by Peak, Renna
The woman leaned in to whisper into my ear, much as Cade had just done a moment before. “Stay the fuck away from my son.”
I pulled back and met her gaze again, the phony smile falling from my face. I grabbed Cade’s arm and tried to stop the trembling that I was already feeling starting to pulse through my body.
I felt Cade’s arm slide around my waist and he guided me to the exit, releasing me after we crossed through the doorway. I stumbled out into the evening air and released the breath I had been holding. We walked a few paces from the bar and Cade watched for the woman, clearly expecting her to follow.
When she hadn’t exited the bar after what seemed like several minutes, I turned to him.
He spoke before I could even make the words form in my brain. “Who was that woman?”
I turned back to the door to see if she was standing there before turning back to face him. “She said she was Brandon’s mother.”
I saw a barely perceptible shake of his head and I let out another breath. Cade didn’t have another chance to speak before a flash of black hair and bronzed skin knocked him to the ground.
I took a step back, turning back to the door to see if the woman was there, and then turned my gaze back to the brawl on the ground. I wasn’t sure whether Brandon or the woman claiming to be his mother posed more of a danger to me. Just knowing Cade was unavailable and unable to do anything for me at the moment sent another chill of terror through me.
“You should have been there. You were supposed to be there.” I recognized the voice, even through the slurred and drunken words.
There was a sickening thud of a punch landing, then another stomach-turning crunch as Cade gained the upper hand and held Brandon by the throat against the ground.
The older man subdued the younger one, and Cade held Brandon down until his fists stopped flying. Cade was the first to stand, extending a hand to assist Brandon from the ground.
Brandon swatted the hand away and lifted himself to a sitting position, his eyes narrowed with rage. “I’ll kill you, Cade. I swear to God, if I wasn’t so…”
Cade dropped his arm and let out a long sigh. “If you weren’t so drunk right now, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He turned to me. “Let’s go, kiddo.”
My jaw had dropped and my feet may as well have been buried in concrete. The entire exchange was surreal and all I could do was stare at Brandon, his mouth bloodied from a punch that Cade had obviously landed. He sat there on the sidewalk, barely clothed in only a t-shirt and boxers, rubbing at his jaw. Part of me wanted to run to him, to kiss the lip that was beginning to swell. The other part wanted to slap him, knowing why he was only half-dressed and what he had been doing with the two women—no, girls—only a few minutes earlier.
His gaze finally lifted to meet mine. The hatred I had seen in his eyes only a second before—hatred aimed at the man he must have felt responsible for everything that had happened to me—everything negative in his eyes melted away the moment his gaze met mine. It was like nothing had happened—no time had passed and we were still lying in bed, blissed-out lovers who couldn’t get enough of each other.
But then he spoke, and the perfect moment was over. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
He was drunk. There was no question about that. Drunk and mean and nasty, things I definitely didn’t need to deal with from him at that moment. There wouldn’t be any talking him down from this. He’d have to sleep it off. And considering who was in his apartment, it was likely he wouldn’t be doing it alone. While I wanted to punch him for that—what did he mean, “What was I doing here?”—I knew I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. It didn’t matter that he had two women in his bed, probably waiting at home for him, and that he deserved a fate worse than castration for that alone. I knew he was hurting from whatever inner demons it was he was battling. I knew I was the cause of at least some of them. And I knew that whatever it was that had driven him to make the choices he had made that night was something that I couldn’t control, especially now that he was sitting on the sidewalk in front of me, drunk out of his mind.
So I did what I always did in situations like these. I forced my Hennessey smile to my face and turned away from him, linking my arm through Cade’s. I had to keep myself from turning around—force myself to not check on what he was doing or where he had gone. I almost hoped that he’d go into the bar and meet the woman who claimed to be his mother. Maybe she could talk some sense into him, even though in his current condition, it was unlikely that he would remember it in the morning.
Cade and I hadn’t walked half a block when I felt someone touch my shoulder. The hairs on my neck and arms stood on end, and I turned around to face the person I had already sensed it was.
“Jen, wait.” The gaze that met mine was the earlier one, the same one that this time made my knees go weak and sent a thrill of electricity jolting through my body. The one that made me want to run into his arms and never let him go again.
But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight, anyway. “You’re drunk, Brandon. You need to go sleep it off.” I let out a long sigh, taking another long moment to gaze into the blue eyes I had missed so much.
His eyes refused to leave mine. “We need to talk.” He motioned with his head toward Cade. “Take the night off.”
Cade shook his head. “I don’t think so, buddy. Another time. Let’s get you home.” Cade took another step toward him.
Brandon took a step back and looked over at me again. “You’ll come with me.” It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement.
I shook my head and tried not to show the pain that was almost splitting my chest in two. He has girls in his apartment. “No. Not tonight, Brandon. You have guests. You should get back and make sure they don’t trash your place.” It was all I could think about. The only rule tonight is that you don’t trash my place. What was he doing here, anyway?
His gaze narrowed and his lip turned up into almost a sneer. “As if your guest didn’t do the same thing. I’m sure you two trashed your place together…”
My lips parted, but I couldn’t make the words come out. Is that really what he thought of me? I shook my head again and found the will to speak from somewhere. “Is that what you think, Brandon? That I’m some slut who brings men back to my apartment? Especially when I knew you were supposed to come over? You think I’m that cold?” I don’t even know what I was thinking, trying to argue with someone who was so drunk he was barely coherent, let alone conscious.
His words were so slurred, I wouldn’t have understood him at all if I hadn’t known him so well. He pointed a finger at me, his eyes still narrowed to slits. “You came to my apartment to rub it in, bringing those groceries back. You’re trying to hurt me. You want to break my heart. You think…” He shook his head like he was trying to clear his vision. “You think I can’t be that man—that I can’t give you what you need. You think I can’t be the one.”
Tears stung behind my eyes and I shook my head, the ache in my chest almost ripping me apart at the seams. My voice dropped. “That is about the last thing I think, Brandon.” I looked behind me to see where Cade had gone. I spied him leaning against the wall of the business next to us, probably just within earshot. I dropped my voice so that only Brandon could hear me speak. “You don’t know anything about what I think.”
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought there were tears in his own eyes. He shook his head again, then motioned behind me. “Get in the car.”
I looked back to where he had pointed. I hadn’t noticed his car parked right there beside us. I turned back to him. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re drunk. You have no business driving…”
He pulled out a set of keys from somewhere and tossed them to me. “You drive. I need to show you something.”
I shook my head again, knowing this was as terrible an idea as he’d ever had. “You need to sleep this off. You won’t remember anything, anyway. Go home, get some sleep. We can tal
k in the morning…”
“Get in the car, Jen.” He walked over to the passenger side of the car and got in, slamming the door behind him with a loud bang.
I turned back toward Cade, my jaw almost on the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do—what could he possibly need to show me when he was in this condition? And in his current state of undress?
Cade walked to me, shaking his head. “If you do it, I need to make some calls.”
I nodded. I seemed to always forget that his allegiance was to my father—not to me. “Of course. You’re on his payroll…” I paused for a moment. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.” I tried not to let the fact that he cared more about the senator than he did about me sting too much, even though it felt like another stab in the chest.
He closed his eyes, almost exasperated. “Not to your father, kiddo. To his sister. She needs to hear about what’s going on. My understanding is that he shouldn’t be drinking. And that…” He motioned with his arm back to the bar. “Whatever that was. She should hear about that, too. I don’t know who that woman was, but she isn’t his mother. I knew his mother.”
My brow furrowed. “You knew…?” I stopped myself, not really wanting to hear the answer. “I don’t need to hear it.” I glanced down at my purse. “I have my phone. I’ll be fine.”
He nodded. “I know you will. He’d die for you, kiddo. I’m not worried about you at all when he’s with you.”
I nodded. If I knew anything at all, no matter how pissed off I was at him, I knew that I wasn’t worried when I was with him, either.
2
I adjusted the seat and mirrors, put on my seatbelt and looked over at him. He had his seat reclined as far back as it would go. He had closed his eyes and put his hands behind his head.
I started the engine and just shook my head, sure this was a terrible idea and regretting it already. I put my hands on the steering wheel and looked over at him again. “Where are we going?”
“Sacramento.” He didn’t even open his eyes to look at me.
“Street?” I looked over at him again and could see he was starting to fall asleep. Passing out was probably a better term for what was going on. “Brandon?”
“Huh?” He barely opened his eyes and lifted his head. I don’t think he even looked at me with his hooded gaze before his head lolled back against the seat.
“Sacramento Street? Or city?” Jesus, this could be a long night. I reached over and slapped his bare leg. “Brandon?”
He slurred his words together. “City. Just drive.” I knew he wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing and was more asleep than he was awake.
I turned to look at him again. If I hadn’t known he was drunk I would have thought he was just as gorgeous as ever, particularly lying there looking like a half-clothed underwear model. My stomach did a little flip when I realized he was really here with me. Alone with me again. And then I remembered the women in his apartment. Girls, really, probably barely out of high school. I wanted to believe I was overreacting, that there must have been more to the story than what I had seen when the door to his apartment swung open. But how else could I interpret that scene? Men don’t just bathe women for no reason—or whatever it was he was doing. He had invited the Stanford girl into the shower. I had heard it with my own ears, so how could I be overreacting or misinterpreting what had happened? The momentary excitement I’d had in my belly turned quickly sour when I started thinking about him being with those damned girls.
I turned back to him, nudging him again with my hand. “It’s a long drive. It’s getting dark. You should sleep this off. I can have Cade get you home…”
“Drive, Jen.” His words weren’t nearly as slurred that time, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, he was beginning to sober up. But then he began to snore.
I rolled my eyes at the sound and entered traffic, driving until we were almost to the freeway. I nudged him again. “Brandon, are you sure? Sacramento?”
“Yeah.” He still hadn’t really opened his eyes since we’d gotten into the car, and I thought for sure I would regret doing what a drunken man was suggesting. Particularly since I wasn’t sure I even wanted to talk to him at all that night.
I had no idea if what he was saying was even real—if there really was something he needed to show me that needed to happen tonight. In Sacramento. Which was at least an hour-and-a-half away when traffic was decent, which it definitely was not at this time of the night.
I got onto the I-80 and began the long drive. Considering how desperate he had been to keep me away from the capital, this was more than a little strange. It was damned weird, and I only prayed that he would wake up enough by the time we arrived to show me whatever it was that he needed to show me.
We had been driving for some time, the only sound in the car the rhythmic snoring coming from the passenger seat. There was a time when the sound of his sleeping would have soothed me, but now … now it was almost annoying.
“I broke her heart.”
His sudden outburst awakened me from my daze. I looked over at him and saw he was now on his side, facing me with his eyes still closed. Had he been talking to me or just talking in his sleep? “Who?”
His snoring had stopped, and I couldn’t tell if it was because he was now awake or because he was on his side. He didn’t respond to my question, though.
I nudged him with my hand, still trying to keep my eyes on the road. “You didn’t break my heart, Brandon.” I frowned, my fingernails clawing into the steering wheel. I was angry, but not heartbroken. “I’m exceptionally pissed off right now, but you’ll sober up and you can explain it to me later.” If I can even look at you when you sober up.
He let out a long sigh. “She’s going to hate me when she finds out.”
My brows knitted together with confusion. “Who?”
“Jen. She’s going to hate me.” He began to snore again, and I knew that whatever it was he was talking about, I wasn’t going to get any answers from him right then.
I leaned back into the seat and tried to keep the tears I was starting to feel from forming in my eyes. I didn’t need this—not more of this. More secrets. More lies. What could he possibly be keeping from me now that would make me hate him? I didn’t even want to think about it.
The rest of the drive unfolded without any further outbursts from him, just the same quiet snoring coming from my right side for the past hour. I had been to Sacramento many times in my life, but I wasn’t overly familiar with the city. I could find my way to the capitol building, and that was about it. I drove in that direction, mostly just assuming that whatever it was that Brandon needed to show me or tell me must have something to do with the politics he had been so desperate to keep me away from.
I let out a long sigh, exasperated with myself for letting him talk me into this. “Brandon. Where am I supposed to go?” The snoring never stopped, so I reached out my hand and shook his shoulder. “Brandon?”
Nothing. Not even an interruption to the snoring.
It was getting late—late for me, anyway. With the sleeping problems I had been suffering over the past several weeks, nine o’clock was well past my bedtime. My eyelids were already feeling heavy and I knew there was no way I would be able to get us back to San Francisco that night. I should have just insisted that we go to my place. It wasn’t as though there wasn’t plenty of room for him now, even if we didn’t share a bed. But it was too late for that. We were going to have to find a hotel, because there was no way he would be sober enough that night to be able to drive us back. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this—so drunk he was literally passed out. Had he really been so upset by seeing the psychiatrist in my apartment that he’d had to numb himself like this? Numb himself with those girls? If I hadn’t been so angry, I would have almost been sad for him.
I drove to the strip where I knew there were hotels and found no-vacancy after no-vacancy signs on all of them. Maybe I should have just slept in the driver’s seat—I k
new I would be awake again in a few hours anyway, especially since I hadn’t been able to fill my new prescription for the sleeping pills the psychiatrist had just prescribed to me that afternoon.
I decided to drive around a little more and found the street with the seedy motels. Again, all with no-vacancy signs. It was strange that there were no rooms available anywhere. I had no idea what was going on in town, but it must have been something big to have all these hotel rooms booked.
I spotted an almost scary looking motel at the end of the road. This one didn’t have the “no” lit up on the vacancy sign, and at that point, I would have taken almost any bed. My eyes were so close to closing I was afraid I might drive off the road. And Brandon was no help—he hadn’t stopped sawing logs in the past hour or so.
I pulled into a parking stall near the office and got out of the car. I had hoped that the slamming of the car door would wake Brandon from his drunken slumber, but he didn’t even move. I walked in and saw an older woman sitting behind the desk, watching something on a portable TV.
She looked up at me and I saw her weathered face, deep lines crossing her forehead. She looked like she had seen too much sun in her life, her skin almost leathery in appearance. Her eyes rolled before she spoke. “Sorry, honey, no more hourly rooms available.”
I looked down at my dress. I had definitely been trying too hard that night and the dress was a little more revealing than what I would have normally worn. But I didn’t think I looked like a woman who would be looking for a motel that only charged by the hour.
I tried not to get upset about her assumption that I was a hooker. I pulled my sweater closed and crossed my arms over my chest. “I just need a room. The full night is fine.”
Her voice was gravelly, probably from years of smoking. “You need to turn in your keys when you’re done. Even if it’s only an hour.”
