Sloth (Sinful Secrets 1)

I can’t believe he’s dead.

The more I think about my Kellan, swallowing a bunch of painkillers so he doesn’t have to face whatever haunts him, the more restless—the more helpless—I feel. I want to go to his house, but I’m too scared. What if he hasn’t texted me because he doesn’t want me to come back?

He likes the affection—yeah. The holding hands, the non-stop touching. So he needs the contact to assuage some beast. But maybe I freaked him out w

hen I told him I liked him. If he’s an addict, he may think he needs to shut me out. Spare me some pain or some such martyr shit.

I feel the weight of his warm hand on my back as I stood by Olive’s grave. I can see him, pale and stricken, in the passenger’s seat, playing me that song.

Hey, wait... The hospital!

My hand drifts to my throat. Of course. I think back to the way he was on the drive to Emory—so listless. At one point, he was begging me to hurry. And before that, up in the windowed room at his house... I don’t think we had sex. Wasn’t that the time I woke up with that egg inside my pussy? And Kellan seemed so pale. So haunted. Was he going through withdrawal or something?

It would make sense. The way he seemed when we first met: a tiger, always on the prowl, demanding things. And how he seemed to grow more... quiet as the days passed. I wonder if the girl could be his AA partner. Or maybe he was going to—what’s it called?—a Methadone clinic? And the girl knew the clinic hours, so she tried to intersect him there.

I get out of the car and start to pace. Back and forth, along the row where I’m parked. Moonlight glints off hoods and bumpers. A warm, magnolia-scented breeze tickles my skin. When headlights spill out of the lower level, signaling the arrival of another car, I step behind this big, green Ford F-250 and pray that it’s an Escalade.

That’s what I’m doing when my phone rings: hiding from the glow of unfamiliar headlights. I look for his name on the screen, but it’s not Kellan. Not the 1-800 hundred number of Be The Match. This number is a local one that I don’t know. Of course.

“Hello?” I say with trepidation.

“Cleo?”

My stomach somersaults. “Manning?”

“It’s ole Manning.”

I lean against the green truck’s hood. “God, I’m glad you called. I was going to talk to you about something. Something with Kellan. I’m kind of worried about something with him.”

“Why you worried?” he drawls.

“I... I’m sort of hesitant to say. But Manning, do you know what’s going on right now? I was over at his house and his uncle and this girl showed up. He told me—”

“Cleo?” he says. “Why don’t ya hold your horses for a second?”

“Why?”

“I need to tell you something. Kellan told me to...”

Fear scoops through me. “Okay, what?”

“He wanted you to know that you can get... that thing from Matt or me, at the prices y’all had talked about. You know that thing?”

“From Matt or you?” My heart is pounding, but my brain is running a step behind my body. I rub my head and frown. Is Kellan going—”

Manning cuts in on me, saying, “And he wanted me to tell you that I’ve got a check. I can bring it to you... whenever. Tomorrow. It’s for twenty K. You know what I’m talking about?”

My blood pumps so hard I feel faint.

“Honey? Are ya there?”

I slide down the truck’s grill, crouching on the cement deck. “So... ? He’s...” My head throbs, referring pain behind my eyes, where tears are building.

“He’s going back to California, with his uncle and that girl you saw. I’m real sorry, Cleo. That’s his high school girlfriend. He was hoping to get back with her for the last couple of months. Since she got pregnant back in May.”

I BRING THE PHONE BACK to my ear and re-play Robert’s message. It’s so strange to hear his voice. So ridiculous to hear him making threats. What more could he take from me? There is nothing he can take. There is nothing I can give. I have no choices left.

I was going to go—to get out of here before my trouble pins me down. Go back to California, where I can settle everything the way I want—out on the water. But I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to Cleo. Every day, I tell myself just one more day. Then Whitney and Pace showed up, with their pleas and their tears and their threats, and Cleo did it for me. She left me.