13

“You have to go to the police,” CiCi hisses as she helps me sort through yet another storage unit. “This is extortion!”

I fling a trash bag full of moth-eaten old blankets into Brutus. “I’m going to choke to death on the irony of what you just said.”

“I’m serious!” she says, separating usable clothes from trash. “What if he’s some murdering rapist celebrity guy? That can happen!”

I straighten up and glare at her. “Why? Why would you say that, CiCi?” Brushing my hands off on my jeans, I try to catch my breath a bit. “I don’t think he’s a legitimate danger. I just think he’s pissed at me and finds the prospect of humiliating me to be hilarious. And what would I even tell the cops? That I’m being blackmailed by the guy I seriously considered blackmailing first?”

For the first time since this whole fiasco started, CiCi looks defeated. She sits down on the edge of an ancient plastic storage container, and her shoulders slump. “This is all my fault.”

I sigh. “I went along with all of it. And I’m the one who made that stupid phone call.” The memory of my slurring, drunken voice stumbles through the recesses of my mind, and I shudder.

“So what happens now?” she asks, waving her hands around helplessly. “When do you have to...?” A strange expression crosses her face. “Oh my god, I just realized you’re his escort. Clara, he’s making you be an escort!”

I throw a moldy pillow at her as hard as I can. “I am not!”

“I don’t mean in a sex way!” CiCi picks up the pillow and walks it over to Brutus, deep in thought. “But that’s actually what a lot of escorts do. They just act as companionship for people who are lonely, or who need dates to things.” She flings the pillow into the bed of Brutus and looks irritatingly impressed. “You know, as far as revenge goes, that’s actually pretty genius.”

I squint thoughtfully. “Huh.” Not wanting to give him any more credit, I carry on. “Anyway, I think I’m just sort of on call for the next two weeks? He beckons, I go meet him, that sort of thing.”

CiCi snorts. “You’re his on-call girl.”

I raise an eyebrow at her. “You’re better than that.”

“Yeah, that was low-hanging fruit,” she admits as she grabs a box of holey blankets to lug to the truck. “So he can’t give you any kind of schedule?”

I shrug. “I’m sure he could, but that would be playing fair. Where’s the fun in that?”

“At least he said he’d pay for everything, right?”

A flash of rage rushes through me, and I throw an old coffee can full of rusty nails into the pile. “Yes, ugh. I hate this. I don’t want to accept anything from him.”

“Well, I say you turn the game on him and have some fun with it yourself! Order the lobster! Tell him you need a fancy new dress for the premiere!” CiCi suggests excitedly.

“Not a chance. Captain Cheekbones can deal with me wearing whatever is left in my suitcases to his douchey premiere.”

I take a breath and check my email on my phone. Good Lord, there’s at least ten new emails from my mom. If I’m not careful, I’ll open Tom’s front door one day to see Mom standing there with a roll of duct tape and a detailed plan to drag me back to Buffalo. I fire back a quick reply.

I scroll through the dozens of acquaintances who suddenly find me much more interesting now that I’m “dating” a movie star, and grumble to myself.

“Are you growling at your phone?” CiCi asks, holding up a men’s flannel shirt to check for holes. “Because when my great-uncle started doing that to his TV remote, we had to put him in a home.”

“I can’t get away from Tiddleswich,” I say, exasperated. “A week ago I barely even knew who he was. Now my entire life is all the Tiddles, all the time.”

“Did you really say his name sounded like an ass squeak on that voice mail?”

“I stand by that assessment,” I tell her, still scrolling through emails on my phone. She giggles and starts pawing through a box of ancient romance novels.

My inbox is a nightmare. I don’t even know how to respond to most of these. I can’t be honest and quell the curiosity by responding with short and sweet summaries of the lunacy that is my actual relationship with Caspian Tiddleswich. But writing back with anything playing into this comedy of errors feels gross in ways even the nastiest E-Z Storage units can’t make me feel.

I can’t delete them, I can’t archive them, and I can’t respond to them. This is breaking my decadelong streak of an orderly inbox and making my eye twitch.

Another thing I can add to the list of things to hate Caspian for, clearly.

A lone email that doesn’t have His Royal Tiddles as the subject line catches my eye. “Oh my god, CiCi!”

She abandons her dusty stack of bodice-rippers and comes running straight over. “What? What is it?”

I squeal and start bouncing in place. “McEnroe Publishing wants me to come in for an interview tomorrow at ten! Oh my god!”

She joins me in the squealing and bouncing. “Ooh, they’re a great house! That’s fantastic! You’d be so good there!” She grabs me in a rib-cracking hug, and we keep bouncing. “I knew things would start happening!”

I mentally tally the time needed to get to and from Manhattan and realize I’ll have to start my E-Z Storage cleanup in the afternoon in order to attend the interview. I’m supposed to meet Trina for dress fittings for the wedding after lunch, too. I’ll have to put in an extra burst of energy today to make up for the time I’ll be missing.

I send back a professional, yet enthusiastic, email to McEnroe and try to sound more like I’m just pleasantly looking forward to meeting with them, and less like I’m going to hump their legs with glee upon arrival.

As soon as I click Send, my phone starts ringing in my hand. The Tiddleswich calls. I whine before raising the phone to my ear. “What?”

“Good afternoon to you as well,” his outrageously English voice says.

“Pleasantries aren’t our thing. What do you want?”

“I need you in the city tonight for dinner. I’d like to meet at seven thirty to discuss a few things, and then I have a reservation set.”

I close my eyes and start counting to ten. I make it to four. Through clenched teeth, I ask, “And what kind of dinner is it? How am I expected to dress, Your Majesty?”

“I imagine clothing ought to suffice. I’ll text you the address.”

The line goes dead. I scream at the top of my lungs, causing CiCi to drop to the ground like an air strike is imminent.

“Too much time in the units getting you down?” Charlie’s voice comes from beside Brutus, and I scream again, albeit in a very different way, wheeling around to face him.

“Oh god, you scared me,” I pant. “No, I just... Um, bad phone call. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.”

“That’s not even close to the weirdest thing that happens in these units, so if it helps, holler away,” Charlie and his mustache say.

“Oh, this is my friend CiCi,” I say, pointing to my wide-eyed friend. She gives a stiff wave. “She’s been helping me out a bit. I hope that’s all right.”

“No skin off my nose.” He shrugs. “Just wanted to see how it’s going here.”

“I’ve only got six units left,” I say proudly. “That reminds me! I was going to call you this afternoon. We found a box of jewelry. I doubt it’s worth anything, but we don’t know how to tell what’s real and what’s fake. Thought you’d want to look.” I point to Brutus’s front seat, and Charlie reaches inside.

He pokes through the contents, opening up a few of the ring and necklace boxes, giving each piece a close eye. “I’d say these are probably worth something,” he says after a moment.

“Oh, cool,” CiCi says, her fear forgotten. “We found treasure. That’s awesome.”

“Anything in here you ladies want to keep for yerselves?”

I shake my head. “No, we couldn’t. But thank you.”

Charlie paws through the bounty again, taking out a purple velvet ring box and a long navy bracelet case. He flings the ring at me, and the bracelet at CiCi. “Finder’s fee,” he says with a smile. “You ladies have a good afternoon.” He picks up the rest of the jewelry, and a moment later, he and his mighty soup strainer are gone.

We wait until he’s out of earshot before we open the boxes. I look down to see a painfully gorgeous emerald ring with little diamonds scattered around the center gem. I gasp.

So does CiCi. I look over. She’s staring at a diamond tennis bracelet that, even with however long it’s been stuck in that box, is glittering like it’s been freshly polished.

“I like Charlie,” she says, eyes still huge. “Like, he’s my new favorite person.”

We carefully stow our goods in her purse and continue cleaning out the unit. This must be why Charlie is such a successful business owner. He certainly knows how to motivate an employee in just the right way.

I’m choosing to believe it’s that, and not that he was ever the Godfather or similar.

“Okay, Sweeping Beauty,” CiCi says around five. “We need to get this stuff put away. You should probably go home and get cleaned up before you go meet the evil Prince Charming.”

I squeeze my hands into fists. “Tell me it would be wrong to punch him.”

“I’ll do no such thing. But come on. I’ll drive Brutus.”