The door of the room banged open and Angel stuck her head inside, her face wide open in fear. “I heard a noise,” she said before she’d even registered what was going on.
On top of him, Julia froze in place. “Shit,” she breathed against his neck.
Angel’s mouth closed with an audible click as her teeth came together. Without a word she turned around and headed out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.
“Damn,” Chapel said. He started to wriggle his way out from under Julia, trying to remember where his pants were.
“We could just finish,” Julia said.
But the moment was lost, and she must have known it. With a sigh she rolled off him, and together they hunted the floor for his underwear.
Barefoot, and with one sleeve of his shirt flapping empty behind him, Chapel rushed around the motel looking for Angel. She wasn’t in her room — the door was hanging open and she didn’t answer when he called inside, nor when he looked. He padded along the sidewalk toward the little coffee shop the motel used as a restaurant, but all he managed to achieve by peering through its windows was to freak out a waitress. He waved in apology and moved on.
Finally he found Angel at the back of the motel, on a little patch of concrete bordered by gray and dusty weeds. She was standing by a vending machine, trying to force a taped-together dollar through the bill acceptor slot. It kept spitting the bill back at her.
“Angel,” he said, quietly. Not getting too close. He could hear Julia coming up behind him, but he waved his hand at her to tell her to slow down, to keep her distance.
He could tell that Angel was upset. Her shoulders were shaking, and when she turned to look at him, a tear fell out of her right eye.
“Angel, listen. It’s not what it looks like—”
Confusion and anger wrestled across her features. “What?”
Chapel cursed inwardly. “I mean. Okay, yes, you saw what you saw. But I don’t want you to think — I mean, I hope you don’t think that—”
“I did see what I saw. I can’t unsee it now,” Angel told him.
Chapel bit his lip. The absolute worst thing that could happen now was for him to get in a big fight with Angel. For one thing, somebody might see them — even worse, someone might think this was a domestic dispute and call the police. If they were caught now, Hollingshead didn’t stand a chance.
Even if nobody saw them, he needed Angel for his plan. If she decided she hated him and wanted nothing to do with him—
“I can see you’re upset,” he said.
“You’re damned right I’m upset,” Angel told her. “The director is about to be assassinated and you two don’t seem to care, you’re too busy fuh… too busy fu-f-f-f—”
“Fucking,” he said. No point evading it now
Angel nodded and looked away. Her cheeks were bright red.
This was what Julia had warned him about. Angel had a crush on him, and seeing him with another woman had destroyed her. “I am so sorry, Angel. But I want you to know why.”
“Why you’re fuh — why you’re with her?” Angel asked, shaking her head. “That, at least, I get. She’s beautiful and and curvy in the right places, and you have history, and—”
“You’re beautiful, too,” Chapel told her. “You’re sexy, too.”
Angel made a sound like she was about to start retching right there in the parking lot. “Oh my God,” she said.
“Angel, it’s okay,” he said, stepping closer to her, holding out his hand. She winced away from his touch.
“Oh my God.” Angel made the retching noise again. It was an awful hitching sound in the back of her throat that changed over time, becoming softer, becoming …
Laughter.
She leaned over, putting her hands on her knees. She couldn’t stand up from laughing so hard. Chapel had no idea what was going on.
“Oh my,” Angel said, but she couldn’t finish the exclamation because a new paroxysm of laughter seized her like a fit. “Oh my God. You thought — oh my—”
Chapel had no idea what to do except wait it out.
Eventually she managed to speak an entire sentence. “You thought I was jealous of you two.”
“Yes,” Chapel admitted.
“You thought — what? That I wanted to be with you? Like… like that?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Listen, Chapel. I know we flirt. Over the phone.”
“Yes,” Chapel said again. “We do.”
Angel fought to control herself. “There’s something you need to know. I flirt with you like that because it’s safe. Because I thought we were never actually going to meet in person, and anyway I knew you would never, you know, try anything. The truth of the matter is, Chapel, I really, really do not now nor have I ever wanted to have se — s-s-s-s—”
“Sex,” he supplied.
Angel nodded in gratitude. “Relations with you. I’m sorry. It’s not personal. But I have zero interest in, you know. Touching your special places. Or anything like that.”
Chapel considered what she’d said earlier. About Julia’s curves. “So you’re — that is… are you jealous of… Julia?”
“You mean, do I want to do that with girls? No, definitely not.”
“I don’t understand,” Chapel said.
Behind him, Julia made an exasperated noise. Clearly she wasn’t going to stay out of this any longer. She came up beside Chapel and took his arm. “She doesn’t want to have sex with anyone,” Julia told him.
“Not, you know. Typically,” Angel said.
Julia turned to Chapel. “Don’t you see? She was still in puberty when they started locking her up in those trailers. She never had a chance to figure things out.”
“You mean,” he said, looking back at Angel, “you’ve never—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Angel asked him. “My stomach is feeling weird enough already.”
He nodded and shut his mouth. He was having a hard time believing all this, though. Angel had the sexiest voice he’d ever heard in his life. He’d gotten through a lot of dark times listening to her purr in his ear. And some of the things she’d suggested over a telephone line had been — well, now that he thought about it, he supposed she’d never said anything truly dirty. She’d never been graphic or detailed in her flirting. She had just said things that might be… suggestive, if you were in the right frame of mind to hear them that way. If you wanted to hear them that way.
“I flirt,” Angel explained to him, “but it’s kind of just… I don’t know. Experimental. I liked hearing how you reacted to it.”
“Even though you couldn’t understand why you liked that,” Julia prompted.
Angel’s mouth pursed in anger. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” she said.
“No, of course not,” Julia assured her.
“I’m fine,” Angel insisted. “I am absolutely fine.”
“Of course you are,” Julia said.
Chapel scratched at his head. “So when you walked in on us, you ran away—”
“Because I was grossed out,” Angel said. “Look, I enjoy the occasional hug or whatever. But when things get — you know. Sticky.” A wave of revulsion made her shiver. “I can’t handle it.”
“Okay,” Chapel said. “Look, enough said, all right?” He looked back at Julia. “Let’s all just pretend this never happened.”