Guilty Pleasure

02. In Over My Head

       I stared at my cellphone in horror as it rang to the tune of Hotline Bling. I needed to change my ringtone immediately, but I had bigger issues at hand that needed to be resolved first. The number was blocked, but I knew it was him.

       When the call went unanswered, my phone lit up with an icon saying that I'd just received a new voicemail. I didn't want to listen to it, but my curiosity always got the best of me. I couldn't delete it without listening to it at least once. With a sigh of defeat I clicked the play button.

       "Thanks for making time for me, Miss Abernasty." He growled huskily, clearing his throat. My brows furrowed at his disgruntled tone and the way he butchered my last name. I wanted to correct him, but I had to remind myself that no one was on the other end of the line. This was a recording, a hasty one at that. "I thought we could handle this like adults, but you're after all just a child—"

       "I'm twenty-one! You're only seven years older than me!" I shouted into the phone, unable to hold back my anger. It didn't matter that he couldn't hear me. I had to speak my mind before I lost it altogether. He was undermining me through the phone and I couldn't respond or defend myself in anyway. That was exactly why I didn't want to work at his house for three months. If he was this cocky over the phone, imagine how narcissistic he was in real life. "Forget going to court! Take the law into your own hands! FIGHT ME!"

       "SHUT UP, BITCH!" The woman in the apartment under mine hollered, hitting the ceiling with what one could only assume was a broom. Unless she was tall enough to beat against the ceiling like an ape.  Which the more I thought about it, didn't seem all that unlikely considering she had an entire foot on me. I was barely five foot tall. To make me feel better about being vertically challenged, my friends said that I was fun size.

       I collected myself, putting an abrupt end to my rant. If I didn't keep quiet, said neighbor would come to my apartment with that very broom and take it against my ass instead. Queens wasn't the most friendly neighborhood in the world. It didn't help that my apartment building had been busted for drugs about six times prior to me moving in. All  of my neighbors we're either drug addicts or drug dealers. But for only nine hundred a month, I couldn't complain.

       With a new calm exterior, I went back to listening to the voicemail.

       "These are very serious charges that I have against you. They could go away or they could go to trial. It's all up to you, Olivia." He paused to take a deep breath and I found myself taking one too. I knew that I was in some serious shit and I had no idea on how to get out of it. The last thing I wanted to do was turn myself over to some power hungry businessman who had no regard for anyone but himself. He was a spoiled rich boy who always got what he wanted, but he wasn't going to get me. There had to be another way. Maybe I could get a second job and hire a better attorney. "My offer still stands, but the clock is running out. I'm not a very patient man. And the next time you hang up on me, the line won't be the only thing that goes dead. Have a wonderful day. I look forward to hearing from you soon."

       The nasty tone of his voice told me that was a lie. He didn't look forward to hearing from me. What he looked forward to was controlling me like he controlled everything else in his life. Spencer Scott wasn't a good man and I was so close to proving that before I got caught red-handed. If I'd only had a couple more minutes to get away, I wouldn't have gotten caught by that pesky overweight security guard. Not only had my intelligence been insulted that night but my ego had been too. I couldn't even outrun a three-hundred-pound security guard and I'd done track all throughout high school.

       I found myself replaying the voicemail over and over again, hanging on to every word that came out of his mouth. He sounded so smug that it made the blood in my veins run ice cold. I could just imagine the smirk that had probably been on his face when he left that rude voicemail. I wanted to smack it off him, but we were miles apart, and it was a little too late. He was in downtown Manhattan and I was all the way in Queens.