by Whitney G.
“Whatever. How long do you need me to stay in town?” she asked. “I need to tell the condo manager a date tomorrow.”
“Not long, and you’re more than welcome to stay here or at one of the beach houses.” I re-buttoned my shirt. “I just need you to go to the Juniper Conference with me as my date in two weeks. I’ll need someone to keep the single women away from me. I don’t want them thinking I’m available.”
“I don’t have to accompany you to the morning tech sessions do I? You know that stuff bores me out of my mind.”
“Not unless you want to.”
“Ha! No. Parties and mixers only, and I’ll do my best to act like I’m your girlfriend. By the way, since I flew out here and you left me hanging again, I’ll need a shopping spree on your behalf. Tomorrow. Actually, make it every day this week.”
“Fair enough.” I stood up. “Are you spending the night here?”
“Um, I was actually going to—”
“Can you?”
“Why?”
I sighed. “I just need someone to be here...” I didn’t feel like going into another spiel about Claire.
“Sure.” She put on her shirt and kissed my cheek. “I’ll set up my bed in the living room. You want to get breakfast in the morning?”
“We can’t share a bed?”
“No.”
“Why not? We normally do.”
“Jonathan...” She sighed. “You haven’t called me ‘Stacy’ once today. You’ve been calling me Claire ever since you picked me up from the airport. You didn’t even ask me how I’ve been doing until we were at dinner...As a matter of fact, after I told you, you asked me about Ashley and Caroline ... I didn’t want to say anything because I’ve never seen you like this and I didn’t want to upset you.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want to put you in a situation where you sleep with me, subconsciously thinking that I’m Claire because I’m not. I want you to get your shit together and figure this out. I’ll be in the living room if you need me...Okay?”
“Okay... Goodnight, Stacy.”
“Goodnight. See you in the morning.” She gave me a reassuring smile and walked away.
As soon as she left my room, I walked over to my dresser and pulled out the latest set of pictures: Claire was running on the Golden Gate Bridge, hosting meetings at Starbucks, and lying on the beach in a beautiful black bikini—one of the ones I’d bought for her to wear on my yacht.
I flipped through the pictures over and over, scrutinizing every part. Then I realized that the running pictures were all taken at night, and that these weren’t the latest pictures—they were two weeks old.
I called Greg. “Greg, are you—”
My doorbell rang and I knew it was him; he was always nearby.
I rushed downstairs and let him in, ushering him into the parlor room. I poured us both a glass of scotch and sat in front of the fireplace.
“Good seeing you, Greg...” I took a few sips of my drink and leaned back in my chair, wondering why he wasn’t doing the same.
“You called me in the middle of the night to have a drink with you, Mr. Statham?” He set the glass down and raised his eyebrow.
“Did they find that suspect who was doing the random muggings on the Golden Gate Bridge?”
“Not to my knowledge sir, they haven’t. I doubt he’d appear in the daytime though. If you’re concerned about your employees’ commercial shoot there tomorrow, I can arrange to have—”
“No, it’s not that. It’s...Can you make sure someone from security is on the bridge at night to watch Miss Gracen? She runs on Wednesday and Thursday nights between eight and nine...She doesn’t need to know you’re there. I just need you to make sure nothing happens to her.”
“Of course. I’ll make sure that gets done sir.”
“And since I’m staying home tomorrow, could you get the newest pictures from Corey for me? I know she’s on vacation this week, but I didn’t get anything from last week.”
“I already have them.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small manila envelope. “Corey wasn’t sure if he should give these to you so he gave them to me.”
“What? Why?” And since when do they talk behind my back?
“He doesn’t think you can handle it. Quite frankly, neither do I.”
“Greg,” I said as I took another sip of my drink, “give them to me. I don’t know why you and Corey are suddenly best friends, but I think I’m more than capable of—”
“Miss Gracen is dating someone else.”
WHAT! My blood heated. “What did you just say?”
“She’s dating someone else.”
I tried not to sound appalled. “Who is he?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does. Give me the damn envelope.” I slammed my glass down on the table.
He sighed. He walked over to me like he was going to place it in my hands, but then he stepped past me and tossed it into the flames.
Before I could react, he held his hand up. “I’ll make sure that Miss Gracen is safe at all times whenever she runs on the Golden Gate Bridge and whenever she goes to the beach alone.” He cleared his throat. “But I won’t keep doing this to you, sir. With all due respect, it’s not helping. The security team has stopped tracking photos for you as of today and I’ve changed all the access codes to their offices. They’ll no longer be pursuing this project.”
“Under what orders? Are you trying to get fired?”
“Are you trying to lose your most loyal employee?”
“I have plenty of loyal employees and they know how to do exactly what they’re told. If you value your job, you will go back to corporate right now and have those photos reprinted before—”
“You fire me?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you testing me, Greg? I will fire you. You are not irreplaceable.”
He crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow.
I stared at him long and hard, biting down on my tongue until it bled because I couldn’t fix my mouth to say, “You’re fired.”
If he was a regular security guard or driver, I would have fired him on the spot—no questions asked, but Greg was much more than that. He’d been there for me since the beginning and he was my silent confidante. My right hand man. And he and I both knew that I couldn’t afford to lose him. Ever.
“Fine.”
“Good. Hayley sends her regards. Her Scrabble team is on a flight to Italy as we speak. When she returns to the states, she would like for you to send her an early edition of the sPhone red. The hackers who attempted to break into your company’s firewall last week have all been charged and no harm was done to the internal system according to Corey. Those are the updates you weren’t paying attention to earlier today. Do you need anything else from me tonight?”
“No.”
“Very well then. Have a good night, Mr. Statham.”
I sat in the parlor room until midnight. I tried drinking my pain away, but I could only get through one glass. All I could think about was Claire—her kissing someone else, being held by someone else, having sex with someone else.
Each bitter thought made me want to drive to her house and demand to know who the hell this new man was, to put a stop to it immediately.
How can she move on so soon? How is that possible?
After replaying some of our old memories, I decided to walk around my house until I was too tired to think anymore. I started outside, walking through the gardens and the pool deck—trying not to envision the times that Claire and I had made love under the trees.
I came back inside and circled through the hallways, trying to ignore any place that I’d been with her, but it was no use. We’d been everywhere.
I dragged myself into the living room and sighed. I placed another blanket over Stacy, kissing her on the forehead.
“Hey...” Her eyes fluttered open. “You okay?”
“No.”
She moved over on the couch and motioned for me to lie down. “What
’s wrong? Why do you look like someone just died?”
“She’s dating someone else.”
“What?”
“Claire...She’s dating someone else.”
“Oh...” She frowned. “Well, it’s probably not that serious. It’s—”
“The fact that she’s even able to date someone else that quickly is—”
“It’s been three months, Jonathan...”
That’s all? I felt like it’d been at least a year.
She wrapped her arms around me and sighed. “You really love her, huh?”
I didn’t answer. I just shut my eyes and tried to ignore the horrible pangs that were assaulting my chest. I didn’t understand how it’d gotten to this point—still couldn’t wrap my mind around why she didn’t tell me about my mother, why she thought us being apart was the solution for that.
It didn’t make any sense because she loved me—I knew she did. I could see it in her eyes whenever we made love, whenever I showed up to her house and spent time with her and her family, whenever we spent all night exchanging sarcastic comebacks.
Or maybe she didn’t...Maybe it was just me...
Just as I was about to surrender to my heavy eyelids, I heard my phone ringing in the parlor room.
It wasn’t the special ringtone I had for Greg, Claire, or anyone else important, so I let it ring. But then it kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
I rolled off the couch and walked into the other room, looking at the number. It was a San Fran number, but it didn’t look familiar. I was tempted to silence it, but this person had already ruined my chance at sleep.
“This better be fucking important.” I growled.
“Jonathan?” It was a young girl’s voice. “Is this Jonathan?”
“Who is this?”
“Ashley...” She started crying.
Claire’s Ashley?
“What’s going on?” I softened my tone. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to—”
“I...I need your help, please...”
“What happened?” I grabbed my jacket and slipped into my shoes.
“I can’t....I really need your help...”
“Where are you?” I rushed to my garage.
“I’m on...on Tim Street...At Haven Foods...And I’m—”
“Are you hurt?”
“No... But I...” She said something in between sobs. “Can you come get me?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” I revved up my car. “Stay right there.”
“Please don’t call my mom,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Please...”
“I won’t.” I wouldn’t know what to say anyway.
I sped over to the grocery store—racing into parking lot, slowing down once I saw what the problem was.
Jesus...
I stepped out and looked at the mangled metal mess that was once Claire’s Audi Q7: The front of the car was wrapped around a pole and the windshield was shattered. The front right tire had been flung across the lot and the driver’s door was smashed in so deep that it looked like the car had run into the guard rail before crashing into the pole.
From the way it looked, it was a miracle that Ashley had made it out alive. I looked over at her and noticed that she was trembling.
I took off my jacket and put it over her shoulders. “Shhh. It’s going to be okay.”
She sniffled. “Are you going to tell my mom about this?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s going to find out somehow...”
“I know you two aren’t together anymore, and I’m sorry for calling so late, but I didn’t know who else to call...My mom isn’t the best option, if you know what I mean...”
“Tell me what happened...”
She wiped her face on her sleeve. “Me and Caroline wanted to go out tonight, but she wanted to hang out with that guy—Jake, remember? He finally asked her out after texting her every day.” She shrugged. “It’s her weekend to take our car, but I wanted to go on another date with Chris...I didn’t want to have to rely on him for a ride because the last time we went out, he drove and I barely made curfew so...”
“Calm down.” I motioned for her to sit on the hood of my car.
“We met at the movies and everything was going fine, but then he said he wanted to spend some alone time with me. He told me to follow him somewhere and...It was an um, a hotel...”
Please give me the G-rated version...
“He had the room set up really special, and he’d rented some movies, and he told me to ‘just relax’...We drank like four beers each and I thought we were just going to mess around. Honestly, I swear! I didn’t think he was going to try and sleep with me! This was only our third time going out!”
“Okay...” I braced myself for the rest.
“We were kissing and touching and stuff but then he started getting really rough and tried to take my pants off...I told him no, but he kept trying so I threatened to scream...Then he got really angry and started cursing at me, calling me a tease...He told me he didn’t really like me anyway. He’d just heard that I was....I was easy! But that’s not true! I’ve never been with anyone!” She cried. “So I ran out of the room, but when I got downstairs all his teammates were in the lobby laughing at me and calling me all these names...They said he only invited me there so he could—so he could prove how easy I was...I rushed out to the parking lot and drove off as fast as I could...I was fine at first, but then I couldn’t really see where I was going and the road started to get blurry and...Well...” She waved her hand toward the wreck.
“I take it that you didn’t ask your mom if you could use her car?”
“Are you kidding me? She would’ve said no! She always says no! She expects us to stick together all the time! I mean, Caroline is my best friend and we do a lot of stuff together, but we do have our own lives. She acts like she doesn’t see that! How can she expect us to share a car? It’s not fair...” She shook her head and leaned on me, not saying anything for a long time.
Once I felt like she’d completely calmed down, I cleared my throat. “So, you called me because you want me to fix this before your mom gets back?”
“Well... yeah.” She sat up and smiled. “I think you can afford it...”
“And you’re going to beg me not to tell her what happened?”
“Yes...”
I smiled and tried not to laugh. “Tell you what, I’m not going to tell her.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?”
“You are.”
“What?”
“I’ll have it replaced by tomorrow morning, but you have to tell her that you took her car without permission and you were out drinking as soon as she gets back from her trip.”
“What! What type of sense does that make?”
“It makes perfect sense to me.”
She crossed her arms. “She’ll ground me! I’ll miss Charity Lane’s party next weekend! Not to mention autumn jam!”
“Probably so.”
“And she’ll take away my cell phone! And not just take it away—she’ll destroy it!”
“It could be ten times worse.”
“But the car won’t be wrecked! She won’t even be able to tell that I drove it once you replace it! I’ll be telling on myself for nothing! I’ll be—”
“You could’ve killed someone tonight, Ashley.” My voice was stern. “You’re lucky nothing happened to you or that you weren’t pulled over. Why were you drinking anyway? You’re only sixteen.”
She frowned. “I did it because I didn’t want to seem lame in front of him...I’ve never done it before today and I promise I’ll never do it again...Do I really have to tell her that part?”
“Do you want me to replace the car?”
“Fine...” She sighed. “I’ll kiss my social life goodbye.”
“It’s only temporary. Who knows, maybe she’ll see you as being responsible for telling her and get you and Caroline separate cars for your birthday.”
“Could you please talk her into that? That would be so awesome!”
“We’ll see...” I pulled out my phone. “Greg? I need a tow truck. Yeah, for the Audi Q7. We also need to buy another one in the next few hours—same model and we’ll need to get the custom upgrades that we got before. See if you can work out something with the VIN number...I’m in the parking lot at Haven Foods on Tim Street. Could you also bring something to eat for Ashley? Yes...McDonald’s will be fine.” I hung up.
“Thank you for helping me with this...” Ashley looked down at the ground.
“You’re very welcome.”
“You know, I really like you, Jonathan. I think my mom still likes you too, but she’d probably like you even more if I told her that me and Caroline are kind of missing you since you two broke up. I mean, we are missing you. Not many people understand our Physics jokes and I like your pasta a lot better than my mom’s... So, I’m thinking...If you want me to put in a good word for you, I think you should reconsider—”
“You’re going to tell her about the car, Ashley.”
She laughed. “It was worth a try.”
Chapter 30
Claire
“How was your trip, sweetheart?” Damien lifted my hand and kissed it.
“It was amazing. I had a lot of fun.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the awards ceremony tonight? The organizers swear it won’t be as boring as the last one. ”
“I’m sure.” I placed my carryon bag in my lap and buckled my seatbelt. “I just want to unpack with a glass of wine and slowly readjust to the real world tonight.”
He laughed and leaned over to kiss me. As he ran his fingers through my hair, he tugged at the strings of the sea shell headband I was wearing and whispered, “I missed you.”
“I missed you too...”
He kissed me a few more times before moving away and revving up his car. He sped through the airport terminals and entered the highway. He looked over at me every few minutes, smiling whenever I looked at him.
He was definitely sexy as hell and my eyes couldn’t get enough of him, but over the past couple weeks it seemed like “attraction” was the only thing holding us together. Even though he was a few years older than me—forty three, had experienced divorce just like I had, and seemed to be a perfect match, there was something missing.
