Chapter 5 Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys
Claire’s voice echoed through the hotel lobby like a siren.
I froze mid–step on the staircase. My heart kicked into overdrive.
Please, God. Don’t let the front desk tell her I’m here.
The receptionist, bless her soul, held firm.
“Sorry, Miss,” she said with the kind of calm only a highly professional hotel staff could master. “We can’t disclose guest information. Privacy policy and all.”
That should have been the end of it.
But Claire, always the composed and polished one, completely lost her cool. She shouted,
loud enough to turn heads.
“Don’t give me that privacy crap! I’m his girlfriend! I deserve to know if he’s staying here!
Girlfriend?
What a foreign word that was. Girlfriend. She had never even said she liked me back in all
those years. Not once. And now she wanted to toss that label around?
The receptionist kept her cool. “If you believe he’s staying here, you’re welcome to call him. Naturally, we’ll assist you further once he shares his room number with you.”
Claire stiffened. Didn’t say a word. Just stood there, locked in place like she had hit a wall.
She couldn’t call me. I had blocked her number and deleted her from every platform.
I didn’t hang around to see what happened next. Quiet as a whisper, I slipped up the stairs
and into my room.
As soon as my back hit the mattress, my phone rang. It was Riley.
He was practically bouncing off the walls.
1/4
Chapter 5 Not My Circus Not My Monkeys
+30 Bonus
“Dude, what the hell did you do to Claire? She called me freaking out, asking if I was with you! You should’ve heard her; she was totally losing it. Man, that woman deserves to stew
for once.”
He laughed. “Don’t go soft, Zach. Not this time. She needs to get a taste of her own
medicine.”
I rubbed my eyes, sighing. I wasn’t expecting Claire to be this persistent. This was the first
time she had chased me this hard.
“Don’t worry. I’m not,” I replied. “I haven’t done anything dramatic. Just went home, saw
her staking out my apartment, and ducked into a hotel to get some sleep. Don’t tell her where I am, okay?”
“I won’t breathe a word,” Riley promised.
I hung up.
I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Not five minutes later, my phone buzzed with a call from an unknown number.
I hesitated before answering, “Hello?”
Claire’s voice came flooding through, hoarse, rapid, desperate. “Zach, where are you? Why are you avoiding me? Do you have any idea how hard I’ve been trying to find you? I waited forever outside your place! Why won’t you even see me?”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t say a word.
Instead, I hung up.
Seconds later, a text came through.
‘Zach Mason, if you block me again–if you keep hiding–I swear I’ll never talk to you again! This is your last chance. Unblock me, and maybe I’ll forgive you!‘
2/4
Chapter 5 Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys
Yeah, no thanks.
Blocked.
+30 Bonus
Finally, in came a friend request on WhatsApp. New profile picture. Different account.
This time, I didn’t even open it. Just blocked and reported.
After that, for the first time in days, I actually got some sleep. Deep, uninterrupted, dreamless sleep.
The next morning, a phone call dragged me out of bed. I groaned, checked the screen. It
was one of my ex–coworkers.
“Zach, man, what happened?” he asked. “You quit out of nowhere! We didn’t even get to throw you a goodbye party.”
“Sorry,” I said through a yawn. “Had to deal with something personal, so I left in a rush.”
There was a pause. Then, his tone dropped.
“Uh… about that. This morning, a woman came into the office looking for you. She claimed
she was from our partner company. She asked everyone if we’d heard from you. When she
found out you quit last night, she flipped.
Finally, she said she’d only sign the contract if you handled it. Then she stormed out without signing anything.”
I closed my eyes. Of course, she would.
My ex–coworker kept talking. “Boss is gonna call you. Just a heads–up.”
Just as he finished, my boss‘ name lit up my screen.
I should’ve expected this from Claire.
This was classic Claire, using the partnership as leverage to force me out of hiding. Now,
she was even dragging my boss into her drama.
3/4
Chapter 5 Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys
+30 Bonus
Still, I had already resigned. Thus, this wasn’t my circus, and therefore, not my monkeys.
I silenced the phone, rolled over, and pulled the blanket over my head.
When I finally woke up, my phone screen was littered with notifications. My missed calls stacked on top of each other like bricks while my unread messages were in the triple digits.
Even my WhatsApp was maxed out with 99+ new messages.
