Demanding Ransom (33 page)

I run my palms up and down my legs. It’s almost
March but tonight is unseasonably cold, and this skirt is unusually skimpy.
What am I doing here?

We drive the next ten minutes in silence.

“Why did you want me to come, Trav?” I look at
him across the seat.

When I see the exit up ahead that will lead us
to Ran’s townhome, I have the sudden urge to yank on the handle and leap from
the moving vehicle. I can’t do this.

“Because you have every right to be a part of
Ran’s life as the rest of us.”

I press my lips together firmly. “Um, no I
don’t. He has no idea who I am.”

The car makes a sharp right and I can see the
stretch of vehicles lined outside Ran’s place. Trav pulls in behind a beat up
Volkswagen bug that has at least five different paint colors layering it,
making it resemble a patchwork quilt.

“He knows who you are, Maggie.” Trav kills the
engine and angles toward me in the cab. “He remembers your accident and he
remembers you coming to the hospital to see him. It’s not like you’re a
stranger.”

“But still—even if he remembers
that—why do you keep calling me and pushing me to be around him? Why not
just let it all go?”

Trav wraps the truck keys in his fingers and
the metal jingles in his palm as he hesitates to open the door. “Because I saw
what he was like when he was with you.” He stretches a hand toward the handle
and keeps it there as he finishes speaking. “And I don’t think I could live
with myself if I knew he had the potential to have that again, and I did
nothing to help him get it back.” Trav pops the door open. “Seriously, what
kind of person would that make me?”

“A normal one.”

“It’s not normal to sit back and watch your
best friend miss out on love just because he doesn’t remember it.” Trav slams
the door shut and skirts the edge of the truck to come to the passenger side.
He opens my door. “Let’s go make him remember, shall we?”

“That’s not what I’m here for.” I slip out of
my seat and readjust my skirt, wishing I had about six more inches to work with.

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter why you’re here.
I’m just glad you are. And I know Ran will be, too.”

We walk the steps toward the townhouse and
follow another couple in. The small entryway is at maximum occupancy and I rise
up on toe to try to count the tops of people’s heads, but there are just too
many. Maybe I’ll be able to avoid seeing Ran altogether. His quaint living
quarters feels more like the scene of a college frat party, and it would be
quite easy to get swallowed up in the congestion of bodies and haze of
intoxication.

Trav pushes at my back and we slide into the
room. There’s a huge “Welcome Back, Ran!” banner draped over the mantel, and
the breakfast bar is cluttered with bottles that vary in height and shape.
Someone’s taken on the role as resident bartender and is mixing up potent
concoctions in red plastic cups.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asks above
the volume of chatter and music that pulses through the room.

“Nothing, thanks.” I stay close to Trav like
he’s my security blanket.

“You’re the second person to turn down one of
my infamous mixtures tonight,” the bartender huffs, half-annoyed, half-joking.
He bites on the metal ring that hooks through his front lip. “Couldn’t even get
the party-boy to try one. I figured if anyone could use a drink, it would have
been Ran.”

Trav nods and we push past the kitchen to the
family room. I don’t recognize anyone, and it makes me feel not only foolish,
but stupid, as I look around at the unfamiliar faces. The faces of the people
who are supposedly part of Ran’s life. I’ve never met them. I don’t know any of
them. I hate the hollow feeling it brings to my stomach, the realization that
what Ran and I had existed in some sort of vacuum. I wasn’t really a part of
his life at all. If I were, these would be the faces of my friends, too, not
the strangers that they are to me now.

“Ran!” When Trav calls out his name, my legs
immediately buckle and my heart, which had been racing to the rhythmic
metronome of the house music, stops for more beats than it should. Dizziness
swallows my vision and my thinking.

“Hey man,” Ran says, his strong hand clasped on
Trav’s shoulder. He flashes his knee-weakening smile and his expression falls
slightly when he turns his head my direction, like I’m the one thing that doesn’t
belong in this scenario. One of these things is not like the other. “Maggie,”
he says, drawing his head back. “I didn’t think I’d see you again after the
hospital.” His brow is tight and his eyes cloud with confusion. Ran looks from
Trav back to me, as though he’s processing something and can’t grasp the
answer.

“Trav invited me.” I don’t say anything else. I
tug the hem of my dress, willing the fabric to cover more than it possibly can.

Ran nods and swivels his head to look around
the room. “Make yourselves at home, you two. I think someone said we’re heading
out in fifteen.”

“Sounds good to me,” Trav says, pulling me out
of Ran’s line of sight and back toward the makeshift bar. “You okay being the
DD tonight, Maggie? I could really go for a drink.”

I bob my head up and down in a daze. “Yeah, no
problem.” Though Ran’s not near us, I still trail him with my eyes as he works
his way around the room, exchanging laughter and smiles with the rest of his
guests. The way he looks at each of them—the way he interacts with them
like he knows them—breaks something in me, and I thought I didn’t have
anything left to break. I thought all the damage had been done, but the longing
for that same look of recognition is almost enough to make me combust and
shatter into pieces. I dig my nails into the palm of my hand to try to find
some sort of release.

“You okay, Maggie?” Trav rubs the space between
my shoulder blades affectionately. “Is this too much?”

“Yes and yes.” I’m still following all of Ran’s
movements, and when he unexpectedly swivels on his heel and catches me spying,
the look of utter confusion etched on his face twists my gut.

Trav pats my back and takes a swig from his
cup. “You’re doing great. Believe me, I saw Ran sneak a peek at those
tantalizing legs of yours, and he definitely liked what he saw.”

I shake off his comment.

I’m about to ask Trav if it would be okay if I
call Cora to come get me when I feel something brush across the back of my leg.
I spin around to see two brown eyes staring up at me. Nikon wags his tail with
such force that his hind legs hardly meet the ground.

“Hey boy,” I murmur, slipping down to his
level. His tail picks up speed and he lunges toward me with all his weight. I
tumble back slightly and regain my balance as I scratch and ruff up the fur on
his head. “I’ve missed you,” I whisper. Nikon leans his whole body into me and
I drag my fingers through his thick coat of fur. I stay low at his level for as
long as I can, glad to avoid the meaningless interactions that are taking place
up above me.

“He seems to like you.” I hadn’t noticed him
slip down, and Ran’s unexpected, gravelly voice knocks me off balance more than
Nikon did. “Nikon’s not usually so affectionate with new people.”

I smile weakly and pull at my skirt, realizing
I’m in the worst possible position for it right now. I continue running my
fingers through the dog’s fur.

“Maggie,” Ran says quietly. “It was nice of you
to come tonight.” His blue eyes are open, honest. “Trav hasn’t stopped talking
about you for at least a month.”

Of
course he hasn’t. He’s made it his personal mission to get you to fall in love
with me again.
I don’t say it, but I can’t help but think it.

Ran tilts his body up toward Trav who’s dancing
with some blonde wearing leopard print heels and a purple, clingy dress, their
bodies pressed close together almost like they’re one unit. His drink sloshes
over the rim of his cup, but Trav doesn’t seem to notice.

“You’re okay with him doing that?” Ran points a
finger to the red cup in Trav’s unsteady grasp.

“Yeah,” I answer, shrugging my shoulders. “I
told him I’d be his designated driver.”

“I’m not talking about the drinking. I’m
talking about the dancing with other girls part.” Ran is still hunkered down,
stroking Nikon’s neck. Our fingers are so close as they graze past each other,
his running head to tail and mine traveling in the reverse direction.

“I don’t care who he dances with.” I muster my
courage and look Ran in the eye. Immediately, I wish I hadn’t, because the pain
it causes takes the form of water burning the back of mine.

“You don’t strike me as the type of girl that
would be okay with her boyfriend dancing with other girls, am I right?”

My eyes pop out of my skull. “You don’t think
Trav and I are—?” I shake the stunned stare from my face.

“You’re not?” Ran’s hand stops just above
Nikon’s hackles, brushing my fingers that were scratching him there. Shivers
run through me like a current. “I just assumed, you know, because he talks
about you so much.”

“No,” I assure. “Trav and I are just friends.”
I swallow the laugh that comes with the thought of me being interested in
someone like Trav. He’s mildly attractive with his auburn ringlets and endearing
dimples, but he’s definitely not my type. Not that I have a type anymore,
unless you can call Ran a type. “And you’re right. I’m not the kind of girl
that is okay with my boyfriend dancing with someone else. But in this case,
Trav can dance with whomever he pleases. The more the merrier.”

A small smile sweeps over Ran’s mouth. “Are you
going to Sliver with us tonight?”

I nod. I know heading to the club is next on
the agenda. Up until this point, I had been working on a plan to get out of the
clubbing portion of the evening, but having Ran ask me changes all of that. For
as much as I know I need to steer clear of him, everything else in me craves
any second I can get in his presence.

“Good. I have to do some more mingling, but
maybe we can catch up there.” Ran pushes off his knees. “And seriously, Nikon
is never this friendly with strangers. Must be something about you, Maggie.”

I keep my eyes on my fingers that rake
monotonously through Nikon’s fur and don’t look up at Ran when he leaves. “Must
be something about you, too,” I mumble under my breath, and I pin my lip
between my teeth to halt the tremble that accompanies the words.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

“You gonna sit hur all night or ‘m I gonna have
to drag your lazy ass out thur,” Trav slurs, his alcohol-laced breath rushing
toward me in a cloud as he slinks down into the booth next to me. Leopard Shoe
Girl collapses onto his lap, her ivory arms draped around his neck and her head
rolling side to side, swaying drunkenly to the music.

“I’m fine,” I reply as I twist the stem to the
cherry from my Shirley Temple between my fingers. “Go have fun. Let me know
when you’re ready to head out and I’ll get the truck.”

Trav shoots me an over-exaggerated grin that
belongs on the face of a cartoon character and tumbles onto the dance floor
again, his hands hooked around the girl’s waist like they’re forming some
train. I lose them in the mob of club-goers and return my gaze to my stem
knotting instead.

We’ve been here for about an hour and I’ve
taken up residence in this dark booth at the back of the club for the entire
time. Every once in a while Trav will check back in with me, bearing some sort
of non-alcoholic gift as my payment for being his driver, and then he’ll slide
back out into the gyrating mass of twenty-somethings for several more tracks.

Cora and I have been texting, which helps pass
the time and helps me keep my eyes focused on the screen in my hand rather than
on the man of the hour. Everyone seems to want Ran’s attention, especially the
girls dressed in the sort of attire that indicates their only motive for
wearing it was to get noticed. And I’m fairly sure getting noticed by someone
like Ran ranks pretty high, because there’s been a constant line of scantily
clad coeds shadowing him all night. There has yet to be a song where Ran hasn’t
had one—or two—girls pressed up to him like they’re an article of
his clothing rather than a separate human being. It would be nauseating to
watch even if it wasn’t Ran they were pushed up against. I’ve been working hard
at choking down the bile that’s crept up my throat all night, so the constant
flow of drinks from Trav has been a welcome, and necessary, gesture.

My phone buzzes across the tabletop.

Cora: Stop sitting there.

Me: How do you know I’m sitting?

Cora: Because
you’re wallowing, and when you wallow, you sit. How many wallowers do you know
that dance their ass off?

Me: I’m dancing right now.

Cora:
Bull. You can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time. Texting and dancing
would be like solving the rubix cube while climbing Mount Everest for you.

Me: Sorry. Currently dancing, no time to chat.