Wherever It Leads

by Adriana Locke

  He swallows hard. “I can understand that. Of course they’re to blame.”

  “Absolutely. If it weren’t for their carelessness and heartlessness, my brother wouldn’t be God knows where with guns pointed at his head right now.” The image skates through my mind and the tears form once again. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

  My sight blurs and I drop my phone on the floor. Fenton is to me in a split second, scooping me up in his arms. I rest my head on his shoulder and cry.

  “Shh,” he whispers, nuzzling my face with his head. “Shh, rudo.”

  “I have to have him back,” I choke out through the tears. “This is destroying my family, especially my mother. I think she’s going to have a nervous breakdown or a heart attack. It’s impossible to live a normal life knowing he’s over there . . .”

  We enter the bedroom and he lays me on the bed. He doesn’t break contact, just angles me so he can slide in behind me. We lie there in silence, me crying, Fenton rubbing my back, my arm, smoothing my hair.

  Once I calm down, he kisses my cheek, letting his lips press against my skin for a moment longer than necessary.

  “Do you need to go home?” he asks.

  I turn over to look at him. His face is etched with concern, his eyes trying to figure out mine. But this time he won’t because I can’t figure them out myself. “No. There’s nothing I can do there. I just . . . I want to be here with you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’m happy I got this call while I was with you. You just . . . you make it a little easier. Just knowing you’re here.”

  His smile is forced, the lines around his eyes deep. I remember he was dealing with something too, before I got my call.

  “Are you all right? You got a call . . .”

  His eyes flutter closed for a brief moment. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  “I know you will,” I say, trying hard to smile.

  He jerks the blankets up over our bodies and turns me around so I face the wall.

  “We’ve had a long day. Let’s get some sleep,” he whispers.

  “Maybe we can have lunch by the pool tomorrow,” I say, sleep settling over my brain quickly. The crying was the nail in the coffin and I can’t keep my eyes open.

  Fenton responds, but I can’t focus on his words. I just settle in, finding a rhythm in the beating of his heart, and force myself to think about boats and kisses.

  Something shakes me. I groan and turn away after a night of letting the demons that come around in the darkness have a party in my brain.

  “Brynne. Wake up.”

  The voice sounds far away. It’s too soft to make out exactly. It’s too much work to try to open my eyes or to figure out what’s happening, so I drift back off again.

  Pressure descends on my thigh and I’m tussled back and forth.

  I drag my eyes open and wipe the sleep out of them. They’re swollen from a night of intermediate crying and sobbing and my head has a dull throb of what I fear is the start of a banging migraine.

  Fenton, fresh from the shower, is bent over me. As I allow my pupils to adjust to the light, I breathe him in. He smells like cotton and musk and my senses are enveloped by the comfort it brings.

  “Good morning,” he whispers, running his hand down the side of my face. I lean into his touch, his warmth.

  “Morning. What time is it?”

  “It’s early, just seven o’clock.”

  “I thought you had a meeting?”

  He takes a deep breath and holds it a long second before releasing it in a heavy huff. “I did, but it got rescheduled. I have the jet on the runway waiting on us in an hour.”

  I scramble to sit up, to knock the fog out of my head. My stomach plummets when I remember the disastrous night before—my parents, Brady, Fenton’s call. I remember him carrying me to bed and holding me throughout the night. When I fell asleep, we’d discussed what we would do today.

  What changed?

  “I know I planned on a staying a couple more days,” he says, his voice trembling with a hint of uncertainty, “I just think it’s best we get back now.”

  “Okay.” I don’t say anything more. I feel whipped, completely defeated in every sense of the word. Being here with him was the distraction I needed and now it’s over. I’m Cinderella and the clock has struck midnight. I’ve gone from being happy, in a complete dream, to being thrust back into the vile real world in one fell swoop.

  “Don’t look like that,” he says, lifting my chin with his finger. I can see the hesitancy written all over his handsome face, the way he seems to be giving me room or taking some for himself. Whichever way, it stings.

  “We both have a lot happening right now,” he says, “and I need to be at the office handling this. And you probably want to be with your family too, right?”

  “Yeah,” I lie to save face.

  I’m not sure what changed his mind about us, whatever we are and were going to be, but I guess it was my craziness last night and realizing how his normal way of thinking works for him. Relationships are too much work, too much of a distraction, too much responsibility. He doesn’t want that and it’s probably very clear I’m not at an easy point in my life.

  He takes my hand and lifts me off the bed and onto my feet. I jerk at the hem of his shirt that I wore to bed in an effort to feel less exposed. Less bare. Less vulnerable.

  Instead of pulling me close like has become our habit, he studies me. It’s not the amused or even warm look I’m used to seeing. It’s peppered with a loneliness that seeps into my bones.

  “The last few days have been some of the best days I’ve ever experienced. I want you to know that,” he professes. “You are such a special person, Brynne. I’ll always be grateful for the day you lost your phone.”

  I feel his rejection, or what I take as his rejection, and the obnoxious level of misery that accompanies it is devastating. My lip quivers and I bite down on it, hard, to keep myself from crying. I won’t cry in front of him. I won’t cry for him. I won’t belittle myself like that.

  “Brynne . . .”

  “I need to pack my things.” I bow my head and step around him and towards the ensuite. I’d rather just grab my stuff and get this over with rather than listen to him apologize for changing his mind about everything.

  If we get home and he wants to see me again, I’ll work that out. But it’s not a theory that’s holding water at the moment, and I have other things I need to concentrate on. Like not having a nervous breakdown.

  I grab a clean outfit from my suitcase and stumble into the ensuite and change. I wait for his hand to fall on my shoulder, the sound of him following behind me. Neither comes.

  I get cleaned up, focusing on each step. Brush teeth. Remove shirt. Slip on dress.

  Stepping back into the bedroom, it’s vacant. His suitcase is gone, his briefcase that sat all week when he wasn’t at work on the dresser is missing.

  The bed is rumpled from our bodies just a few minutes ago. I walk over and let my fingers grab a handful of the sheets and remind myself of what this was. A reset button. A rebound. Even if I allowed myself to believe this had potential for more, it doesn’t now.

  I can’t blame him.

  We don’t know each other well enough to expect loyalty. He doesn’t owe me anything and delivered on his promise of a fun few days. He’s allowed to change his mind, especially when his decision to see me again clearly was made under too much sun and too much alcohol.

  I gather my courage, and tuck the rest of my belongings into my suitcase. Latching it closed, I pull it into the living room. He’s sitting on the sofa, his fingers flying across his phone. He glances up when he hears me.

  “Are you ready?” he asks wearily.

  I nod.

  “Brynne, let me explain—”

  “There’s nothing for you to explain,” I say as nonchalantly as possible. “We both need to get back. I get it.”

  The air is thick and it stirs betwee
n us. Any other time it’s felt this way, he’s leapt through the space and kissed the shit out of me. But this time, he doesn’t.

  He starts to speak but, before the words eke out, he blows out a breath and turns away. He grabs his bag and tosses it over his shoulder and turns to me again. “Leave your suitcase here. The bellboy will come and get it.” He gives me a quick once over. “Do you have everything?”

  “I do.”

  His bottom lip clenched between his teeth, he leads me to the door and I follow, giving the suite a final glance.

  The car coasts along the highway, the palm trees drifting back and forth in the breeze. It’s a picture-perfect California afternoon, one songs have been written about and people have envisioned as they migrate here from all over the world.

  I watch the trees zip by from the rear passenger’s window. Fenton sits beside me. Just as he’s done from the moment we exited our suite a few hours ago, he barely says a word. I get the feeling often that he’s going to say something, that he wants to say something, but it never happens. And each time his mouth opens and closes, my spirits tumble just a bit more.

  Although he said we’d see each other after we got home, I know that’s not happening. I feel it. I can see it in his beautiful grey eyes.

  I feel his touch, his fingertips brushing across the back of my hand. My throat tightens at the contact and I squeeze my eyes shut, relishing the feeling. Still-shots from the last few days fire off in my mind, images of the way the corners of his lips nearly touch his eyes when he laughs, the way his jaw ticks when I’ve riled him up, the way the smirk skirts slowly across his mouth right before he says something ridiculously sexy.

  “Brynne . . .” My name on his lips is the cashmere Presley first described. It’s soft and rich and textured.

  He draws another pattern across my knuckles and I remove my hand from beneath his. Turning to look at him, he’s scanning me, searching for something that I don’t know how to give him.

  “Yeah?”

  He takes a swallow, his throat moving with the force. I wonder if his feels as constricted as mine. If he feels the awkwardness, yet the complete easiness, between us.

  “I’m going to be really busy for the next few weeks . . .” he begins. He doesn’t look me in the eye, and I think that’s the hardest thing about the start of what I know is an about-face to what he said before. Even though I knew this was coming from the moment I looked into his face this morning.

  I keep my features neutral and unreflecting of the jagged pain I feel inside when his eyes finally drag to mine. The hope I’d begun to feel, the visions of things that might be possible, vanishing through my fingers.

  “This, whatever this is between us, is probably going to have to be put on hold a little while,” he mutters. I can’t tell if he doesn’t want to say it to me, or if he doesn’t want to say it at all.

  “I get it,” I say, forcing an insincere smile on my lips.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “You’re busy,” I point out, as much to myself as for him. “And you told me we’d spend a few days together and you made them memorable and have been over-the-top in generosity. There’s nothing for you to make excuses for.”

  “I didn’t just tell you that. I told you I wanted to see you when we got home–”

  “And I never believed you,” I lie to the both of us. “Scotch makes people say funny things.”

  His head drops into his hands. He growls, running his hands across his face, scrubbing it harshly before looking back to me again.

  “Whatever I say is just going to make this worse, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I agree, “it is. So you should probably just shut up.” His shoulders tumble forward and he grins. It’s the one I love most, the one that shows me that I get to him. That he doesn’t know what to do with me. I guess this time, he really doesn’t.

  “I wish you would’ve let me have Presley pick me up at the airport. We could’ve saved ourselves this conversation,” I half-laugh.

  “But I would’ve had to give up this time with you.”

  His words choke me, bolts of poison cutting me to the core. How dare he say something like that now? I can’t look at him. I miss him already and he’s still a couple of feet from me. How am I going to feel when this car pulls away and I probably never see him again?

  His hand picks mine up, engulfing my small palm in his. He clamps over it in a gesture I would’ve deemed territorial at this time yesterday.

  I recognize the street we’re on over Fenton’s shoulder and start to pull my hand out of his. Before I can, he brings it to his luscious lips and presses a heavy kiss against each knuckle.

  I take in his face, the lines around his eyes, the intensity of his gaze and the heaviness of my heart.

  Giving him the best smile I can, I withdraw my hand. I start to speak, to thank him again for a great few days, but when I open my mouth, I sense the tears that may start and I’ll be damned if I’m going to cry. So instead, I nod and open the door. His seatbelt clicks and I turn around.

  “Fent?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t.”

  “I just want to walk you to the door.”

  “Please. Don’t. This will be much easier if we just end this here.”

  “I didn’t say end, Brynne,” he grimaces. “I said put on hold.”

  I shrug and start out of the car again.

  “Brynne . . .”

  I turn to look at him. I can’t read anything he’s thinking or feeling and it makes me feel so alone.

  He takes stock of my features, of the pleadings of my eyes. With a heavy sigh, he sinks back into the seat.

  I climb out and close the door and follow the driver that’s carrying my suitcase up the walk and never look back.

  “I’m going to be real honest with you, Brynnie. I didn’t expect you to look like this when you got home.”

  “Shocker.”

  “I expected a post-coital glow, maybe a permanent smirk from all the sexy times. Not . . . this.”

  I huff, stirring the sugar into my coffee. “Yeah, well, this wasn’t on my list of to-do’s either.”

  Presley clasps her hands together and sits them on the table in front of her, which is across the kitchen table from me. Her bracelets rattle off the wooden planks, jingling through the room.

  “I’m sorry, Brynne. I know what happened with Brady.”

  “Yeah,” I exhale, lifting the warm mug to my lips.

  “Your dad told me last night when they called here looking for you. I called them this morning to check on them. Your poor mother. I almost drove to their house just to try to offer some support or something.”

  “I called her before the plane left Vegas and she just sounds numb this morning. I guess we all are in our own way.”

  “Do you want to go see them?”

  I’ve considered it. It’s just a couple of hours drive from here and if I left now, I could be there before dinner. But when I proposed it to my mother, she demanded I stay home and go through the motions of my day.

  “Nah,” I say, sipping the coffee. “I have to work. And really, if I were there, I think they’d feel torn about spending time with me and focusing on him. At least if I’m here, they can do what needs to be done, if that makes sense.”

  “It does.” Presley watches me with narrowed eyes before speaking. “You’re pretty calm about it. Calmer than I thought you’d be.”

  “I think I cried myself out last night. Today, I just feel . . . dull. I don’t know how to explain it. There’s nothing I can do, Pres.” My jaw tenses as I think about the assholes who won’t go get him and how they’re having breakfast with their families today, sleeping in their beds tonight.

  “Did he even know who he was going to work for?” I ask, tossing my thoughts into the universe. “Did he know how dangerous it would really be—not just the generic ‘I’m going out of the country so there’s a level of danger involved’? Maybe they let him be taken—”r />
  “Whoa,” Presley interrupts. “You’re pissing yourself off. That’s not going to do anyone any good.”

  I roll my eyes. She’s right, of course, but screw that. At least when I get pissed off, I care, and that’s more than anyone besides my parents have done since day one.

  “Let’s change the subject,” Presley proposes. “What happened with Cashmere?”

  “Well, he whisked me away on his private jet. He fucked the sense out of me. He was kind and sweet and playful and it was just amazing.”

  She beams.

  “He took me away to Lake Las Vegas and chartered a private yacht,” I feed her. “We screwed on the balcony as the sun set, drank a lot of frozen drinks, ate the best hamburger I’ve ever tasted, and he told me he wanted to see me when we got back to California.”

  “For real? How awesome! I’m not jumping ahead, and I know I said he was just a rebound, but—”

  “And then,” I cut her off, “he got a call from work and, whatever it was, really perplexed him. And then Mom called and I think he realized how much he needed to focus and what a hot mess my life is.”

  We exchange a sad smile. Presley’s lips twitch before she finally bites the bottom one to keep from talking.

  “So, here I am a couple of days early. But,” I sigh, looking at the ceiling, “it’s not even that, Pres. It’s like he let me down easy. He tried to make it seem like we might see each other again, but I really don’t think he means that. And while I appreciate the gentle brush-off, the ‘hold’ part of ‘on hold’ feels pretty damn permanent.”

  “Oh, Brynne . . .”

  My spirits sink. Again.

  “Yeah. So that’s that. It was a great few days and I have enough material to masturbate to for a few months. It’ll all work out.”

  She shakes her head, still in disbelief. Watching her work through the emotions is somehow cathartic. I follow her as the disbelief switches to sadness and then, ultimately, to anger. Her eyes blaze.

  “Fuck him,” she says. “Fuck him and his cashmere voice and his big cock. I mean, I’m guessing he was packing.”