Cora Carmack - Seeking Her

“Go back to your room upstairs.”

He turned toward me, and said, “What?”

“Leave her alone.”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. He turned and started off in the direction that Kelsey had gone.

“Hey, I’m serious.” I grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around. “Leave her the fuck alone.”

“She have a golden pussy or something? Is that why everyone wants her?”

“She doesn’t have anything where you’re concerned. You’re going to be gone when she comes back.”

“No, asshole. You will.”

That was really all the provocation I needed. I’d been itching to break something since this morning, and this guy had irked me from the moment I saw him. Maybe I couldn’t hold a real one-­year chip in my hand to distract me, but his face against my knuckles should do the trick.

He shoved my hand off his elbow, and I let him. Only then I brought it back in a fist and rammed it as hard as I could across his jaw.

Pain burst across my knuckles, followed by a shot of adrenaline that burned up my veins and set a fire in my chest. He swung back at me, and I ducked, ramming my shoulder up into his midsection. He coughed out a breath, and stumbled backward, his sagging mouth now an ugly, gaping hole.

He spit, and then came raging back at me. His punch was slow, and I leaned back, letting it pass in front of my face. I threw a left cross, letting my hips and shoulder push through until impact.

He went down hard, carving out a hole on the dance floor as he sprawled out beneath the flashing neon lights.

It felt fantastic. Until I turned around to find the bouncer who had been stationed out front when I came on board.

I WAS NURSING a bruised jaw and a busted lip of my own, courtesy of the bouncer, when my own phone rang. I was hanging out just down the riverbank from the club, keeping an eye out for Kelsey, and I hit answer.

“Hello?” I closed my eyes against the sting of my split lip and heard Kelsey’s father on the other end.

“Hunt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t expect you to answer.”

“Why not, sir?”

“It’s four in the morning there, isn’t it?”

So it was. He was becoming accustomed to Kelsey’s altered schedule.

“I’m a light sleeper,” I answered.

“Good. Where are you now?”

“Belgrade, sir.”

“Where the hell is that?”

“Serbia, sir.”

“Why in the world is she in Serbia? What do you even do in Serbia?”

I really didn’t think he wanted to know. “Sightseeing. The usual.”

“That stupid girl is going to wind up kidnapped or something, and I’m not paying the ransom just because she decided to go off gallivanting in Third World countries.”

I winced. Serbia might have been a little rough around the edges, but it was far from Third World. I knew that from experience. And though I didn’t think Mr. Summers was serious about not paying a ransom, it didn’t make me any more inclined to spill Kelsey’s secrets to the guy.

“She’s not going to get kidnapped. Serbia is much safer now than it was a few decades ago. Belgrade especially is as safe as most other European capitals. And I’m watching out for her. She’s fine.”

“When’s she coming home? That’s what I want to know.”

“I don’t know, sir. I don’t really get close enough to her to have a conversation.”

Ignoring that moment tonight when I’d wanted to.

I added, “You could always call her. Let her know you’re worried. Maybe she’ll come home sooner or choose a more familiar destination.”

She clearly missed home.

Mr. Summers only gave a low grunt in response.

“Just don’t let her pull any stupid stunts.”

“Stunts, sir?”

He sighed, exasperated. “She’s dramatic, like her mother. She does something stupid, and then always finds someone else to take the blame. She’ll come home pregnant or gay and it will be my fault.”

“How would that be your fault, sir?”

“It wouldn’t be. It would be yours.”

Now I was holding back a sigh.

“Of course, sir.”

“Good. Good night.”

He didn’t wait for my reply before he hung up, and maybe I was still looking for a fight, but I really didn’t like him either.

I wanted to be relieved when Kelsey left the club a few minutes later without VIP guy, but that deflated look was back, and that didn’t make me feel any better.

I followed her as she walked home alone, actively fighting the urge to jog up to her side and say hello.

There were a lot of things I didn’t know about Kelsey Summers. But I did know that I was getting really tired of living on the sidelines.

KELSEY SPENT TWO more days in Belgrade, but I only saw her once. I’m not sure whether it was the phone call or the interaction with the VIP asshole, or something else, but she barely left her hostel.

At first, I thought maybe the GPS app was broken or that she’d left without her phone. I decided to head over and check just in case. Just as I was approaching the front desk to ask about her, she walked past in a pair of cotton shorts and a T-­shirt.

If I hadn’t spent so much time staring at her, I don’t think I would have recognized her. Her hair was pulled up and wound into a knot on the top of her head. And she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her normally dramatic eyes were clean and bare. Her long eyelashes a dark blond.

She was still pretty, of course. But a different kind of beauty. It made me imagine lazy days in bed or movie nights on my couch. I thought of how it would feel to be with a girl like Kelsey, to have her comfortable enough with me that she didn’t need the clothes and the makeup and the hair.

To have her be mine .

Somehow, I wanted this version of Kelsey even more, because she felt more real than every other version of her I’d seen so far.

I followed her to the grocery store. She didn’t leave her hostel again until the day she checked out and headed for the train station once more.

In Budapest, it was like she hit the reset button. She was back to that vibrant character that drew everyone’s gaze like a magnet. If possible, she seemed to have turned the volume up even further. Like each night had to outdo the one before it.

After a few days like that, though, I started to recognize patterns of her cycle. Just like before, she would get these quiet moments where she seemed to zone out and forget the part she was playing. Her face would go blank, even as her body kept dancing or partying or whatever.

And I could just tell; another crash was coming. I wondered how long it would take before she gave up trying to fool herself in the same way she fooled the rest of the world.

With another girl and three guys, they ventured into an area of Budapest away from the center of the city. The streetlights became fewer and farther in between, and there were empty storefronts and derelict buildings.

Kelsey didn’t seem to notice. They’d already been drinking for a few hours.

But I was on high alert.

Since arriving in Budapest, Kelsey had been throwing around money like it was nothing. Buying ­people drinks and dinner and whatever else it took so they’d treat her like the center of attention.

I was tired for her.

She just tried so damn hard, and I didn’t understand why. She was gorgeous and vibrant, and she didn’t need to do those things for ­people to want to be around her. She didn’t need a lot of the things she surrounded herself with.

And throwing around money like that could have dangerous repercussions.

When the group led her into what looked like an abandoned building, my heartbeat thundered in my ears. I gave up stealth and sprinted after them, ignoring the careful distance I’d been trying to keep.