Naked 2 : BAD

BAD (NAKED, BOOK 2)

by Kelly Favor

BONUS MATERIAL: Book 1 of Lucy Covington’s popular Addicted to You series is
included in its entirety at the end of this story.

©
BAD. 2013, all rights reserved.

It was strange coming back to The Seaside Motel after everything that had happened.

Opening the door and walking inside was almost like going back in time. Elijah’s note was still on the table where Caelyn had left it that morning before heading off to her first (and apparently last) day of waitressing in Florida.

The blanket and pillow Elijah had used were on the bed, exactly where he’d tossed them that morning before leaving. Caelyn felt a sudden and intense feeling of sadness rush through her, almost like a physical cramp.

If only Elijah could just walk out of the bathroom and give her one of his little grins.

She could almost picture him doing it, making some joke about the ugly carpeting in the room or perhaps one of the strange people that were staying next door.

Caelyn smiled, just thinking about him goofing around, and the way his eyes crinkled up a certain way when he found something funny. But then her smile faded as she remembered that none of this was real. Elijah wasn’t going to walk out of the bathroom.

He’d been taken to jail, and Jayson’s powerful connections would probably make sure that Elijah stayed in jail for a very long time.

The cramp of sadness came back worse than before. The room was quiet and depressing without Elijah there to lighten the mood and make it feel like home.

She hadn’t noticed that at the other hotel. She hadn’t realized that his presence alone could make the darkest corners seem bright and somehow hopeful.

Caelyn lay down on the bed next to Elijah’s old blanket and pillow, pulling them against her, pushing her nose against the pillow. The blanket was green and scratchy against her skin. She tried to inhale his scent, tried to be close to him again in some way.

And then the tears came, and they came stronger than expected.

She cried for a lot of reasons.

The phone call to her mother had been unpleasant to say the least. Even thinking about it was unpleasant. Standing on the steps outside the police station, feeling as alone as she’d ever felt.

Her mother’s voice had come on the line, initially happy to hear from Caelyn, but then growing increasingly confused.

“Florida?” her mother had asked, at least four or five times.

“Yes, Mom, Florida. I’m stuck in Florida. Can you book me a ticket home?”

“But I don’t understand. What are you doing there, Caelyn?” her mother had said, almost pleading for an answer that would make sense of things. Pleading to hear something that wouldn’t force her to totally change what she thought of Caelyn as a person—because the Caelyn she knew would never just drop everything and run off to Florida.

Caelyn hadn’t given her mother an answer as to why she’d left Boston and driven hundreds of miles away without telling anyone.

The phone call had been as short as she could possibly make it. She wasn’t ready to talk about everything that had happened, she just needed to get back to Boston.

But you’re only going back because of him.

Snapping out of her memory of the dreaded phone call, Caelyn knew that it was true. She wasn’t going back because she was out of money, scared to be in Florida on her own, or because she wanted to return to college.

She was going home because a guy she’d known for less than a week might be sentenced to jail in Massachusetts. And whether Elijah was in or out of jail, Caelyn knew she had to be there to help him.

It sounded crazy, but it was the truth.

She lay in bed for a long time, her head on the pillow Elijah had used, wrapping her arms around that old blanket, and thinking of him. What he’d done for her in the restaurant—it had been horrifying and violent and…heroic.

Caelyn knew that he’d only been defending her from the man who’d hurt her beyond belief. She couldn’t be angry with Elijah for trying to protect her, even if he’d gone too far in doing so.

Elijah had destroyed Jayson as if he were nothing, thrown him around like a tiny ragdoll. She didn’t know how he’d done it, either, because Jayson was no skinny, wilting flower. Jayson was a very big, very strong guy, and she would have guessed that he knew how to handle himself in a fight.

But obviously Jayson didn’t know how to fight—or he didn’t know compared to Elijah.

Part of her was glad that Elijah had hurt Jayson, made him feel fear and pain, just like Jayson had done to her. Was she supposed to hate Elijah for doing something violent on her behalf, even though she’d never asked it of him?

Well, she didn’t hate him. Far from it.

He’s bad news
.

Caelyn squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her own thoughts and opinions were fighting amongst themselves, and she didn’t know what the right thing to do or think even was.

Could Elijah be a truly bad person just because he had a dark history? The policeman who’d told her of Elijah’s record had made him out to be a criminal on par with Tony Soprano.

Yet, she didn’t think he was bad at all. Her instincts told her that Elijah had a good heart.

Your instincts also told you that Jayson was a good guy, and remember how that
ended up?

Caelyn sat up in bed. Her phone was ringing. Probably her mother or father, calling to tell her about her flight for the next day.

She went and grabbed her purse, found her phone and quickly answered it without even looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?” she said, already preparing for her mother’s grim voice and the possible questions to follow.

But it wasn’t her mother’s voice on the other end of the line. Instead, there was a pre-recorded announcement. “You have received a call from an inmate at Sarasota County Jail. Will you accept the charges?"

“Yes,” she replied, without even thinking.

There were a few clicks and a quick beeping sound, and then she heard some static on the line.

“Hello?” she said, her voice cracking with nervousness. Her heart was beating so fast that she pulled her shirt away from her chest so that she wouldn’t see it moving.

“I’m probably the last person you were expecting to call you,” he said. His voice sounded low and a little muffled, but it was still Elijah.

“How did you get this number?” she said.

“I have my ways.”

“I’m serious, Elijah. We never exchanged numbers.” She was still trying to accept the fact that it was really him. She’d wanted to hear his voice again so badly that it was as if she’d manifested the call out of thin air.

Her body was numb, her head spinning.

“Okay,” he said. “The truth is, the other day when we were at the hotel and you used the bathroom, I took your cell phone and used it to call mine. That way, I knew I’d have your number in my caller ID.”

“That’s messed up,” she said, trying to muster some anger, but not quite able to do it. She was glad he had her number, even if he’d done something a little shady to get it.

“I know that’s probably strike number three or four at least,” Elijah said, but I was hoping to get a pass under the circumstances.”

Caelyn went back to the bed and sat on it, smiling a little, gathering his old green blanket in one hand while she talked. “It’s okay--I’m really glad you called,” she said.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Back at the motel.”

“Are you okay?”

She thought about it. “Better, now that I’m talking to you.”

He chuckled. “Come on now, you’re just saying that to make me feel good.”

“It’s the truth.” She bit her lip. “What about you, Elijah?”

“What about me, Caelyn?”

The way he said her name made her stomach dance with butterflies. He said it playfully, but also with a kind of challenging tone, as if to say that he wouldn’t let her just get away with anything.

“I want to know if you’re okay,” she told him.

“As okay as I can be, considering I’ve been sitting in a six by eight foot cell for the last few hours.”

“Is there any chance you can get out?”

“Get out how? The whole prison break thing doesn’t work that well in real life.”

“But can’t someone bail you out?”

He chuckled again, but this time it sounded kind of hopeless. “Not anytime soon, kid.”

“It doesn’t seem fair that you’re stuck in Jail and Jayson’s walking free. I told the police about Jayson and what he did to me.”

Elijah went silent for a bit. When he spoke again, she heard emotion in his voice.

“You told the cops about that? You said you never wanted to tell the police.”

“I know, but I kind of needed to tell them. Otherwise they wouldn’t have understood why you did what you did—that you were defending me.”

“You told them about you and Jayson because of me?”

“Yes.”

She heard the sound of his breath exhaling into the phone. “Caelyn, you shouldn’t have done that for me. I never would have asked you to do it.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“I’m going to jail no matter what, because I violated my parole when I left the state.

Once your friend Jayson brings charges against me, it’ll only make my sentence a little longer.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” she said, but her heart was sinking.

“Pretty much. It’s not my first time at this rodeo.”

“You almost sound like you’re in the room with me,” she said, wanting suddenly to change the subject.

“I wish I was in the room,” he replied, his voice getting husky. “You have no idea what I would give to be there, just for five minutes.”

There was a long pause as she closed her eyes, imagining it too. “It feels like you’re really here, if I close my eyes and just listen to your voice.”

“What are you doing right now?” he asked.

“I’m sitting on the bed in the motel room.” She decided not include the fact that she was holding onto the green blanket he’d used the night before, because then he might decide she was too crazy to deal with after all.

“You should lay down,” he said, softly. “Try and relax.”

“You’re telling
me
to relax?” she said, shaking her head. “I feel like I should be the one trying to calm you down.”

“I’m fine. This is nothing new for me.”

The thought made her achingly sad. Elijah had been through this so many times that being in jail didn’t seem to bother him all that much. She wondered how many days and nights he’d spent alone in a cell with nobody to talk to, nobody who cared one way or another.

But then, she thought, I’m assuming things. He probably had plenty of girlfriends in the past who were worried about him and thought about him, sent him letters and emails.

You really don’t know Elijah at all. You still haven’t learned your lesson, have you
Caelyn?

She couldn’t decide if the voice in her head was her mother’s voice, or something else—her own inner warning system, perhaps.

“Just lay down Caelyn,” Elijah said. His voice was stern but still kind, like an older brother trying to get his younger sister in line.

“I could just pretend to lay down,” she told him. “You wouldn’t know either way.”

“Yeah, I would.” The statement was simple fact, as if Elijah believed he could read her mind.

“Do you really think you’re so much smarter than me?”

“It’s not that I’m smarter. I just know you.”

Part of her was annoyed, but another part of her was strangely this. It was a little game, and it made everything feel less serious somehow.

“Okay.” She decided that she would lie down in the bed after all. It was comforting, somehow, to hear Elijah’s voice in her ear and do what he told her to do.

“Are you lying down now?” he asked.

“Yes.” For some reason, she felt very vulnerable. Her breathing was faster, and her pulse had picked up speed.

“If I was there with you, I’d hold you in my arms.”

She sighed into the phone. “I’ve thought a lot about that night in the hotel room,”

she said. “You know, that night when I freaked out and you stayed with me?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I remember it. I think about it too.”

“You do?”

“All the time. Holding you in my arms all night was one of the best things that’s ever happened in my life.”

She laughed a little. “Don’t make fun, Elijah.”

“I’m not making fun. I’m serious.”

“You can’t go away,” she said, suddenly frightened. “Not when we’ve just met—

we haven’t even had a chance…”

“Don’t think about it. I’ve learned the hard way that it’s best to just take it day by day.”

“How much longer can you stay on the phone?”

“A few minutes. Not long.”

She felt her eyes start to burn as she realized that very soon she would be alone in this room, with nothing but the silence for company. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

“Don’t think about that,” he told her. His voice was totally calm and completely self-assured, as if he had no doubts or worries. For all she knew, maybe he wasn’t in jail right now at all, but just lounging on a beach somewhere.