The Kissing Game by Marie Turner Read Free Book Online Page B

him, he smirks. “I can,
however, tell you what Todd and Henry would say.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing,” he chuckles. “They’d grab that envelope from you and
run like twelve-year old bandits down to the box. They’d fight to see who’d get
to put it in.”
    They would fight over it.
    “Anyway,” he continues. “It’d be an utter shame for my editing
skills to go to waste, seeing I did such a fabulous job. And besides, I think
you’re forgetting something important here. It’s not just you who Robert
makes miserable. Think of everyone else at the firm he tortures. All the
interns, the file clerks, the messengers. You wouldn’t just be doing something
for yourself. You’d be doing something for the good of mankind.”
    He has a point. I hadn’t thought about the other people.
    Rain spatters against his window. It sounds like bullets.
    “You’re right.” I study Cory’s face a moment. “I’m gonna do it. Right
now.” I slip on my raincoat and backpack, feeling as though I’m about to cross
a bridge, but it’s a rickety one over swollen waters.
    “Thanks,” I tell him.
    “Anytime, my little peanut. See you at lunchtime.” Then he swats me
away, the king on his throne of the Technology Department.
    With the envelope in hand, I take the elevator back down to the
lobby and then march toward the mailbox on the street corner. The light envelope
feels strangely heavy. As I trod, my coat is pelted with the torrent, which beats
the cars that swish by, pummels the blue awning of a bakery, and chokes the gutters
with swirling grey. A pigeon swoops down and lands on the dried patch of
concrete nearby.
    Reaching the box, I attempt to open the metal door, but it jams,
the hinge squeaking. When I finally get it open, I place my envelope inside but
hesitate. Looking into the little black hole, I listen as it drops inside with
a small thud.
    As I slog back toward the office in the downpour, I spot a familiar
tall figure loping out the lobby of the firm. Abruptly, I halt to watch him. Without
seeing me, he crosses the street. He’s wearing a dark grey raincoat over a
darker grey suit. The umbrella he’s carrying crowns his head in bright red.
Watching to see where he’s going, I shy under the awning of the bakery like a
stupid five-year-old. Several people walk past me giving me looks. But I don’t
care. I’m too busy watching him and feeling a scalping sensation in my stomach.
    He stops in the middle of the street, opens the passenger door of
a black town car, and just before he gets inside, he spots me standing there nearly
a block away from him. Pausing with one hand on the open door, he glares at me
as if I have a beam of light shining on my face. A cab pulls up behind him,
impatiently waiting for the town car to move. For a second, I think Robert
might whip out a massive silvery gun from his holster and shoot me. Of course,
he wouldn’t miss. His bullet would impale my stomach, and I’d fall to the
ground, a puddle of pure red around me. I’d lie there wounded while passersby
conferred about what to do with me. Robert would blow on the end of his smoking
pistol and slide it back inside its soft leathery case. Meanwhile, I’d feel
like a hero in a cowboy movie who saves the whole town from the villain but
dies before he gets a chance to enjoy the spoils.
    However, Robert doesn’t shoot me. Instead, I watch his naked face
as he slips inside the black town car. And then it spits through a river of
water toward the courthouse.
    All I can think is that I’m so glad he’s going instead of coming. Going
instead of coming. Still, I know I’ll have to face him today. I know I’ll be
the executioner meeting her executionee, or perhaps the other way around. And I
wonder if he’s going to kill me or just want to kill me so very badly that his
fingers will ache to clasp my neck.
    But all happiness must come at a price, right? Nothing is for
free. Nothing worthwhile anyway.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    “Cada cual