familiar feeling of manhandling in the sheets wasn’t how I wanted to start my day. Opening my eyes, I saw the familiar ceiling of the Korean hotel I’d stayed in, the chandelier turning slowly as the broken beams of light twirled with it, I turned my head to the window with a bright full moon pouring in quite literally. I turned back to the ceiling but last I remembered, there was no chandelier there. And then I finally remembered where it was from. Barry Hall’s wedding.
I was rudely sucked through the sheets without warning, and my eyes fell shut instinctively. When I opened them again, I found myself on my stomach on a leather surface and nimble hands massaging my shoulders. Luckily I remembered that I was at the spa before I panicked. Memories of waking up, getting ready for work, spending a day at the office uninterrupted by men, and then heading to the spa rushed back to me.
“Your muscles are very tense.” Hani, the masseuse said softly. I could only sigh in agreement as she pressed her thumbs into the nooks of my shoulders,
“Under my neck too, please.” I guided her, “It’s very cramped there.”
She worked wonders on my sore spots and eventually brought out a set of smooth, odd-shaped rocks. I turned my face down into the bed to stretch my neck.
“You’ve never tried Gua Sha before.” She noted, “What changed?”
“Just some added stress.” My voice was muffled against the leather.
“Did you have a child that we didn’t know about?” she joked. But I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked at her seriously while she pulled the towel off my back to fold over my hips.
“Now that you say that…” I said it out aloud, but caught myself in time. But, really, if I thought about it, Marcus did act like a child. Demanding attention, following me around, draining me on some occasions.
Should I be surprised, though? I still remember how gentle and kind his mother was when I first met her weeks ago. She definitely spoiled the hell out of Marcus. Is that why it frustrated him when he couldn’t have his way?
How ridiculous. I didn’t want to be the one to make him grow up.
“Hm?” she encouraged me to continue while patting my back. I shook my head and lay back down.
“Never mind. I just want to forget everything for a bit.”
“I gotchu.”
But I couldn’t forget everything. I couldn’t forget anything at all. Most of all Cristo had crept back into my mind because Blair Halls herself had walked into the spa with a towel around her bare body.
Coincidence much? What was my life? A romantically tragic soap opera?
It seemed like she hadn’t noticed me as she laid herself on the bed next to mine. I closed my eyes, pretending I hadn’t seen anything. I could do that, right? Pretend for about ten minutes until I could leave.
I lay still as a corpse as Hani pressed the curves of the rocks into my skin. I could feel the tension dissolve like cotton candy in water. Sighing, I let my body relax onto the bed.
“This is great…” Blair groaned softly across from me. I thought she was talking to her masseuse until she spoke again. “Don’t you think, Lilith?”
“You’ve got a good memory.” I smoothly commented without opening my eyes.
“It’s not like you were irrelevant.” She said, and I tried to keep my face straight even though her flippant remark had just rubbed me up the wrong way.
“Should I be flattered?”
“Perhaps.”
Silence ensued, but I could feel a weird, thick tension in the air that even the blunt rocks couldn’t cut through.
“You and Cristo seem like good friends.”
I couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes and turned my head the other way. She definitely saw and chuckled, yet it sounded so sinister.
“He gets on my nerves.” I told her, hoping she’d understand I didn’t want him in the slightest.
You do not! a part of me scoffed accusatorially. I pushed it away. He annoyed me, and so did Marcus. I didn’t want to think about them. I had been doing a good job of that so far today. Marcus had also chosen to leave me alone for the day, which helped.
“I know that feeling.” She sighed wistfully, “That…insistent fondness of him that grows onto you helplessly no matter how much you resist. I’m not sure how he does it, even while being an absolute mystery. I could never get him to open up.”
I turned back to look at her strangely.
“Why are you telling me this?”
I saw her face properly for the first time since she’d come in, bare and clear, still freckled but pretty. Her green eyes turned sour as the bore into mine. They reminded me of unripe green grapes.
A look of amusement came over them, and it made me feel stupid and naïve. Also very confused.
“Never mind the silly boy.” She giggled, but I wanted to protest that he wasn’t. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Perhaps fate understood our conversation was left unfinished that day.”
“Congratulations on your brother getting married, though.” I said as genuinely as I could. Barry had been a good acquaintance for as long as I’d known him and his wedding was one of the few nice occasions I’d attended. “His wife’s wonderful.”
“I guess so.” she sighed, “I know she’s only in it for the money, though.”
I blinked at her, bemused and bewildered. She had no shame or decorum.
“When’s it your turn?” I tiptoed around her. I was in no mood to gossip about anyone else. Word spreads fast when you bad-mouth someone. The world was too connected to be safe from it.
“Me?” she wondered innocently, “I don’t have plans as of yet but…I do have a possible target.”
“Hm?”
“Marriage is just a game of keeping money in the few people you trust, Lilith.” She sighed as her masseuse worked on the muscles of her back, “When caught in a system like that, you need someone who has the heart to rebel against that. Find someone who earns his own keep. A man who behaves otherwise does not deserve me. I’m not something to be passed onto another just because my parents know his.”
It caught me off-guard, the way she spoke. But even though she’d spoken something as profound, there was an air of malice behind it. Was it still the envy? Am I really envious of Blair? I couldn’t tell, but something didn’t sit right with me about her.
“Who are the lucky candidates?”
“There are a few.” she smiled like it was a little secret of hers.
“Sounds like you have a solid plan, then.”
She only hummed in agreement and silence ensued between us once again until it was time for me to leave for my mani-pedi.
“It was nice finally talking to you, Lilith.” She said as I walked out the door, “We’ll meet again.”
I did not want to meet her again.

“Lilith,” Lyra poked her head around the door, “there’s mail for you.”
“I’ll look through it after lunch.” I said distractedly as I sifted through my emails, “Anything too important?”
“Blair Halls?”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Lili–never mind,” she chuckled, “I thought she was your target for this month?”
“I’ve taken on the next client. Jean-Pierre Toussaint?”
“That fast?”
“I talked to Barry,” I sighed, “explained she already has a game plan that I can’t interfere with. He said we could try next year.”
I watched from the corner of my eye as Lyra looked down at an envelope in hand. A bright red thing. She opened it carefully and pulled out a white and gold card.
“There’s some speed-dating event she’s invited you to.”
That got a raised eye-brow out of me, “Read it out to me.”
It took a second for her to skim through it and paraphrase it for me.
“Free profiling for attendees from the best match-makers in the city. Trial counseling for couples available. Best tips and love-advice from the professionals. Fifteen-minute rotations through potential matches. Sounds promotional. Think Blair’s trying for a start-up.”
“Smart.” I rolled my eyes, “Fine, I’ll accept it. When is it?”
“In about two weeks,” She replied, “but what’s your deal with her?”
“She just rubs me up the wrong way.” I admitted as I closed Jean-Pierre’s file and placed it in my drawer, “I can’t tell what it is, though.”
Lyra came inside and leaned against my desk with her hip, interested and attentive, “Anything in particular happen over at Halls’?”
“Not there,” I lied through my teeth, “but I met her at the spa yesterday.”
“Oof…” she breathed. Lyra knew how I felt about clients outside of work hours.
“Yeah, and she was just so weird.” Shaking my head in dismay, I shot Marcus a text about lunch and got up to grab my coat and bag, “Well, I’ll see you after lunch. I just need to forget about that woman for a few hours.”
She nodded in understanding and led me to the door and held it open for me.

Sipping my coffee tentatively, I eyed Marcus over the edge of my cup. He looked distracted, but unbothered. I couldn’t pin down what he was thinking. We hadn’t talked at all yesterday, and I was grateful for the space. But he was the one who messaged me this morning about lunch today. I was hoping he’d be the one to open the floor about what had happened that evening.
“Your apple crumble.” Came the waiter with a dainty plate. Marcus thanked him.
Looking down at the carefully cut slice, I turn my gaze back to him. His eyes were on it as well.
“I wish you would try it.” He said, “It tastes really nice.”
“I’m not one for sweets.”
“I’m not one for sour but here we are.”
I choked on my coffee and pulled the cup away to stuff my face into my elbow. I coughed away the tickle at the back of my neck and looked at him.
“Still annoyed, are we?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I moved past it,” I admitted shamelessly, “unless you feel an apology is due.”
He only huffed and looked away, a tick in his jaw that popped a vein against the skin of his neck.
Finally turning to look at me properly, he said, “What do you think happened that day?”
“You followed me, Marcus.” I pointed out with a firm clink of my cup down on the table, “That is what happened.”
“I was worried.”
“Why?” I chuckled darkly at his naïve attempt at heroism, “You think I never handled myself before you?”
“Isn’t that why you ended up taking your ex’s mom to court?”
My fingers flew away from my cup to hold the edge of the table. Dizziness washed over me and I knew I would fall over any moment if I didn’t leave the restaurant. And I looked into his large and regretful brown eyes slowly turning green in the light as his face paled. Like he’d said it accidentally. There was no way he would’ve known this unless…
“You’re talking to my mother, aren’t you?” I breathed out of my mouth still agape at what he’d said.
“Lilith, I’m no–”
Pushing my seat back hard enough for it to screech, I picked up my stuff and left immediately, but not before slamming a twenty on the table for the poor waiter having to sit back and watch this drama unfold. My feet carried me quickly and I hoped Marcus didn’t follow me unless he wanted to get hurt. The heat was rushing up from my chest to my neck, anger literally bubbling onto the surface of my skin as my ears grew hotter with each step I took away from the coffee place.
Our friendship was over way too soon. Honestly? Good riddance. It was better this way.
“Lilith…” he called out to me and I heard his footsteps against the concrete. “LILITH!”
His hand reached out for my elbow and I tore it away just in time, spinning on my heel to pin daggers into his eyes through my own. He froze in his place.
“Touch me,” I dared him, “and I’ll break your fucking knees.”
“Let me speak!”
“YOU’VE SPOKEN ENOUGH!”
“She said that at dinner the night we met!” he pleaded, “I didn’t think she was that kind of person, but she did! I swear!”
“And you thought you had the right to bring it up?” I scoffed with narrowed eyes while stomping up to him. He put his hands up and took a step back, looking white as a sheet.
“Lilith, please, it’s not–”
“As bad as you think it is?” I mocked with a tilt of my head.
He fell silent, eyes downcast in shame.
As much I hated to think it, I’ve won this round.
“Have a good life, Marcus Blight.”