Page 130 of Nothing to Tell
Unfortunately, Roxie wasn’t easily appeased.“You worked out to give yourself an excuse for the shower.Where are you right now?”
She’d hoped to avoid that question, but it had been asked.
Lying was out of the question, though she did brace herself for a negative reaction.“The library.”
“Oh, God, Harper, you’re working from the library?I didn’t even know there was a library in LA.Is it in a prehistoric tar pit?Geez.Send me the location, that’s maybe the one place in LA I won’t get arrested.Though I sure wouldn’t put money on that.The library!How are you talking to me?”
“I’m in the hallway outside.”
“You can’t go to your parents, and you’re avoiding the solution.”
She couldn’t think of Bastian that way.“I can rent office space.”
“And where do you plan to sleep?”
In her office space?Boy, pathetic, that’s what she was.Her bank balance really didn’t support LA living.
She growled.“This is exactly why I shouldn’t have—we shouldn’t have—I was just using him.”
“You weren’t using him,” Roxie said.“Relying on your friends is what you’re supposed to do.He wanted to help, I’ll bet he still does.”
“It screws with everyone’s heads.Being with him is easy, it’s great, but now his family think we’re together again.Adara keeps asking where I am—”
“You haven’t told them?”
“I don’t trust any of them not to contact him.Adara would say she wouldn’t but get Carnell to—it’s a mess.A complete mess.His life was nice and easy before I came along.I’ve wrecked it.I’ve wrecked his life and my own!Why can’t I have an easy life?”
“You can,” Roxie said without hesitation.“Pack a bag and go to the airport.”
“The airport?”
“I’ll send you a phone number, text it when you have what you need.Clothes, work stuff, whatever.A car will come to wherever you are and—”
“Take me where?You said it yourself, I can’t go to my parents, I can’t go to Bastian’s.I’ll go to a hotel tonight.I will get myself together.I will.”
“That’s what I’m suggesting.Pack a bag, text the number, and you can clear your head here with me.”
She didn’t even know where Roxie was on the globe.Another example of her being a terrible friend.
“I landed myself on Bastian.I won’t land myself on you.”
It was so difficult to figure people out.Ordering her thoughts was hard enough without trying to make any kind of plans.Plans?That was a joke.Her life was spiraling; it took everything in her just to dig her nails in and hang on.
“Difference is, we won’t have sex…” Roxie said.“Unless you ask really, really nicely.That would be one sex tape to catapult the brand, you’d be doing me a favor.You know what, screw it, let’s have sex.”
Still pathetic, she could at least muster a smile now.“Thank you.For listening.For calming me down.I don’t know why I—it’s been more difficult lately to…”
“Function?”Roxie asked.“I have my own theories on that.”
“Theories?”She didn’t get it.“Everything’s happening at once.For so long, my life ticked along…” the best days coincided with Damon being in Australia.Coincidence?Not likely.“Now everything’s changing all at once.”
“Are you going to a Grand tonight?You said you’d go to a hotel.Will it be a Grand?”
A hotel was the plan to avoid the man who owned those buildings.What sense would that be?
“No.”She couldn’t afford it, certainly not for more than a night or two, did they do discount coupons?That reason was less important than… “I wouldn’t put Bastian in that position.”
“I’m sure he’d give you space if you need space.First time I descended on Z’s place without invitation, the staff kept my secret.From everyone.They didn’t even tell Zairn I was there.Employees are vetted at the highest levels, they’re responsible—”
