Three, Two, One (321)

“Is it because you’re afraid of them?” I know it’s a generic them he’s referring to, but I shiver all the same. He doesn’t need me to speak to get that answer. “You’re safe here. You can stay as long as you need to.”

“What about your friend?” Ark is the one I asked for help. He’s the one I’m worried about because he looked at me like I’m broken. Like I’m beyond saving. Too much trouble. Too few prospects.

“He likes you,” JD says. “I can tell. He’s pissed off that we’re here together right now, I know that for sure.”

“Where did he go?” I study JD’s face and decide I like it. Before, when he and his friend were taking the pictures, JD was talking to me like the men in the basement did. Like I was a whore.

But right now he’s just talking to me like the men in the waiting room did.

Like I’m a possibility.

I was a possibility a few times over the course of this last year. But thankfully, none of them ever took me home.

“I’m so hungry,” I say.

His fingertips trace the outline of my ribs. “They didn’t take very good care of you, did they?”

I have to swallow that down before I can shake my head no.

“I’ll take good care of you, Blue.”

I stare up into his own blue eyes. They are light, like the blond scruff on his chin. “Thank you,” I whisper.

“You’re welcome,” he says, wrapping his arm tightly around my waist and pulling me close again. “It’s my pleasure.”

And then he kisses me on the head and we rest there for a few moments before he pulls me up, takes my hand, and walks me out to the kitchen.

Seven hours of sleep has done wonders for my observation skills, because if you had asked me anything about this place when they brought me here, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. It’s such a dangerous situation. And after all I’ve been through this past year, I’m so stupid for allowing myself to be taken in by a pretty face.

It was the drugs. I was better off than the other girls, but only because I vomited up the sedative they gave me once the night was over. It was supposed to keep me subdued until we got back to the basement.

“What’re you thinking about?” the guy called JD asks me. I’m standing in the middle of their kitchen. He’s busy at the island counter, where ingredients for the food he’s making are scattered around. “You look a little lost.”

A little lost doesn’t even come close.

“You can sit if you want.” He points to the living room, which is open to the kitchen, so he’d still be able to keep an eye on me if I sat over there.

I walk around the island and head towards the chair he pointed to.

“You don’t have to sit there, you know. You can sit outside. Or on the couch. Or go back to bed.”

I just take my seat and pull my legs up so I can wrap my arms around them. I’m so skinny these days, I practically curl into a little ball.

“You like spaghetti and meatballs?” he asks. “That’s pretty much all I can make.” And then he flashes that grin at me. A smile that says he’s charming and devious and dangerous all in one. It should set me back. It should send me running. But it doesn’t. It makes me feel something I haven’t felt in a very long time.

Relaxed.

I smile back at him.

His whole face lights up. “Fuck if you aren’t one of the sexiest things I’ve ever laid eyes on. I can only imagine how beautiful you are when you’re healthy.”

Healthy. That’s a nice sterile word for what I’m not.

“So spaghetti?”

I take a deep breath and nod.

“I have to run to the store for bread. Will you be OK here alone?”

He stares hard at me as he washes his hands in the island sink and then tears the plastic off a package of hamburger. I realize I’m still wondering if I’ll be OK when he calls out softly, “Blue? Will you be OK if I run to the store for bread?”

Blue. I have a new name again. Not Star, but Blue. I nod at him because he’s waiting for an answer. His hands never stop moving as he rolls the meat up into little balls.

When he’s done with that, he puts them in the oven, washes his hands, and starts the water boiling.

I never take my eyes off him.

He comes around the island towards me when he’s done and this is the first chance I’ve had—first sober chance—to see his body. He’s tall and lean with defined muscles in his arms, his abs, and his neck. He’s only wearing a pair of cut-off gray sweats that hit just below the knee, so I have a pretty good view. His blond hair is neither long nor short, but something in between. It’s messy in a very nice way. And his face is beautiful in a way only a man’s can be.

They make porn, my inner self cautions me. They make porn and his beautiful face is the lure they use to get girls to agree.

That’s true. But for some reason I don’t think I’m here to make them money.

“Blue,” he says again when he reaches me. He leans down, placing one hand on the chair arms on either side of my body, and looks me in the eyes. “If you want to bail on us, let me know. We’ll take you wherever you want to go. But don’t just walk off, OK? Because then I’d have to go back out into this shitty weather and find you all over again. And you’d be cold, and scared, and we’d have to start all over again with the warm bath and rest. So just stay and eat with me.”