“Dad, I really don’t want to talk about—”
“I don’t care what you want. Answer the question.”
With a sigh, Travis sat up straighter in his seat. “I screwed up with Bree.”
“Elaborate.”
“I asked her to marry me tonight.”
“What? Why would you do something so stupid?”
“Dad, I love her.”
“Love has very little to do with marriage, son, and everything to do with power and control. Do you think your mother married me because she loved me? No, she married me because I run a highly successful financial consulting business, and I basically built this town from nothing by teaching these country bumpkins how to run their stores like businesses and not charities. That’s why I moved to this little speck on the map.”
“I thought you moved here because this is Mom’s hometown.”
His father chuckled. “You have a lot to learn about women, son. Like I said, marriage has everything to do with power and control.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You will eventually. Now explain what the hell was going through your head when you decided to ask that girl to marry you.”
“I already told you that I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I did it right after the win. I don’t know. I wanted it to be special.”
“Jesus Christ, Travis, you’re sounding like a damn woman right now.” His father sipped his scotch again and then set it on a coaster on the desk in front of him. “So what happened when you proposed?”
“She accused me of cheating on her.”
“Hold on. Are you telling me that she actually refused to marry you?”
“It’s not like that, Dad. I mean, I cheated on her. I screwed everything up.”
“Oh, don’t give me any of that bullshit. That girl comes from nothing. Her mother is a nurse, and her father was a worthless drunk. She should be counting her blessings every single day that someone like you even acknowledges the existence of someone like her.”
“Dad, please don’t—”
“No. She can’t do this to my son. I won’t stand for it.”
“What are you talking about? Bree didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one who messed up. Didn’t you hear what I said? I cheated on her.”
“That’s irrelevant. All that matters is that this girl clearly doesn’t appreciate everything our family has done for her. The gifts that you bought her over the years. That was with my money. The parties you threw for her. In my house. On my dollar. She has no right to reap the benefits and then bail out when things don’t go her way. Life isn’t a fairy tale. She needs to learn that the hard way.”
“What do you mean by that, Dad?”
“That’s not for you to worry about.” He grabbed his drink and took another sip as he leaned back in his seat. “Do you really want to marry this girl?”
“Yes. More than anything.”
“Then I’ll make it happen. All that I need from you is to quit behaving like a child. You’re a man. Act like one.”
Travis nodded meekly. He wished that he knew what his father was planning, but he knew better than to question his father’s tactics and motives. He would just have to remain in the dark for now.
“Go up to your room and get some sleep,” his father said. “I can tell that you’ve been drinking. Sleep it off.”
Travis nodded again and then got up and started for the door. He grasped the doorknob and was about to pull the door open when his father spoke again.
“One more thing.”
Travis turned around. Found his father looking at him with that narrow-eyed stare that could only mean one thing.
That he was dead serious.
“No son of mine will ever bow to the wishes of any woman.” Another sip of scotch before he set the glass down on the desk again. “Don’t ever forget that.”
Unsure how else to respond to that, Travis merely said, “I understand,” before he opened the door and left his father’s office.
It was a lie, though.
He didn’t understand.
4
“AGAIN, I’M REALLY SORRY ABOUT just leaving the party like that,” Bree told her best friend as she walked in stride with her down the hall. Her hands gripped the straps of her backpack. “I feel bad that I left without saying anything to you. I mean, that must have been so awkward for you.”
“Awkward for me? Are you serious?” Veronica shook you head. “Girl, don’t even go there with me. That whole scene was obviously way more awkward for you than it was for anyone else. I can’t believe he proposed to you in front of everyone like that. What the hell was he thinking?”
“He wasn’t thinking. I know Travis as well as anyone, and I know that he doesn’t like to put too much thought into anything. If he wants to do something, then he just does it.”
“Apparently that includes when he wants to do someone as well.”
“Yeah . . . I guess so.” Bree nibbled on the corner of her lip while looking down at her feet as she walked. It was still difficult for her to accept that her boyfriend had cheated on her, but she also knew that if she chose to believe him when he denied it, she wouldn’t be doing herself any favors. Deep down, she knew that he wasn’t being completely honest with her. “He has certainly always been impulsive.”
“Well, he can be impulsive all he wants for all I care, but when it comes to screwing around behind my bestie’s back, I’ve got a real problem with that.”
“It doesn’t matter now. It’s done and over with. I’m ready to move on with my life.”
“Does that mean that you’re over Travis?”
“Of course not, but I guess I will be one day.” Bree stopped and turned to face Veronica. “You want to know what hurts the most?”
“What’s that?”
“If it wasn’t for him cheating on me, I honestly think I probably would have said yes to him.”
“Really? You would have agreed to marry him?”
“Yeah. I think I would have. I know we’re probably way too young and shouldn’t rush into something like that, but I really think I would have said yes under different circumstances.”
“I guess I can’t say I’m surprised. You did go out with the guy for nearly four years. You really loved him.”
“I still love him.” Bree started walking again.
“Hold up.” Veronica grabbed her arm to stop her in her tracks. “You do?”
“Well, yeah, of course. If I didn’t love him then it wouldn’t hurt so much.”
“But you’re not having second thoughts about breaking up with him, are you?”
“I never officially broke up with him.” Bree held up a hand just as she saw her friend opening her mouth. “And before you say anything, no that doesn’t mean that I’m going to get back together with him. I know that I can’t trust him, and I can’t be with someone I can’t trust.”
“Good. I was about to flip out if you told me that you were thinking about giving him another chance or something like that.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on it.”
“I’m glad to hear it. If there’s one thing that I know about cheaters, it’s that if they’re willing to do it once, it’s only a matter of time before they do it again. That’s what happened to Becky.”
“Your sister? Are you telling me that Harry cheated on her?”
“No, it wasn’t Harry. It was back when she was a senior here. She was going out with this guy. He was such a dick. I told her that she could do so much better than him, but she didn’t listen to me, and she didn’t listen to our parents either. She thought she was in love with him, and he ended up cheating on her not just once, but three times before she finally did the smart thing by getting out of the relationship.”
“Wow. I never knew that.”
“Becky doesn’t like me talking about it, and I never would have brought it up if it wasn’t for your situation with Travis. Becky was devastated when she broke up
with that asshole, but she met Harry in college, they were married a year later, and she never looked back.”
“Is that your way of encouraging me that everything is going to be okay?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. Is it working?”
“Not really, but I appreciate you trying to help.” Bree turned and started to walk again, but skidded to an abrupt stop when she suddenly found someone blocking her path.
“Travis . . .” Bree trailed off as she stood there frozen in place, unsure what she was supposed to say to him. This was the first time that she had crossed paths with him since his proposal the other night that ended so awkwardly for both of them, and everyone that was there to witness it.
He looked awful. Dark circles under his eyes, hair unkempt, and stubble on his chin and cheeks.
“Can we talk?” Travis asked.
“I seriously doubt Bree wants to talk to you right now,” Veronica said with plenty of venom in her tone.
“I think that’s up to Bree to decide.” He shot Veronica a cold stare before he turned to Bree again and his expression softened. “So can we please talk? It won’t take long. I promise.”
There was a part of Bree that wanted to believe that Travis was here to apologize to her, and once he did, they could put this whole messy situation behind them and go back to being the perfect couple that they used to be, but she trusted and valued the advice that she got from both her mother and Veronica. She knew better than to simply forgive him and hope that it never happened again. He showed his true colors, and she didn’t want to spend her life with someone that she couldn’t trust.
“I don’t know.” Bree twisted her hair around her finger. “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea for us to—”
“Please,” Travis cut her off. “I only need a couple of minutes. That’s all.”
Bree sighed and glanced at Veronica, who shook her head, making her opinion very apparent. But it wasn’t her decision at the end of the day. It was up to Bree. And as upset as she was with Travis, she felt like she owed it to him to at least hear him out.
She turned to Veronica. “Can you give us a second? I’ll meet you in class.”
Veronica frowned. “Bree, I don’t think you should—”
“I’ll be fine.” She gave her friend’s arm a squeeze to reassure her. “Trust me.”
Even though Veronica was obviously not happy, she didn’t argue the point further. Pausing only long enough to shoot Travis a dirty look, Veronica started down the hall, stomping her feet with a little more aggression than necessary, and soon disappeared around a corner and out of sight.
“Thanks for being willing to talk to me,” Travis said.
“Yeah. Sure.” Bree crossed her arms. “So what do you want to talk about?”
“I think you already know the answer to that. I want to talk about us.”
“Then there isn’t anything for us to talk about.”
“I disagree.” He took a step closer to her. “I think there’s a lot for us to talk about, and I also need to confess something to you.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea what you’re going to confess to.”
“Then you can at least give me the opportunity to apologize to you and tell you the truth about what happened.”
Bree shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what happened. All I need to know is whether or not you slept with Melissa.”
With a sigh, Travis rubbed the back of his neck while looking down at his feet. “Yes . . . I did.”
“That’s what I thought.” Bree started to follow Veronica, but she was stopped when Travis grabbed her arm.
“Wait, you have to let me explain. I didn’t want it to happen, and it only happened the one time. She just came on to me all of a sudden, and I had been drinking, and I just didn’t—”
“Save it, Travis. I don’t want to hear it.”
“So that’s it then? You’re really going to throw away everything we have just because I made one stupid mistake.”
“It wasn’t just one mistake. You cheated on me. That was your first mistake. And then you kept it from me. That was your second mistake. And finally you lied to me about it. That was your third mistake.”
“I . . . you can’t . . . but we could just . . .” Travis fumbled with his words as if he were trying to start one sentence after the other without ever actually finishing any of his thoughts.
“I have to go,” Bree spoke up when it looked like he was never going to get anything coherent out of his mouth. Not that she really wanted to listen to anything that he had to say right now anyway.
Just being around him right now—with all of her emotions both positive and negative still so fresh and raw—was so painful that she could hardly stand it. She was desperate for this uncomfortable encounter to come to an end.
“No, you can’t leave.” Travis tightened his grip on her forearm. “We haven’t worked anything out yet. We need to fix this. I know we can fix it if you just give me a chance.”
“No, Travis, we can’t fix this, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Please let go of my arm.”
“I can’t do that. Not yet.” His grip tightened again.
“Ouch. Travis, let go. You’re hurting me.” Looking into his pale blue eyes—narrowed to form a cold stare—Bree worried that he wasn’t going to let go of her at all. And for the first time in all of the years that she had known him, she was genuinely afraid of him.
Her fears were somewhat alleviated when his expression softened and he released his hold on her arm before stepping back away from her. He shook his head as if he were as shocked at his own behavior as she was.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” he uttered.
Bree wasn’t even sure how to respond to that, and so she didn’t respond at all. She turned around and hurried down the hall away from him. In that moment, all that she could think about was getting as far away from her ex-boyfriend as possible. She didn’t slow down until she entered her next classroom and sat down at her desk right next to Veronica.
“Are you okay?” her friend asked.
Bree only nodded. She didn’t want to talk about what happened. She just wanted to believe that it was an isolated event and would never happen again.
5
BY THE TIME THAT SCHOOL was finally over for the day, Bree was so physically and emotionally exhausted that all she wanted was to go straight home and crawl into bed for a long nap. The strange encounter with Travis left her feeling uneasy for the rest of the day, and she was in a hurry to get out of there ever since then.
Veronica tried over and over again to coax her into talking about what happened with Travis, but every time the subject was brought up, Bree insisted that there was nothing to talk about. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate Veronica trying to help, she just knew that talking to Veronica about it wouldn’t do any good. It would only give Veronica more reason to make Travis out to be a horrible person.
Bree didn’t want that.
The way Travis acted was unacceptable. There was no denying that. But he wasn’t a bad guy. She had known him long enough to say that with confidence. She was sure that he only acted the way that he did because he was upset, which she could certainly understand.
But he would have to get over her in time.
Just like she would have to get over him.
It was going to take time for her too.
Her mom was still at work when Bree got home. She went straight upstairs to her bedroom and tossed her backpack down on the floor before she went to the bathroom. As tired as she was, she figured a nice, long soak in the bath could be exactly what she needed to melt away some of the tension that had accumulated over the course of the stressful day.
As the bath was filling up, Bree unbuttoned the front of her blouse. She pulled it up over her head and then dropped it to the tile floor. She gripped the top of her skirt and was about to pull it down when her ears were met by the unmistakable sound of footsteps. It sounded like someone was coming up th
e stairs.
Shutting off the water, Bree poked her head out of the bathroom and looked across her room at the open door that led out into the hall.
“Mom? Is that you?”
Bree heard nothing but silence. She waited for about fifteen seconds before she decided that it must have only been her mind playing tricks on her before she went back inside the bathroom, shutting the door behind her this time. She was about to lock it when she again heard movement. This time, it sounded like it was coming from the hall just outside her bedroom.
Opening the door a crack, she peered out into her room again.
“Mom, are you out there?” She knew that her mom wasn’t supposed to be home from work for hours, but she supposed it was possible that her shift had been changed or reduced.
Bree slowly started across the room, creeping closer to the bed. Her gaze shifted repeatedly from her phone—which was on the edge of the bed—and the open doorway. She was still holding out hope that she didn’t hear what she thought she heard—or that it was only her mom home early from work—but she couldn’t deny that she was frightened about the possibility of there being an intruder in the house.
Reaching the bed, Bree picked up her phone. She figured she would call her mom first, and if she was still at work—or simply didn’t answer her phone—then Bree’s next call would be to Sheriff Rogers.
Just as she was about to call her mom, Bree heard a tap on her door and she looked up from the phone to see Travis leaning against the door frame, smiling at her with one of those smiles that used to instantly make her heart flutter, but it didn’t have the same effect now that it used to.
“Hey, babe, did I scare you?”
“Travis, what the hell are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?” Travis shook his head as if her question was so absurd that he couldn’t believe she would even bother to ask. “I obviously came here to see you.”
“You let yourself in?”
“Yeah. You gave me a key. Don’t you remember?”
“Yes, of course I remember. I just . . .” Bree trailed off. Now that her adrenaline was fading, she realized that the only thing covering the top half of her body was her bra. She quickly snatched a pillow off the bed and held it against her chest. “You can’t just let yourself in whenever you want, Travis.”
Hide and Seek: A Suspense Thriller Page 3
