Best Friend's Ex Box Set

“That’s not reasonable,” he replied. “I need at least a week!”

“A week?” I yelled. “Oh, hell no!”

“Ava, a week is the best I can offer you,” he said as he reached up and ran his fingers through my hair, making me shiver a bit. “It’s a small amount of time to ensure your safety. Give me seven days and you can go home.”

“Fine, as long as we agree,” I said gruffly to try and cover up the effect he was having on me. “Seven days, and not a day more!”

“I just want to find him, and put him away so that you’ll be safe,” he said softly as he ran his fingers across my cheek before lightly brushing my lips with the tip of his index finger. That was too much, and I backed up against the elevator wall as I looked at him warily.

“Don’t try and manage me,” I warned. “I might have had sex with you a couple of times and enjoyed it, but do not try and manage me because you think you have some kind of advantage over me.”

“I’m not managing you,” Brian sighed as his shoulders slumped. “I’m simply trying to keep you safe.”

At that moment, the elevator reached our floor, and the doors opened. I quickly walked out and headed down the hallway, failing to even notice the room service guy who was cleaning up the dishes left outside rooms until Brian said, “Hey, can you get us a few more glasses?”

“That’s housekeeping, man,” the guy replied. “Call 611 and ask Jeannie for more glasses. She’ll bring them right up.”

“Thanks,” Brian replied with a pensive look on his face as he walked through the door I held open. “I’ll do that."

He walked into the room, turned around, closed the door, locked it, and went about putting all of the safety mechanisms back in place as I watched with wide eyes.

“Just being safe,” he said as he stacked glasses near the door and then jammed a chair under the door handle. “Just being safe.”

*****

The next several days were uneventful as we hung out in the hotel fitness room, ordered room service more often than going down to the restaurant, and watched every movie offered on the pay-per-view channels. I spent time trying to get my assignments from Jessie and Lara who, by this time, were well aware of the situation and had agreed to run interference in class without letting on what was happening. God forbid that one of my instructors should decide to intervene and alert the police, so Lara had concocted a lie that involved me traveling to some exotic location for some campaign event that my father was hosting. The professors were wary, but once they received apologetic emails from both me and, after Jessie tapped into the ISP my father’s campaign was using and set up a fake email account for me to email people from, from my father, it seemed that everything would be okay.

The irony of all of this was that my father did everything he could to keep me away from his campaign. He didn’t believe that I should have to suffer the consequences of his decisions, so he’d done his best to eliminate the need for me to attend any events or functions, and he rarely mentioned me in any of his stump speeches. He said it was an attempt to preserve my privacy, so out of a sense of loyalty, I tried to do the same. I rarely talked about my father or my family anywhere other than with my closest friends, and I never gave interviews. At times, I’d even denied that I was his daughter in order to avoid nosy reporters who were digging around looking for some angle. I knew eventually they’d catch me in the lie, but I didn’t care. It was none of their business.

The upside of the isolation was that it had given me time to formulate a solid plan for how to approach the anti

-war action, and I’d spent several hours every morning writing letters and sending emails to people I thought might be able to offer support to our burgeoning movement. I’d gotten a couple of responses, but they’d been far from what I’d hoped for in terms of support and organizing power. On the third morning, I typed out an email to the members of the group asking them to contact a list of people I’d gathered and told them that we needed the support of the community in order to make our plan work. I assigned two of the committee members the task of contacting veterans, and told them that we definitely needed their support if we were going to make this work. I hit send and crossed my fingers, hoping that they’d be able to do what I’d asked.

I looked up from my laptop and saw Brian sitting on the window ledge furiously tapping on the screen of his phone while he frowned.

“Will you please tell me what it is you are doing on that phone all the time?” I asked in an exasperated voice. I was sick of him constantly communicating with people I couldn’t see.

“It’s really none of your business,” he replied in a tone that caused me to shrink back.

“Sorry, I was just trying to figure out why you’re allowed to constantly be in contact, but I’m only allowed to communicate from a secret location and address,” I said pointedly.

“Because my phone has security features that your laptop doesn’t have,” he said matter-of-factly.

I knew he was pissed at me because I’d told him two nights before that I didn’t want him sleeping in the bed with me anymore. He was either going to be my bodyguard or my lover, but not both. I had to draw the line somewhere. He grudgingly accepted his role as bodyguard and had slept on the pull-out couch. I missed having him in bed next to me at night, but I wasn’t going to back down until he agreed to let me go home. It was the Lysistrata approach, and I had faith that if it had worked for the ancient Athenian women who prevented a war, it would definitely work for my puny demands.

“Well, then maybe I’m just interested in what’s going on with you these days?” I said in a sickly sweet voice.

“Don’t manage me,” he said in a mocking tone.

“I’m not managing you, I’m just asking a question,” I replied in a sassy tone. “I’m bored! I’m sick of being stuck in this room! I need some stimulation; something to do!”

“What? You want me to take you to the zoo or an amusement park?” he said dryly.

“Would you?” I replied excitedly.

“Not likely,” he said in a flat tone.

I dropped down on the couch and pouted, and I hoped he’d notice, but he’d gone back to his phone and didn’t see my dramatic performance. Suddenly it occurred to me that his interest in his phone was a lot like someone who’d just begun dating someone new. Was he on a dating site? Was he talking with girls while he was with me? Had he met someone online and was texting her like crazy as a means of avoiding me? Maybe he’d fallen for her already and was planning on meeting her after he finished this job. Maybe I’d become nothing more than a job to him since I’d kicked him out of bed. The thought left me with a lump in my throat and a sick feeling in my stomach.