Flirt (9 page)

Her heart beat rapidly in her chest. “Did you wait for me? I can find my way back down the hall.” Chloe was taken aback, and the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end.

“I was just coming to see if you were all right. You were taking a long time.”

Chloe’s heart was racing. He smiled at her, and it put her slightly at ease. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was strange. They headed back to the kitchen, where Trey had dinner laid out on the table. An old Roberta Flack tune played softly from his old radio.

“I’m an old soul,” he explained.

“I see that! No cable, VHS tapes, a radio from the sixties.”

They both laughed about it.

“Seems like you’re stuck in your father’s era,” she joked. As soon as she said it, she thought she saw a flash of anger in his eyes, and he immediately stopped chewing.

“I’m nothing like my father,” he said flatly, never taking his piercing eyes off her.

Chloe got chills and felt goosebumps while Trey stared at
her so coldly. She thought back to what Willow had said about seeing Trey on the boat a few months ago. Willow had described a cold stare—just like the one Trey was giving her now. She cleared her throat. “My bad. I didn’t mean to hit a nerve.”

Trey said nothing and instead kept right on eating.

Chloe ate in silence for a few minutes, then took a sip of her wine. “How come you never want to talk about your family, Trey?” she asked.

He still kept eating, and for a minute, Chloe wondered if he’d heard her. But Trey had heard her loud and clear. He was recalling his father, the tyrant. Thought about the way his pop’s fists felt all the times they had come in contact with his face and his ribs. Trey thought about his father’s drunken and violent outbursts, how he’d beaten Trey until he cried out in terror. Beaten his mother, too, until she couldn’t take it anymore.

Silence cloaked them again, and Chloe was on edge. Trey seemed kinda moody this evening. She tried to break the ice again. “Did you hear what I said?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I heard what you said. I thought tonight was supposed to be special,” he snapped. “Who wants to spend it talking about my family?” He shot her a look that told her to drop the subject, and she did.

“Okay,” she said, confused by his sudden mood swing. “So, anyway, let’s start over. First of all, I’m sorry I was a little late tonight,” she offered. “I couldn’t figure out what to wear.”

Trey cleared his throat, tried to shake off the memories flooding his thoughts. “You should have worn the sweater I bought you.”

Chloe noticed that instead of complimenting the bosom-baring dress she had on, he was almost complaining that she didn’t wear that plain, unflattering thing she had already given to her sister. “Don’t I look nice in this?” she asked.

Ignoring the question, he pointed at her plate and asked, “Are you done?”

She wiped her mouth with her napkin, pushed her plate away, and nodded. He took her plate and his and headed toward the sink. Chloe sat there, confused.
Who gives a shit about that ugly sweater?
She wondered what the fuck Trey’s problem was tonight. He wasn’t being himself. In fact, she’d noticed that over the past several weeks, he had seemed moodier than usual. She had attributed it to fatigue, figuring Trey had been putting in long hours or something. But today was his day off. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Trey returned with a pint of ice cream and two spoons.

“Chunky Monkey!” she yelled. “It’s my favorite!” All was forgiven.

He smiled. Finally, the ice was broken.

“Oh my God! I love Chunky Monkey. I used to buy a pint every Friday after my anthropology class as a reward for staying awake. The bodega near my school keeps it stocked for me.”

Trey smiled knowingly, scooped some out, and fed it to her. Finally, a romantic moment. They kissed, softly at first, and then with an intensity that made her tiny panties wet with anticipation. Playfully, they enjoyed the ice cream until they got so caught up in their foreplay that the Chunky Monkey began
to melt. Trey stood up, took her by the hand, and led her down the now dark hallway to a door that had been shut since she arrived. Stepping inside his bedroom, she looked around. She noticed that he had nothing in there but a dresser, a bed, and a camera lying on its side.

Before she could ask about the camera, he pulled her close to him and peeled her out of the dress she wore. He sat on the bed, and she straddled him as Trey kissed her neck and stroked her full breasts. Chloe purred and clung to him. His hands explored her body, caressing her nipples, her back, her ass, and her juicy thighs. Chloe moaned softly, eager to feel him. He touched her perfectly shaved pussy, fingered her, and felt her wetness. He could barely contain himself. Just as she reached to undo his belt buckle, he ejaculated and was visibly embarrassed by it.

Shocked, she laughed and said, “Damn! You got too excited and came all over yourself.” She laughed at the endearing situation, but Trey was sure she was humiliating him.

Trey snapped. It was her fault he couldn’t help but bust so soon. If she hadn’t been fucking teasing him for months, he wouldn’t have done that. He pushed her off him. She tumbled to the floor hard and was instantly pissed.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she demanded as she scrambled to her feet.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“You’re bugging.” Chloe put her panties back on and looked around for her dress.

Trey looked at Chloe and tried to calm down. He was enraged,
embarrassed, and wanted to slap the shit out of her. True, he had stopped taking his medication for the past several weeks. But he felt fine. Chloe was the one overreacting.

“Why you acting different all of a sudden?” he asked.

Chloe couldn’t believe her ears. “
I’m
acting different? You’ve been acting funny all night.”

He shook his head. “You act like your sister, that stuck-up bitch.”

Chloe turned and glared at him. “Don’t ever call my fucking sister a bitch!”

“I didn’t know you were one of those chicks that thinks a guy’s supposed to cater to them all the time. I thought you were different.”

Chloe was astounded. “Tell me how tonight going wrong is my fault.”

“You laughed at me. And you made fun of the way I live, the things I have.” Trey was especially pissed because the reason he had so few material things was because he kept lavishing Chloe with gifts. In truth, Trey had been spending most of his disposable income on Chloe.

“I’m just saying, Trey. I thought you was balling. And I only laughed so I wouldn’t make you feel bad about coming before we even got it popping.” Now she was beginning to see that Trey was just a lame in a baller’s costume. And with the blinders finally removed, she immediately thought about Willow. Her sister had warned Chloe all along that Trey wasn’t who she thought he was. Chloe made a mental note to tell her little sister she’d been right.

Trey clenched his jaw. “So, what, you feel sorry for me now?” He bit his lower lip.

Chloe finally located her dress and picked it up before turning back to face him. “Shouldn’t I?” she asked sarcastically.

She looked at him, and the fury in her eyes quickly turned to fear as she caught the crazed expression on Trey’s face. She was in trouble. He looked like a madman—so much so that she almost didn’t recognize him. She turned around, grabbed her shoes off the floor, and made a beeline for the bedroom door.

Trey’s mind flashed in and out of the present moment. Chloe was leaving. Just like his mother leaving him all over again. He saw his mother walking out the door when he was just ten years old, saw her leaving him behind with that monster of a father. He snapped. Trey snatched Chloe by the hair, pulling her roughly back inside the bedroom. Chloe screamed, and he slapped her to shut her up.

“You fuckin’ nut!” she yelled, laughing nervously and fighting to get out of his grasp.

That only added fuel to the fire. He punched her in the mouth, silencing her immediately. She scratched him and punched him back, which only made him even angrier. Again and again, he punched her in the face, slammed her head against the cold hard floor, and pummeled her mercilessly.

He saw his mother abandoning him and heard her laughing at him, laughing at what he’d had to endure because of her. When she left him, a mere child, his father had taken his rage out on Trey. Day after day, he’d beaten him, and Trey beat Chloe the way he’d been beaten—no, worse. He pounded her so
savagely that her face—the face that had reminded him of his mother’s face so many times—was disfigured. Now he was blinded by pure fury as he beat her the way a man would beat the crap out of another guy. He punched her until she lay motionless on the floor.

O
ut of breath and covered in Chloe’s blood, Trey paced the room. He felt like a ten-year-old boy all over again. He recalled the way his father used to beat him and his mother until they begged for mercy. He could hear his own cries in his head; he relived the terror.

Pacing back and forth, Trey began to cry, just as he had as a child. He thought about how he and his mother had clung to each other for support during those violent times. It hadn’t taken much to set his alcoholic father off. And during those tirades, there was no telling how far it would go. Trey and his mother had suffered countless bruises, broken bones, and black
eyes over the years. And when his mother couldn’t take any more, she left. She walked out one day, telling Trey and his dad that she was going to the store. She never came back. Trey’s dad had been furious, searching for her for days and taking his frustration out on his son each night.

From that moment on, he’d hated his mother—although part of him still loved her for the bond they’d formed during their shared terror. Chloe reminded him of that. She had reminded him of the love he felt for his mother—he loved Chloe the same way. Chloe, who had tried to leave him. In and out of the present reality, Trey sobbed, his mind playing horrible tricks on him.

He remembered the time when he was thirteen and his father had beaten him until he was unconscious. After that beating, Trey had finally gotten the courage to speak up and had told his story to a teacher at school. They’d removed him from his father’s custody and placed Trey into foster care. But the damage had already been done. Trey inherited a violent streak that surfaced whenever the women in his life tried to leave him. When they left him, he saw his mother walking out the door. When women hurt him, he became the monster that was his father, beating them until they begged him to stop. But Chloe hadn’t begged him. She had just cried and tried to fend off his blows. She even had the nerve to try to fight back.

He looked down at Chloe’s motionless body and realized that this time it had gone too far. He sat down on the bed, weeping over what he’d done and knowing that he was in serious trouble now. He hadn’t meant to hurt Chloe. But it was too
late. He thought about her face and how she had reminded him so much of his mother. They resembled each other a lot, and he had often caught himself staring at her for that reason. Her face was unrecognizable now. And he cried even harder.

He had lied to her about being a college student. On the day they met, Trey had actually been going to see his psychologist as part of his therapy for his issues with women. But from the moment he’d laid eyes on Chloe, he had fallen for her. She was everything he wanted in a woman, and he stopped seeing his psychologist and stopped taking his antidepressants. Instead, he spent his days following Chloe, even videotaping her at times. That was the reason for the countless VHS tapes in his living room, and by following her, he’d learned about her relationship with Jason, her love of shopping, and her affinity for things like Chunky Monkey ice cream. Chloe had become his obsession.

He’d followed Jason after the last time Chloe had left the man’s basement apartment. Trey knew Chloe had spent hours at a time fucking Jason behind his back. He had to get rid of the competition. So he had stalked Jason, waited until he caught his rival alone, leaving the corner store late one morning. Then he shot him in the back of his head and dumped his body in the woods. Chloe had grieved for the son of a bitch, not knowing that Trey, the man whose arms she cried in, was the man who’d murdered her friend. Trey had watched her cry for him, had wiped her tears, and even gone to the fucking funeral with her. And this bitch had just tried to
leave him
. She had laughed at
him. Trey wiped tears from his face, the sorrow over what he’d done now replaced with pure rage once again.

He scrolled through his cell phone until he found Mom—that’s how he had saved his psychologist’s number in his phone, since his mother was the reason Trey gave for his violent tendencies toward women. Trey got the counselor’s voice mail. It was one o’clock in the morning and, as expected, she didn’t answer, so he left a message.

“Dr. Hollister, this is Trey Gilmore. I know I haven’t been coming to see you like I was supposed to. But I’ll be there tomorrow morning. I had another setback. Bye.”

He cleaned the bloody scene and wrapped up Chloe’s body in an area rug. The whole time, he repeated the same twisted phrase again and again: “She deserved it. The bitch deserved it.”

Trey carried her down to his car in the underground parking garage and loaded her heavy body into the trunk, carefully ensuring that no one saw him. It was late, and he hoped everyone in his building was asleep. Once he got her in the car, he drove down to an empty pier near the ferry terminal. Careful not to be seen by any of the dockworkers, Trey opened the trunk so that he could tie the ropes tighter around the rug Chloe’s body was wrapped in. But just as he opened the trunk, a car passed and he panicked. Shutting the trunk quickly, he waited until the car was out of sight.

Once it was gone, he dragged her to the water’s edge and dropped her in. He ran back to his car and peeled off before anyone else saw him.

As Trey headed home, the rug around Chloe’s body unraveled in the water. She floated to the surface just as he got home to finish the clean-up. For the rest of the night, he sat in his living room, watching the surveillance videotapes he’d made of her. She never knew that he had been there, watching her in the shadows from the moment they met.