Dirty Little Secrets (Dirty Little Secrets #1) (7 page)

I sigh, running my hands across his abs. He’s so beautiful, and it’s just unfair. “You eat like that, and look like this.”
 

After he kisses me, he says, “I can always work it off later.”
 

In a corner of the busy diner, Caleb and I sit across from each other at a cozy little booth. Caleb’s legs are so long that our legs are tangled up together, and after spending hours wrapped around each other last night, neither one of us bothers to move. I don’t know how Caleb feels about it, but it’s nice to keep the connection here in public.
 

Yet again I’m reminded that this thing is moving way too fast, but—and I know this is incredibly short-sighted and stupid—I don’t want to stop it.

“I have to ask you a question,” Caleb says, swiping a fry through a puddle of ketchup that’s in the middle of the plate we’re both sharing.

My heartbeat picks up, and I tamp down the panic that is threatening to rise. “Okay.”
 

“The bag you carry everywhere…”
 

My breath catches. “Yeah?”
 

“Do you carry it with you
everywhere
, or is it just because you’re in a new place?” He’s got this charmed smile on his face, so I know that I’m not being interrogated, but at least now I know that he has actually noticed the bag. Not that it’s a difficult thing to notice, considering I’ve had it with me every time I’ve seen him. I had just hoped he hadn’t been paying attention to it.
 

I look down at the bag, where it’s sitting on the floor beside my feet. Its handles are wrapped round my ankle again, even though the booth we’re sitting in is adjacent to a wall. No one can reach over and take it from me without crawling under the table first, but still…I feel safer with it like this.
 

“It’s because I’m in a new place. My livelihood is in this bag, so are all the things that I brought with me,” I tell him. It’s a vague explanation, but definitely not a lie. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving it in the hotel when I’m not there.”
 

“And you feel comfortable carrying it around the streets of New York?” he asks, quirking his eyebrow at me as he steals another fry.
 

I want to tell him that I feel safe as long as it’s with me, because if I have to run, I won’t have to worry about leaving anything behind if all I’ve got is with me. Instead, I say, “I’ll stop doing it once I’m settled in somewhere.”
 

“You could’ve left it at my apartment,” he says.

I look down at my plate, at the half-finished bacon and eggs. “I wasn’t sure I’d be going back there.”
 

After the words are out, I look up at Caleb, and catch the moment his entire expression changes. He was all teasing and light a minute ago, but now he just seems crestfallen. He schools the look quickly, but still…I saw it there.

“Oh,” he says.

“What I mean is that I wasn’t sure you’d invite me back after this, and I didn’t want to assume anything in case this was, like, the
end
of things.” I’m rambling, and I really don’t want to make a big fool of myself here, but I can’t seem to help it.

“Mia,” Caleb sighs. He’s got this soft look in his eyes as he reaches across the table and takes my hand, and my frazzled, overworked nerves calm instantly.
 

“I don’t know what’s going on here, I’ll be honest with you. But I do know that I want to see you again. This isn’t the end of things.”
 

“Okay.” I smile.

“Yeah?” he asks, smiling too.
 

“Yeah.”

Our hands are still entwined, so he brings mine up to his lips and kisses my knuckles. I feel the blush creeping up my cheeks, because he manages to make this feel intimate and romantic, even though we’re in the middle of a diner.
 

When he reaches for another fry, I say, “I might have to take that back if you don’t leave any for me.”
 

Just to be cocky, he takes another one. “You wouldn’t dare.”
 

* * * * *

In what is the first extended awkward moment since we met, Caleb and I stand outside of the diner, facing each other. I know I’m definitely trying to figure out what to say to him, and it seems like he’s busy figuring out how to broach the subject of what to do next. I want to go back to his apartment with him, no doubt about it. But what I need to do is go and check into the hotel I was going to check into last night. I want to run another search on Privya, and I don’t think I could manage that at Caleb’s without him asking me questions.
 

“Would you like to come back to my apartment with me?” “I think I should go back to my hotel.”
 

We both speak at the same time, and we both look at each other with wide eyes once we’re through, and oh, his face. I reach up and quickly cup his cheek. After the conversation we had over brunch about this being just the beginning of things between us, I don’t want him thinking that we’re not on the same page.
 

“I do want to go back to your apartment,” I tell him quickly. “It’s just that…”
 

I need a moment to consider how I want to go about saying what I need to say next.
 

“Just that what?” Caleb asks impatiently.

I swallow. I shouldn’t say it, but I’m going to.
 

“I’m worried that the more time I spend with you, the more difficult it will be for me to leave.”
 

His eyebrows scrunch together. “Where are you going?”
 

I didn’t mean to come off like I’m leaving forever, but I guess honesty sneaks out in the places you least expect it to. “Nowhere, just…I meant leave you, leave your apartment. I’ll want to stay all the time, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing. We
just
met.”
 

“I know,” he says, laughing. “But it seems like it’s been longer than two days.”
 

“It does,” I reply. This is the kind of thing that happens in movies, isn’t it? Arriving in a new place and getting swept off their feet. Now I understand the stories I’ve heard about two people meeting each other in a romantic city, and coming home married after only knowing each other for a couple of weeks. Not that things are going to go that way with Caleb and me.

He kisses me, and wraps his arm around my waist.
 

“At least let me drive you and your bag back to your hotel,” he says with a cute little smile.
 

“Okay.”
 

* * * * *

The same driver who brought us to Caleb’s apartment from the bar is driving us back to my hotel. Caleb and I are quiet for most of the ride. I’m nervous, because I lied to Caleb about which hotel I’m staying in. I’m sure I’ll wind up regretting that decision at some point, but what’s done is done. I remember Caleb telling me about his friend Oliver, who is in the hotel business. Since Caleb did some consulting work for Oliver, I’m sure he’s familiar with the hotels in the city, and I don’t want him to know that I’m staying in one of the cheaper ones in Manhattan.
 

It’s the kind of place where the bed will take up the majority of the available square footage, and I’ll have to share a bathroom with a few rooms on the same floor. I figured that if I told Caleb about it, he’d either a: want me to stay with him, or b: insisted that I get a room at another establishment. I can’t afford anything else, and I don’t want him paying for me, so lying was the only thing I could think to do.
 

When the car comes to a stop about five blocks away from the hotel I’m actually going to check into, Caleb says, “Let me walk you up.”
 

“No!” I reply, too loudly. Too quickly. “If you come up, I’ll want you to stay. Let’s just say goodbye here?”

Caleb gives me an indulgent smile. “That worried you won’t be able to resist my charms?”
 

He leans in close, and kisses the breath right out of me. It’s a kiss that makes me rethink my decision to get out of this car.
 

“When can I see you again?” he asks, his green eyes half-lidded with desire.
 

“When do you want to see me again?”
 

“Right now,” he says, leaning in and pressing a kiss against my neck. “Don’t leave. Come home with me.”
 

“Caleb…” I intend for it to be a warning, but his name comes out more like a plea.
 

“Okay, okay,” he relents. “Tomorrow?”
 

Way back in the corner of my mind, I hear my grandmother’s voice telling me not to be too available for a man, but I just don’t care. I don’t know how much time I have left here. How much time I have left at all, really. I want to spend time with Caleb while I can.
 

“Tomorrow sounds good,” I say, smiling. How will I even wait that long?

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, handing it to me. “Give me your number?”
 

I bite my lip, and input the number to the untraceable phone I have with me, since it’s the only one I’ve got with me, and it would be stupid to give him my real number anyway. I don’t even dare turn that phone on.
 

When I hand the phone back to him, he presses on the screen, and then my phone starts ringing.
 

I laugh. “What are you doing?”
 

“Just checking.”
 

Something in my heart sinks knowing that he thought—for even one second—that I might have given him a fake number. “Caleb,” I say, reaching out and sliding my hand across his cheek. He leans into it, like a puppy. “I’m not going to blow you off.”
 

He nods, then kisses me. “I’ll call you, okay?”
 

“I can’t wait.”
 

I reluctantly get out of the car, and I can feel his eyes on me as I make my way toward the doors of the hotel that I’m totally lying about staying in. I slip inside and grab a pamphlet from the concierge, pretending like I’m thinking about making a reservation, or booking a party. I slip it into the side pocket on my bag, because I need to remember the name of this place. When or if Caleb asks about it, I can’t slip up.
 

I shake my head. I’ve never been a liar, and now I’m a liar and a thief. Luckily, I don’t have much time to devote to think about that right now. When I’m certain that Caleb’s car is long gone, I exit the hotel, and head toward the place I’m really staying tonight.
 

“How’s your mom? I ask Marcus, speaking in a voice that’s as quiet as I can manage. I’ve been in this hotel for nearly a week now, and it’s driving me insane. The walls are paper thin, and I’m worried someone will hear me. Not that any of them would care about who I’m talking to or what I’m talking about, but I can’t be too careful. With my luck, the one time I raised my voice on the phone with Marcus, Andre Privya would be walking by my door.
 

“She’s good. Doing better. Her new doctor is amazing.”
 

I smile. “I’m glad to hear it,” I tell him. No matter how I feel about the current state of my life, at least I know it wasn’t for nothing.
 

“How are things with you?”
 

I consider the question. How are things with me? Apart from the whole hiding from a hitman thing, things are great. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Caleb, and it’s wonderful. When I’m with him, I can almost believe that everything is going to be okay. I can almost believe that I could start a new life here, safely, and just forget about my old one and everything that goes along with it.
 

“I’m doing well,” I tell him, and I’m surprised to realize that it’s actually the truth.

I can hear the screen door on the back porch of Marcus’s apartment creaking open or shut, I can’t tell. I close my eyes, remembering all the time I spent on that porch: me talking him down whenever he broke up with a guy, him convincing me that the guy I was dating wasn’t good enough for me. He lives a block away from a pizza shop, and the air always smelled like freshly baked bread and warm, melting cheese. I feel a pang of homesickness just thinking about it.
 

“No sign of him?” he asks cryptically.
 

I shake my head, even though I know he can’t see me. “No. Still in Chicago, from what I can tell.”
 

“You’re not alone, are you? Where you are? Do you…is there someone you can talk to?”
 

“Yeah,” I say with a soft smile, thinking of Caleb. “I have someone to talk to. I’m not alone.”
 

Marcus knows me better than pretty much anyone else in the world, so I’m not surprised when he follows up with, “You met a guy, didn’t you?”
 

I laugh. “Maybe.”
 

“You did,” he says accusingly, even though I can hear the laughter in his voice. “You met a guy. Tell me about it.”
 

I bite my lip, then say, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
 

“Yeah. Okay, yeah. I understand.”
 

I hate this distance. I hate that I can’t tell Marcus where I am, or what I’m doing. I know he’s frustrated by the limitations of our phone calls, and being careful not to give away too much on the off chance that someone is listening. I’m sure he feels no small measure of guilt, since his mother is the reason I set this whole plan into motion. She and Marcus are the ones who are benefiting from this, and I know he feels guilty. He’s been my best friend for years, and we’ve been together through so much: my mom dying, the explosion that killed my father and nearly killed his mom, and now the aftermath of it. Everything is so strained now, and maybe this is how it’ll always be. Maybe the weight of what I’ve done for him and his mom will always hang heavily around our necks, and nothing will ever be the same again.
 

“Do you think I could just stay?” I ask, because I’m feeling a rare, shining moment of hope that everything will work out for me. “Do you think I could just hide here forever, and start a new life? Do you think he’d get frustrated with looking, and I could just…move on?”