As my pencil dipped to draw the curve of her waist, flaring out into her hips, I was reminded of an hourglass. Not just because of her perfect body. On its side, like Kelsey lay, an hourglass was stuck, moving neither forward nor backward, frozen in time. I’d been in that place before. Stagnant and lost, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn Kelsey felt the same.
Maybe she’d found the magical balance that I’d never been able to obtain. Maybe she could drink and party all night without getting sucked into the darkness that came with that lifestyle.
I wanted to believe that. But that could have been the addict in me, eager to insist that I could find that balance, too.
But I couldn’t. And I didn’t think Kelsey could either.
No one retreats to the bottle every single night unless they’re running from something. And when you’re running, you don’t realize that to drown your troubles, you have to drown yourself, too.
AFTER KIEV CAME Bucharest, which passed in a blur of nightclubs.
She’s stuck, I found myself thinking again as we repeated the same patterns.
More people spoke English, which made keeping up with Kelsey a little easier. But there were more pickpockets and con artists, which left me in a constant state of agitation, imagining all the ways Kelsey could get into trouble.
Tonight, at least, we ended up at a place with live music. That gave me something to focus on besides alcohol. Granted the music wasn’t in English, but the beat was good. The guy on drums definitely had skill.
I turned my back on Kelsey, who was getting cozy in a corner booth with some guy she’d met at the hostel.
I rolled my eyes and settled in for a long night. Since arriving in Bucharest, we’d seen very little of the city. I’d bought another guidebook, hoping Kelsey might do some real traveling this time around. So far, though, I’d had nothing but a few glimpses of landmarks as I followed Kelsey around. Needless to say, it was beginning to get old.
“You understand this?”
A little brunette in an even littler black dress sidled up next to me.
“Not a word,” I replied.
“Didn’t think so.”
I smiled. “What gave me away?”
“I might have seen you earlier. I think we’re staying in the same hostel.”
“Oh?”
Damn. I’d taken a chance and gotten a bed in the same hostel as Kelsey. The place was huge, and I figured I could stay under the radar. But if this girl recognized me, then I wasn’t doing a very good job.
“Is that creepy?” she asked. I wasn’t exactly qualified to talk about what was and wasn’t creepy in that moment. “Sorry. It’s just . . . my friends and I were looking for a place to sit. I thought maybe we could join you.”
I looked back in the direction she had, toward the bar, and saw two other girls. That was certainly one way of occupying myself. It would keep me from contemplating the dangerous mystery that was Kelsey Summers. And the known danger of the bar.
“Sure. That’d be fine.”
She waved at her friends, and then I was surrounded by significantly more estrogen. She slid onto the seat closest to me, and I caught a whiff of sweet perfume.
“I’m Sarah. This is Johana and that’s Christine.”
Sarah reminded me a bit a doll—small, almost porcelain-like.
“I’m Hunt. It’s nice to meet you all.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow at my name, but didn’t comment. I was used to that. And yeah, it would probably be less hassle to go by my first name, but Jackson felt like a different version of me, a version that I needed to maintain distance from if I were going to survive this job. Hunt was the version of me that had gotten his life together, and that’s who I needed to be.
“Where are you from, Hunt?”
“Texas. Mostly. What about you?”
“New York.”
“All of you?”
It was Johana who answered this time, the slight curl of an accent at the ends of her words. “Well, we all go to NYU. I’m originally from Paraguay.”
The third girl, Christine, shrugged. “Kansas.”
Sarah chimed in. “We’re all studying abroad in the Netherlands. We’re just visiting for the weekend. What about you? Studying abroad?”
I laughed and scratched the back of my neck. “No. I’m, uh, just traveling.”
I’d never gone to college at all, let alone in another country, a fact that my father was quite fond of bringing up.
“That’s cool,” Sarah said. “So what have you done in Bucharest so far? Anything you recommend?”
I racked my brain for locations from the guidebook. “Uh, you know. The usual. A few museums, a church or two, Victory Avenue. There’s the Dracula castle, too. But that’s outside the city.”
That wasn’t too bad. Better than telling her what I was actually doing here in Bucharest. She directed her eyes toward the table, tapping glossy fingernails against the surface.
“And what are you doing tomorrow?”
I glanced back toward Kelsey’s booth out of habit, only to find it empty.
I stood, pushing my chair back from the table. A quick scan of the area didn’t give me any glimpse of Kelsey, and she was kind of hard to miss.
“Excuse me, I have to—”
I didn’t bother finishing my sentence before I walked off in the direction of the bar. I circled it once, catching Sarah’s eye by accident. I’m sure I looked psychotic, but there wasn’t time to think about that. When I didn’t see Kelsey after another lap, I pulled the phone out of my pocket.
She was on the move.
I shot one more glance at Sarah. The band was playing a softer tune behind her. She was pretty. I could have used a night to let go of all of this mess and just talk to someone normal. To be someone normal.
Tonight was apparently not that night. I waved in an apology, and then made for the exit.
I followed the GPS back to our hostel, glad that I wasn’t having to chase her to another bar. If she was calling it an early night, fine by me. I’d been averaging about three hours of sleep a night between her partying and my nightmares. I could use the extra rest.
The hostel was split up dorm-style. I’d chosen one of the male-only rooms, which had about ten beds packed into too-close quarters. One guy was already out for the night, but the rest of the room was empty. I grabbed my shower stuff, eager to follow his lead.
I slipped on a pair of rubber flip-flops, and hoped that by retiring early, I’d get a decent amount of hot water. This hostel had several floors, with a shower on each. Kelsey was in a room on the first floor, and I was on the second, so I let my guard down.