by Amelia Wilde
I don’t have her number.
I’ve never exchanged numbers with her.
Outside, the sun plays over the sand, and I stomp along the beach not bothering to look for sea glass. One property, two, three…and then I’m at her house.
I never thought I’d say it, but I breathe a sigh of relief at the sight. I can see why she’s so attached to it, and to this stretch of beach. Maybe we’re not such opposites after all.
I go up the steps to the deck. How many more times am I going to get to do this before she moves to the city? This could be the last one, if Roman has his way.
I hate his way.
I pause at the sliding-glass door and knock on the frame. If she’s napping, I don’t want to wake her up.
It’s not more than a few seconds until she appears on the other side, dragging a suitcase behind her.
16
Holiday
Driver’s face is alight. His blue eyes shine, and even though we’re separated by the glass of the sliding door, it doesn’t distort him at all. He might as well be a sun-god standing out on the back deck. It makes my heart sink all the way to my toes.
“Hey,” he says, his voice muffled by the glass, and raises his hand in a tentative wave.
The tile is cool under my feet as I open the door. Stay grounded, I remind myself. It’s easy to get swept away by Driver, but I can’t do that now.
He steps in through the door with a smile that sings of relief. “I should have known it was a sign.” Driver bends and presses a kiss to my jawline. It feels like a promise, and oh, god, I wish it didn’t. His words sink in behind the kiss.
“What’s a sign?” Every instinct in my body cries out to get as close to him as possible. That will involve taking his shirt off. I cross my arms and pin my hands under my elbows to stop myself from grabbing at it, in light of the new change of plans.
“Your suitcase.” He beams down at me. “Which one of my brothers set it up?”
“Your brothers…”
“I thought Roman was being an over-the-top asshole just now, sending me to Washington for two weeks. And I almost killed Beau for telling him, but I should have expected that he would. Not everything Beau does is a total fuck-up.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I put a smile on my face to cover the fact that my heart is breaking with every word that comes out of his mouth. “Washington for two weeks.”
He takes my hands in his. “It’ll be so worth it, I promise. You’ll never be alone. I’ll find a nicer hotel than what he’s probably booked, and we can spend the whole time together. If you don’t want to go to the meetings, you don’t have to, but—”
I put a hand on his chest and he covers it with his, an instinct that sends me to the afterlife and brings me back.
“I know,” Driver says. “It’s a lot. But for once they got it.” He laughs. “God, who pulls pranks like that? I’ve spent so many years trying to get control of my own corner of this operation—”
“Driver.”
“Have you ever been to Washington? The state, not D.C. It’s gorgeous out there. Miles of road…not that I’ll have too much time for driving. Wait. Are you okay to fly? Is there someone we should call?”
“Driver, I don’t know—” I stand up tall, and it takes a gargantuan amount of effort. “I don’t know about your plans for Washington, but even if I did—” Just spit it out. Get it over with. Stop dragging out the heartbreak into infinity. “I’m leaving for the city tonight. My new job wants me early.”
He blinks once, the twice. “That’s not—what?”
“At the publishing house. They called me a while back and wanted to push up my start date to the end of August instead of the beginning of September, and I—I said yes. I’ve been waffling about it so much that it’s driving me insane, but then an hour ago my new boss called.”
“Okay…”
“I guess it’s busier than they thought, and they need me now. Tomorrow. As soon as I can get there. So I’m driving into the city tonight and starting tomorrow morning.” A weight lifts off my chest. There—it’s out in the open. “It’s for the best, because I’ve honestly been thinking that I should stay here. But I can’t stay here, because that would be giving in to all the constraints I’ve put on myself already, and—”
“You’re not going to Washington.” Driver takes a step back. “No, of course not. How would they have planned that with you? I realized on the way over that I don’t have your cell phone number. How would any of my brothers have your number? Unless you met them too and were waiting for the right moment to mention it.”
It’s a dig that lands so softly it takes a few moments for it to register. “I’ve known about the change in the job for an hour, and I’ve spent the whole time packing.” I force the words through my aching throat. “My next stop was the resort. I was going to find you, and I was going to tell you.”
“So you…you thought about staying, but you’re not going to? You’re going to go to New York and start your job and never look back.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then say what you were going to say.” Driver sticks his hands in his pockets. “You chose the new job. That leaves me with either following you to the city, or…”
“Or going on with your life.” It’s a mad struggle to keep my voice even. The urge to cry is strong. “We can—we can coordinate some long-distance schedule for the baby.”
“A long-distance schedule,” he echoes, looking out through the sliding-glass door. “You’d rather have a long-distance schedule than give up a job you don’t really want?”
“I do want the job,” I insist, wishing he would look at me and wishing I didn’t have to see the devastation in his eyes. “I’m sure…I’m sure I can get used to a job in the city. And this is the only job that will give me connections in the publishing industry. I want to sell my book one day—”
“Then sell your book. You don’t have to move to New York City to do that. Do you even—” He looks incredulous. “Do you even have a book to sell?”
“I have part of a book.”
That hangs in the air like a lead weight, crashing to the floor between us.
“I want to be a writer.”
“Then be a writer,” Driver says. “Come with me to Washington and spend all day writing, if that’s what you want to do. Spend all day writing.” Hope gleams in his eyes. “You don’t have to go to the city to do that.”
“I do if I want to prove that I can do it. And that matters to me.”
“Proof that you can be unhappy for the sake of a job?”
“Who knows if I’m going to be unhappy? I don’t. I won’t know until I try.”
“Have you lived in the city before?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“When?”
“When I was in high school.”
“Which city?” Driver looks me square in the eye.
I look back.
“Oh, my god,” he says.
“We lived on the Lower East Side. Okay? That’s where—you know what? It doesn’t matter. I want to prove to myself that I can survive there. I have to be able to survive there if I’m going to be a good mom. You could stand to think about that.” I spit the words into his face.
“Are you asking me—seriously, right now—are you asking me to move to the city to prove that I can be a good father? Is that what you’re asking me?”
“I’m saying, you haven’t offered any compromise.” My voice trembles.
“How am I supposed to compromise with move to the city or be out of your child’s life? Tell me, Holiday. How is that a compromise?”
“I didn’t say you’d be out of the baby’s life. It would only be harder for you, since you—since you won’t give up traveling.”
“I’m not going to give up my work and my life because you want to be in the city.”
“I’m not going to spend my life on the road because you won’t settle down and do the right thing.
”
I wish I could take it back as soon as I’ve said it, but that’s not how life works. Instead, I get to watch the words sink into Driver’s chest like a quiver of arrows. His body flinches back at the impact and then he forces himself back upright. My heart twists at the sight.
“I’ve got a flight out in the morning,” he says, ending the longest silence I’ve ever endured in my life. “If you change your mind, you can come to my house and let me know. Otherwise…” He rubs a hand over his mouth, the movement as ginger as if he’d been punched. “Otherwise, you can always get ahold of me at the resort.”
He leaves me standing by the door, watching the waves until it’s too dark to see.
17
Driver
There’s a knock at the door sometime after ten. I throw myself off the sofa with such force that my knee hits the coffee table and I fall back down, writhing in pain.
It’s nothing compared to how I felt leaving Holiday’s place.
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand any of it. I’ve never been at the top of the class or the front of any race, but this level of struggle when it comes to figuring out another human being is…beyond. This is not the life I’ve set myself up to live. Most obnoxious of all is the small part of me that lit up at the idea of settling down. It’s a lie, and it would never last. Sometimes, when I’m out on the road, I get so homesick for Ruby Bay that it chokes me. But then, when I’m back…
I’m pissed as hell at Roman, but I’ve been feeling the call of the road for days now. A week, at least. This divided loyalty shit is not for me.
And Holiday?
She lived in the city before, so she knows it’s not her cup of tea. What’s so wrong with admitting it? Why is she so willing to throw herself back into the belly of the beast to prove a point?
My heart stops and starts again at the prospect of her standing outside on my porch. If she’s out there, I won’t get on the damn flight to Washington. I’ll bring her inside and we can figure out what we’ll do. We’ll plan out every single day of the rest of our lives, if that’s what she wants. I run through a mental list of everything that’s in my cupboards. I could pull together some pancakes, if she’s hungry.
I open the front door.
“Hey,” says Beau.
I don’t say anything.
“Some greeting,” he calls after me. I go back into the living room and take up my place on the sofa. He follows me inside. “I said hey.”
“Hey. Get out of my house. How’s that for a greeting?”
“Not the worst I’ve ever received, but it could use some work.” He lets himself fall into the recliner across from the sofa. It’s all hand-me-down furniture from the resort, and it feels like home to me as much as anything I chose from the store could. I live in hotels. And I don’t live here often. It’s perfect. “Let’s chat.”
“What do you want to chat about?”
“I feel partially responsible for what happened with Roman earlier.”
“Oh, yeah? Did you tell him to send me to Washington for two weeks?” Bitterness rises like acid into my throat. “Because that was a dick move.”
“I did not,” Beau says simply. “For one thing, far be it from me to send anybody anywhere.”
“Far be it.” I have to crack a smile at that, if only because he’s so transparently trying to make it up to me. “What’s the other thing?”
“What?”
“You said, for one thing. That means you have to follow it up with another thing.”
“Oh. For…another thing, I’ve been bugging the piss out of him lately. I think he liked me better when he thought I was drunk all the time.”
“You sure it’s you?”
Beau cocks his head to the the side. “Isn’t this an Occam’s razor–type problem?”
“Charlie’s been saying some weird stuff about the resort’s finances.”
“Sure. But Charlie’s always up in arms about those. That’s his personal brand. Why do you think it was so charming for me to be the drunk party twin?”
“It seems serious this time.”
Beau shrugs. “Maybe. But for a third thing, I know he wasn’t supposed to tell me about your…situation with Holiday.”
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it. She’s pregnant.”
“From what I understand, yes. She is.”
I rest my head on my hand. “Where are you going with this?”
“This is one of those years,” he says.
“Don’t be cryptic. I swear to god, if people don’t start saying what they mean the first time, I’m going to drive away and never come back.”
“It would be living up to your name.”
“Beau.”
“This seems like one of those years when people—namely our motley collection of Bliss Brothers—are making changes. They don’t usually coincide so closely together, but this time, they are.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Roman still acts like a huge prick, but he’s focusing more on the things he can control with the resort. And I admitted to everyone that I don’t actually drink all day.” Beau’s eyes glint in the lamplight. He might have admitted that he doesn’t drink, but he still dresses the part. Maybe that’s so people recognize him.
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Nobody would be surprised if you wanted to rearrange your lifestyle, given…the events that have taken place.”
“You mean the fact that Holiday’s pregnant. You can say it out loud, Beau. It’s not going to scare me.” I rub both hands over my face, wishing I could rub this day off the calendar just as easily. “And I don’t want to rearrange my lifestyle. The road is all I have.”
He’s quiet for so long that I drop my hands to look at him. “Maybe that’s your problem.”
“Are you really going to sit here and give me sage life advice after you ran a years-long con on everyone in the family?”
Beau considers this. “Yeah. I am. Because it was a successful con, at least sometimes.”
“Lie.”
“Fine. It took a lot of energy that I could have spent elsewhere. Are you happy?” Beau grins at me. “Really. Are you happy?”
“Not today.”
“Because of the Washington thing?”
“I went over there. Okay? I went over to her place, because I thought for some reason that you circus animals had set up a little getaway for us.”
“Oh, Driver.” Beau puts his hand to his heart. “Oh, that is the sweetest thing.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
His smile turns into a frown. “And she wasn’t in on it, because of course nobody set you up on a resort-sponsored lovers’ getaway.”
“I made a fool of myself. And she gave me an ultimatum.”
“About what?”
“She has a new job in the city, and they want her to start tomorrow. She basically told me that there was no way she’d travel with me, or consider any other option than taking the job.”
“And you got down on one knee, proposed, and told her that you’ll make all her dreams come true and she doesn’t need the city.”
“Not in…those terms. But I did tell her she should come to Washington with me.”
Beau laughs. “She’s pregnant, Drive. She’s probably desperate for some stability, and you didn’t even pretend to be capable of living like a normal human for some period of time?”
I look down at my hands.
“You fucked that up, son.”
“Don’t son me.” I’m not particularly proud of how the conversation at Holiday’s went. But I’m not going to be the first one to give in, either. Give in once, and people will take a mile. “She hid it from me. Did you know that? I was at her place for four days before she told me.”
“Well, look at you,” Beau says gently. “I mean, not literally. Outwardly, you’re a handsome guy who looks like he might be perfectly happy working a nine-to-five. But she knows
who you are. You wear your traveling heart on your sleeve. Can you blame her?”
“You know, when we were kids, I was always getting dragged around to bullshit for you guys. I was the one who gave up time doing things I wanted to do for the sake of everybody else.”
“So you…know that that’s what family does for each other.”
I look at him, projecting all the skepticism on the planet into my gaze. “I don’t remember any of you missing anything to be there for me.”
“That’s not fair.” Beau narrows his eyes. “I distinctly recall attending your high-school graduation. But that’s not the point.”
“How is it not the point?”
“Because I’d miss something now, if you asked me. Do you want me to fly to Washington with you?”
“God, no.”
“See?”
There’s a long pause.
“I thought you might be Holiday when you knocked on the door.”
“I know. I saw your face. Heartbreaking stuff,” Beau says.
“I told her that if she changed her mind, she should come over. But so far, there’s no sign of her.”
“And have you thought of going over there?”
“I haven’t changed my mind.”
Beau nods. “You want a ride to the airport in the morning?”
“Riddle me this. Do you think I’m on board to drive myself to the airport in the morning?”
“The answer to the riddle is hell no.”
“That’s correct. If nobody shows up to drive my ass to the airport, I’m not getting on that plane.”
“Very mature,” proclaims Beau, standing up with an expansive gesture. “Extreme maturity from Driver Bliss.”
“Fuck off.”
“Extreme profanity from Driver Bliss,” he booms. “I’ll pick you up with plenty of time to get through security.”
“Bless you,” I tell him, and then I kick him out of my house.
18
Holiday
My first breath of New York City smells like garbage and heat, and my stomach turns over.
