Textual Confusion

21. Where are you?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

WHERE ARE YOU?

When Asher woke up from his nap, it was dark. Mind still groggy with sleep, he was confused why the mattress he was lying on was so hard and uncomfortable. It felt nothing at all like the soft cloud he’d grown used to sleeping on ever since Markus had bought him that ridiculous(ly comfortable) mattress.

Asher sniffed the air. And why did it smell like weed?

Reaching blindly into the dark until his hand connected with a nearby nightstand, Asher flicked on a lamp. He took in the unfamiliar surroundings – brown walls, a beige carpet, an old-fashioned TV box – and felt a jolt of alarm.

What the heck?

Then his sleep-heavy thoughts cleared, and it all came flooding back to him. Asher remembered everything.

His mother’s impromptu visit. Danny’s promotion. Fighting with Sasha at The Pink Pony. The sudden decision he’d made to cut himself out of everyone’s lives. The trip to the bank and sneaking his way inside Markus’s penthouse to return his things.

The goodbye text he’d sent the man.

Fuck.

What had he done?

Asher was slammed with such crippling regret that he almost couldn’t breathe through it. Panic made it hard for his lungs to expand, and he couldn’t help but think he’d made a terrible mistake.

But after five minutes of clutching the bed sheets and forcing himself to just fucking breathe, dammit , he was able to push that thought out of his head. Or at least bury it under an avalanche of other thoughts.

“Useless, little faggot.”

“All you do is drag him down.”

Like the reminder that Markus and his friends were much better off without him.

Once the panic had mostly abated, Asher allowed himself to roll onto his back. He glanced at the digital clock stationed beside the lamp on the nightstand. The time – 11:27 PM – blinked back at him.

Apparently, he’d been so exhausted that he’d slept the entire evening away.

Markus’s flight back home must have landed hours ago. Asher tried his hardest not to think about the fact that the man had undoubtedly seen the text Asher had sent him by now. A declaration of love, apology, and goodbye all in one.

Asher could only imagine his reaction to receiving such a text. Confusion, no doubt. And a healthy dose of concern. Concern that would only grow when Asher refused to answer his calls or respond to his messages.

Stop it , Asher scolded himself.

Desperately needing to find something else to occupy his mind, he made himself get out of bed. After using the toilet, he caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror and flinched.

He looked like utter shit, and that was putting things lightly.

Despite sleeping the past eight or so hours away, there were dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes. He was cover in a layer of sweat, and his skin was a sickly shade of pale. Then there was his hair: disheveled in a distinctly unsexy way. And his clothes, wrinkled to hell and back from wearing them to bed – twice.

A shower and change of clothes would do him some good, but he hadn’t exactly thought this part of his plan through.

Checking into the motel had been a spur of the moment decision, and he hadn’t packed any extra clothes or toiletries. Hell, he didn’t even have a toothbrush. (Which would come in handy right about now, considering his teeth felt fuzzy against his tongue, and he had a feeling his breath smelled like something had crawled into his mouth and died whilst he slept.)

Still, it was an easy enough problem to solve. Having vaguely recalled passing a 7-Eleven on his way to the motel, Asher slipped on his shoes before stepping outside.

It was dark and a few questionable-looking people were huddled on the sidewalk across the street, but the store was only a few blocks away.

It was an uneventful trip. Asher bought a few toiletries – including a cheap toothbrush – and an armful of snacks before making his way back to his motel room.

When he returned, he dropped his loot onto the bed before taking a nice, long shower. Well, it was long, anyway.

The water pressure was even worse than at his apartment, and it only stayed hot for a couple of minutes. Asher couldn’t help but compare it to the bathroom amenities at Markus’s place. His showerhead had a dozen different settings, and it never ran out of hot water. Plus, he had a ginormous bathtub – with jets.

His towels are softer, too , his brain pointed out when he finally got out of the shower and toweled himself dry.

Asher hadn’t been able to find any clothes at the 7-Eleven, so he forced himself to put back on the wrinkled ones from the day before – though he left his jeans pooled on the bathroom floor. If you were at Markus’s place, he’d just give you some of his clothes to wear.

The distinct smell of pot once again assaulted him when he stepped out of the bathroom. Markus’s place smells like him: sandalwood and amber.

He flopped back on the bed, his eyes catching on a water stain on the ceiling. Markus doesn’t have stains on his ceiling.

“Oh my God, just shut up!” Asher exploded, shouting at himself like a crazy person. “We’re not going back to Markus. We’ll probably never see him again. So just… stop! ”

Desperate to dissociate from the never-ending thoughts of Markus this , and Markus that that were bombarding his useless, malfunctioning brain, Asher turned on the television. There weren’t many channels to choose from, and he eventually settled on one that was showing reruns of The Golden Girls .

He tried hard to immerse himself in Blanche’s fuckgirl antics and Dorothy’s sarcastic quips, but it wasn’t long before his eyes were straying from the screen, focusing instead on the phone sitting innocently on the nightstand, where he’d abandoned it before his shower.

He wondered how many calls and texts he’d missed.

No doubt Markus had seen the garbage bags Asher had left at his apartment by now. The huge wad of cash he’d emptied out of his checking account. The watch Asher hadn’t taken off since Markus had given it to him back in November.

He’d probably moved past concern to full blown panic by now. Knowing Markus, he had already checked Asher’s apartment and discovered he wasn’t there. His next step would be calling his friends and demanding to know where he was. But they didn’t know either.

Imagining them all freaking out over his whereabouts made Asher feel like a complete ass.

Maybe he should call one of them – or at least text – just to let them know he was alright.

No, a voice that sounded an awful lot like his mother’s argued. They’ll forget about you soon enough. After all, Danny has his promotion to worry about, and Sasha needs to focus on her art career. As for Markus… well, there were a million things (and people) he could distract himself with if he wanted. It won’t take them more than a couple of weeks to move on.

It felt like a lie, but eventually, Asher was able to tear his gaze away from his phone. He stared blankly at the TV for a while before deciding he might as well try to sleep. Sure, he’d only woken up a few hours ago, but it was night time.

Curling up into a ball on his side, Asher closed his eyes.

Unfortunately, it was a lot harder to sink into unconsciousness this time around. It seemed like every time Asher managed to drift off, he’d jerk back awake.

Each time he woke up, he glanced at the clock. 1:58 AM, 2:34 AM, 4:15 AM. At 5:07 AM, he was jolted out of sleep by the sound of police sirens, the high-pitched wail easily discernible over the laugh track of the television, still playing in the background.

Asher blearily hoped there hadn’t been an accident.

He’d just about fallen back to sleep when a horrifying thought occurred to him and he shot up in bed.

What if, when he couldn’t find him, Markus called the police?

But I’m an adult , Asher rationalized. He was legally within in his rights to go wherever he wanted.

He comforted himself with the fact he was pretty sure you had to wait at least twenty-four hours before reporting someone missing.

But since when did something as frivolous as the law ever apply to someone as rich and powerful as Markus Kingston?

It was bad enough thinking that his friends might be wasting their time looking for him, wasting police resources was even worse.

With that thought in mind, Asher decided he had to at least let them know he was okay.

Stomach churning with guilt, he picked up and turned on his phone with fumbling fingers. As he waited for his screensaver to pop up, Asher braced himself to be bombarded with missed calls and texts.

Unless…

Yet another tummy turning thought occurred to him as he waited for his phone to boot up. What if there were no missed calls or text messages? What if Markus and his friends didn’t care he was gone? What if they were all secretly relieved to be rid of him? Asher didn’t really think that was true, but the thought hurt enough that by the time his screensaver appeared, there was what felt like a baseball of apprehension stuck in his throat.

But Asher needn’t have worried; not about that.

His phone buzzed incessantly as it was flooded with incoming messages. Placing the phone face down in front of him, Asher waited impatiently for it to stop buzzing.

It took a concerningly long time.

When it finally quieted, Asher hesitantly flipped it back around.

26 missed calls. 8 voicemails. 54 unread messages.

Asher’s stomach dropped.

As horrifying as the thought of his friends not caring was, the proof of their worry was somehow worse. Guilt knotted up his insides as he resisted the urge to read the messages or listen to the voicemails. He knew that doing either would only shatter his resolve.

Opening his list of contacts, Asher’s first instinct was to choose Sasha. But after remembering their fight, he figured Danny was the better option. (He refused to even look at Markus’s name, unsure if he could withstand the temptation to call the man.)

Opening his text history with Danny, Asher did his best to ignore the messages he’d missed from his friend and typed one of his own.

Danny

Markus is here. He says he can’t get ahold of you?

1 missed call

Why aren’t you answering your phone?

Where are you?

2 missed calls

Asher, what the fuck?

Sasha’s freaking out. She said you guys had an argument at the bar last night?

I swear to God, if you’ve done something dumb, I’m going to fucking kill you.

2 missed calls

If you don’t send proof of life within the next hour, so help me God.

I’m alive. Sorry for worrying everyone. I won’t be in contact for a while. I need space to work through some things… sorry again….

As soon as he saw that the message had been delivered, Asher shut his phone back off. He knew that if he kept it on, he’d give in to the temptation to read everything. He might even pick up if one of them called.

Asher knew if that happened, he’d break down and tell them everything, and this would all be for nothing.

Returning the phone back to its original spot on the nightstand, Asher closed his eyes. He was wide awake now, though, and sleep stayed stubbornly out of reach. Flipping onto his side, he eyed the stain on the carpet, theorizing how it could've gotten there in an attempt to dissociate.

He’d abandoned his first theory, which involved dumb teenagers and copious amounts of red wine, and was in the middle of imagining scenarios involving a serial killer who prayed on unsuspecting guests of the motel when-

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three sharp raps on the door jerked Asher from his morbid thoughts. He glanced at the clock. 7:05 AM.

A bit early for the maid to come by, wasn’t it? Not to mention the fact he could vaguely recall hanging a do not disturb sign on the knob.

He waited impatiently for whoever it was to go away.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

But they were persistent, apparently.

Asher sat up in bed. “I’m not decent!” he called. “Come back later.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The knocks only grew louder and more insistent. Borderline aggressive, really, like whoever was doing the knocking was angry. Maybe he was right about that serial killer, and he was returning to claim another victim.

Asher might have felt fearful if he wasn’t so annoyed.

“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered before scooting off the bed in order to answer the door. He didn’t even care that he wasn’t wearing pants. Unlocking the bolt, he grabbed the knob and swung the door open, prepared to tell the maid to come back later as politely as could considering his agitated state. Or get hacked to death by a crazy person. Whatever. “I’m a little busy-” he started.

But the words died on tongue.

Because it wasn’t a maid at the door. Or even a serial killer hellbent on committing murder. Of course not.

It was worse.

It was Markus.