Chapter One
I stared at my own phone, unsure if I should just call Tessa back immediately on my cell phone. She'd probably never know, unless her work had caller ID and she had my cell phone memorized. However, I had heard the warning, the fear in her voice.
“He's probably monitoring your communication. He wouldn't stop at your phone, he'd probably spy on your computer as well,” she had said.
The thought was borderline silly. If it had been anyone other than James, I would have thought that she was being paranoid. However, it was James. Even if he wasn't an expert at communications technology, he was a billionaire, and had access to all the resources that that entailed. It would probably be trivial for him to hire a private investigator to keep me under tabs.
Why would he do that, though? That question was kind of unimportant, though. I already had some evidence that he was monitoring the communications we sent in some way.
“You weren't answering your phone or reading your emails,” he had said. He specifically mentioned that I hadn't read the emails, when he could have just said that I wasn't answering my phone or emails. At the time I had blown it off as fairly harmless, and had also figured that it was the worst that he was doing. I wasn't so sure now.
I slipped on some flip flops and grabbed my room key. Sometimes I would just leave the door open when I left if Nicole was there, but she was out partying or something tonight. I was glad that she hadn't heard me mention James' name on the phone. Ever since their night dancing, I had been more and more worried that Nicole had been keeping in contact with him. If James ever came back to New York, I'd have to make sure that she didn't get anywhere near him.
The front room of the dorm was a common area with a ping pong table, some tables and chairs, and a TV. It was the only area of the dorm where boys were allowed without an escort, which made James barging into my room two weeks ago that much more baffling.
I looked around for a pay phone. This building was built more than thirty years ago, and should have had some sort of public land line. I didn't see any, though.
I walked up to the receptionist. “Hi there,” I said.
The bored-looking resident assistant barely looked up from her homework. They were all required to put in rotations at the front desk in exchange for free room and board, but none of them seemed to enjoy the job all that much. I didn't really blame them, they either had to be the bad guy to a lot of people or get fired from their job. “Can I help you?”
“Do you know where a pay phone is?” I asked.
You would have thought that I asked where the nearest cobbler was. “A pay phone?” she asked in a tone that told me that she had no idea.
“Yeah, a pay phone. I need one.”
With her eyelids half closed, she shook her head, then turned back to her homework. I sighed, then looked outside. The New York winter was no joke, and on top of not bringing my coat, I just had on yoga shorts. I looked around, and I must have looked desperate, because the R.A. spoke up again. “You can use the office phone if its an emergency.”
My faith in humanity was restored. I nodded quickly and she opened the office door for me. “It's just back there,” she said, pointing to a closet in the back with a desk and chair. I thanked her then quickly went to the phone while she went back to her homework. I dialed the number, and Tessa picked up halfway through the first ring.
“Are you on a pay phone?” she asked, sounding even more worried than before.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked.
“We don't get too many business calls from the 212 area code,” she said. So she did have caller ID. I would have felt really awkward if I had tried to pass off a cell phone call as my own.
“Then, no, not quite anyway. I'm on the office phone for my dorm.”
“Mmm,” I heard her say. “I do kind of doubt that James has that phone bugged. He does have some limitations.”
“Of course he has limitations,” I said. “What's this all about?”
“You said that you and James had a conversation and that you were going to fly out to Boston to see him. What did you guys talk about?”
I bit my lip. I couldn't tell her everything, could I? I had promised James that I wouldn't, but Tessa was my best friend. Then again, he had specifically mentioned Tessa by name as a person that I couldn't tell. I had been surprised that James had even known her name.
“We talked about... the kiss.” I couldn't avoid that topic at least, I had told her that before I had even left Springfield.
“And...” she said.
“And about how we needed to get it out of our system.”
“So, you're going to Boston to get more 'out of your system'?”