by Lyla Payne
He followed me onto the porch, his arms crossed, making it clear he was watching my every move. I didn’t want any fucking heroin. All I wanted was to get Kennedy out of there.
Ruby saw us coming and jumped out of the passenger side, opening the door to the back seat. Kennedy shifted in my arms when the sun hit her face but didn’t open her eyes.
“You’re going to be okay, strawberry,” I whispered.
“I’m trying. Trying,” she mumbled, a crease forming between her eyebrows. “I want…I want…”
A tear leaked down her cheek when I put her in the car, leaning in to brush a kiss on her forehead, trying to ease her agitation. My heart wrenched, my emotions trying to decide between frustration and relief. “Shhh. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
She relaxed and I slammed the door shut, coming face-to-face with Ruby. Her complexion had gone white, blue eyes huge and filled with what could only be horror. They were fixed over my shoulder and when I turned around, Captain Hardass and some of his muscle lurked behind me.
“My buddy here’s going to stay with your girlfriend while we complete the transaction. Capice?”
Capice? Was he fucking serious?
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
They backed off a few feet and I reached past Ruby, grabbing my wallet out of the glove box. I dropped my keys on the seat and made sure she saw them.
“Get her out of here and send Q or Sebastian back for me, yeah?”
“I’m not leaving you here,” she hissed.
The guys stepped closer, cutting off our conversation, and the hulk who’d greeted me earlier ushered me back inside. I’d pulled a hundred dollar bill out of my wallet and stuffed it in his hand when police sirens screamed up the street and all hell broke loose.
People struggled to their feet, running in every direction trying to figure out the best way to escape getting caught. They fell through windows and tripped over each other, half-dressed and none of them sober enough to make it off the porch. Through the front window, I saw my Jeep pull out onto the street and pass the three cop cars headed from the opposite direction as they slammed into park in the driveway, officers spilling out on the lawn with their pistols drawn.
I might have thought about running, too, had I not turned around to find Captain Hardass waving a badge in my face, a triumphant smile on his lips.
Chapter 25
The look on Miriam’s face when she walked in the holding cell the next morning with Randall, my father’s attorney, made me want to crawl under the table. I wasn’t sure whether or not the cop—whose name turned out to be Officer Shillcutt, not Captain Hardass—had bought my story about why I’d bought heroin.
It didn’t help that I had refused to divulge Kennedy or Ruby’s information, or that I had laid into him for leaving her in the bathroom like that. She could have died.
“What the actual fuck, Toby?” Miriam flopped down in one of the metal chairs across the table from me, looking tired and pissed at the same time.
Not a good combination.
Randall sat down with more decorum and opened his briefcase. “We’ve gotten a copy of your statement from the police. You know better than to speak with them outside my presence, Toby. Your father was not pleased.”
I snorted. Not pleased probably didn’t cover it.
Miriam glared but Randall ignored my contribution to the conversation. “You’re lucky, son. The police have chosen not to press charges for buying illegal narcotics.”
“They believed me?” It seemed too good to be true.
“Yes. Your urine and blood tests were clean—although giving the samples was another mistake you’ve been advised to avoid—and your adamant defense of the nameless girl you removed from the premises has convinced them your story about coming to the house to find her is true.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Maybe I could go home and get some sleep.
“I’m afraid your little incident is not without consequences,” Miriam said dryly. “If you’ll recall, you and Miss Gilbert have been featured in the funny papers before, and the media dug up plenty after her previous stay in the hospital. Now you’re busted in a drug house helping an unnamed fucking redheaded female…do you seriously think they’re not going to put two and two together?”
“The press has the story?”
“There’s a horde of them outside. Front page news for most of the big outlets. You’re the son of a United States Senator, Toby. You can’t get arrested in a drug house like all normal college students.” Her voice had softened, probably because of my face.
It felt hot and puffy, and my throat burned with shame. I did know better. I knew better than to be in places like that, to get involved with people like Kennedy. This was going to be a PR nightmare for my dad, even if the cops declined to press charges. There would be plenty of speculation on what Dad had done to clear my record, and no one would care which story was closer to the truth.
It made me angry that the thing that bothered me the most was that Kennedy would get dragged through the mud alongside me, when she had taken pains to be anywhere else.
I’d worked my ass off at Whitman for three years, getting good grades, keeping my nose clean, setting up great opportunities for after graduation. I didn’t know how I’d gotten here.
More than that, I didn’t know why I wasn’t more sorry.
“What’s the plan?”
Take-charge Miriam replaced pissy Miriam in the blink of an eye. “The police are issuing the statement that you’re not being charged in about an hour, then you’ll be released. Your mug shot isn’t bad, by the way. I’m sure all the girls will be swooning.”
“Miriam.”
“Sorry, Randall. We’re issuing a statement of our own. You’re not going out the front door and you’re not answering any questions. You’re staying at a hotel tonight and taking a flight to L.A. in the morning. You weren’t supposed to leave until Thursday, I know, but you should just go.”
I shrugged. “Fine. No reason to stay.”
She eyed me. “Is there anything I need to know about your relationship with Miss Gilbert?”
“What we told the press six weeks ago is still true—she and I are friends. I think.”
*
Miriam’s plan had gone off without a hitch, as usual. I was holed up at the Hilton and was officially not a felon. Someone had delivered my packed bags from my room, along with my laptop and everything else I’d need for the next month in L.A.
My phone rang as I climbed into bed, and I sighed at my father’s number on the screen.
“Toby?”
Oh, good. Mom was on the line too. Double dose.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Sweetheart, are you okay? Your father wouldn’t let me come down there.”
“I did not say you couldn’t go, Diane. I asked you to let Miriam take care of it.”
“Oh, you and Miriam. You’d think that girl sprung Dillinger from prison, and I—”
“Um, guys? I’m tired, but I’m fine.”
The pregnant pause filled with all of the questions normal parents would ask in this situation—the ones my parents were terrified to ask.
After an awkward thirty seconds, I bailed them out. “I’m not on drugs. I wasn’t buying drugs. I was there looking for a girl.”
“You have impeccable timing, son. Waltzing into an undercover operation ten minutes before it was set to blow.”
“I try, Dad.”
“Is Miss Gilbert okay?”
The fact that he not only remembered her name, but chose to use it, burned my throat. The question made me realize that I had no idea how Kennedy was doing, but I felt sure Ruby would have called if she was bad.
“I think she’s fine. For now.”
“Your father told me about her. I think…we both think it’s noble of you to try to help her through this, and the good Lord knows you’ve got the experience, but honey…don’t hurt yourself in the process.”
“I
’m not being noble. I wished I didn’t want to help her, but I did. Do.” I swallowed hard. “But she doesn’t want my help. I hope she’s in good hands with her friends, now.”
“No matter what happens to her, son, it’s not your fault.” The cracks in my dad’s no-nonsense voice almost killed me.
Despite the fact that my parents sounded more relieved than anything, guilt throbbed in my chest. They shouldn’t have to be dealing with police and drug houses again. Not because of me.
“You’re leaving for Los Angeles tomorrow, Miriam said,” Dad said, his voice a little gruff. “Remember to have a good time, and make the connections you’ll need next year.”
“If you need anything, you call. Me, not Miriam,” Mom said. She actually liked Miriam, but hated the fact that Dad had found someone better than her at putting out fires. “We’ll see you in Bern.”
We hung up, the conversation leaving me feeling both better and worse. No matter what happened in my life, I had the extreme fortune of knowing my parents would be behind me no matter what. I wasn’t like Kennedy. I would never have to pick myself up and keep moving without their support. My dad’s career was important to me because it was important to him, but there wasn’t an iota of doubt anywhere inside me that he would choose Mom and me over it without pausing to take a breath.
I was lucky. One day, I hoped to pay it forward with a family of my own. Not with a girl who wanted nothing to do with me.
Since my plane left first thing in the morning, I decided to check on Kennedy one last time tonight. Ruby had texted me that she’d been admitted to the hospital as a precaution because of her level of dehydration and disorientation. I’d followed up with Miriam, demanding we assign some of Dad’s security to keep the reporters away from her until she checked out.
I didn’t know where she would go after that. I probably wouldn’t, and the day approached when I’d have to accept that and move on, but tonight was for goodbyes.
Ruby replied to my text with Kennedy’s room number at Gilbert Memorial, but warned me she’d been sleeping most of the time. A shower washed the stink of Quinn’s party, the nasty houses, and prison off me. Clean clothes, toothpaste, deodorant, and a dab of hair gel combined to make me feel almost human again, except for the aching hole at my center. When Trent disappeared, it had never gone away, but after six or so months, I’d stopped being aware of it all the time.
Maybe by next semester it would only hurt when I thought about her. Of course, the fact that I would have to see Kennedy—if she managed to make it back to Whitman—would make it worse, but it was only one more year. After that, the wide world that was more than big enough to harbor me from one girl.
I grabbed my messenger bag, looking for my car keys before I remembered that Miriam had confiscated them and left me a driver for tomorrow morning. The security outside my room had probably been ordered to keep me prisoner until then, so I’d have to feed them some kind of bull to get downstairs and snag a taxi.
There were two of them, both tall and beefy and dressed in black suits. I hated private security almost more than I hated the required Secret Service details when Dad was on campaign or overseas. Neither of these boys looked familiar.
I drew myself up as tall as I went, glad my six-foot-one beat both of them by at least an inch. “Good evening.”
“Good evening, Mr. Wright. Where are you headed?”
“Down to the bar to have a drink. Care to come along?”
They looked at each other, holding some kind of silent conversation, then the one that looked marginally older grimaced. “I’ll accompany you down and make sure there won’t be any media disturbance. Watts will stay here.”
“And your name is?”
“Tucker.”
“You’re not going to have a drink with me, Tucker?”
“I don’t think the senator would approve.”
I shrugged, turning toward the elevators to hide my smile. I let him do his diligence, checking out the hallways and elevators, clearing the lobby before following me through it. The bar wasn’t crowded, but it was 7:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. I slid onto a barstool and ordered a Templeton rye, neat, then handed over cash. He didn’t even card me.
As badly as I wanted to slug it back and get going, I felt Tucker’s eyes on the back of my neck so I sipped, pretending to watch the tennis match on the big screen over the bar. Sam wasn’t playing but Quinn’s ex, Alexandria, looked way better in a skirt, anyway.
The drink disappeared and I ordered a second, then stood and stretched. I didn’t get two steps before Tucker intercepted me.
“Sir.”
“I’m going to take a leak, man. You’re welcome to come along.”
“I’ll wait here.”
I didn’t use security normally, but I was putting up with it because my dad didn’t need any more unexpected headlines to deal with during summer session. He would start his off-year campaign this fall, and they would have even less time to worry about me.
The idea of dealing with a presidential campaign in a couple of years made me tired.
The bathroom was in the lobby, but Tucker stopped at the door to the bar, watching me like a hawk. I couldn’t believe I was doing this—planning to crawl out a goddamn window—and something inside me rebelled. Who cared if Tucker rode with me to the hospital? My parents might be exasperated at the news, but they would get over it.
I took my piss and went back to the lobby, letting the confidence I’d earned with years of being in the public eye straighten my posture. “I’m going to run over to the hospital and check on my friend.”
“We’ve been instructed to make sure you stay in the hotel.”
“I’m sure you have, but I’m of legal age and I’m the son of a United States Senator, not a prisoner. I’m going to have the door guy get me a cab, and I’m going to say goodbye to a friend. You can come with me if you’d like, or you can call the security guys stationed at the hospital and let them know I’m coming. Or both.”
He stared at me for several seconds, but the indecision in his blue gaze told me he had little inclination to fight me. “I’ll go along, sir. Just let me tell Watts.”
Less than five minutes later we were on the road without incident. My palms started to sweat as we drew closer to the hospital. Nerves bounced off the walls of my stomach, ramming and tangling, and drinking the rye had been a horrible idea. Good thing I hadn’t downed the second.
I’d never been nervous to see Kennedy before tonight. Even when we first met, it had always felt hopeful to me. As though we would have another chance. It made my throat burn to realize that now I felt the opposite.
The hospital was quiet. Visiting hours were over, but like most Whitman kids, I wasn’t above pulling rank or exercising influence to get what I wanted. A short conversation with two staff members, in which I dropped my father’s names and tied Kennedy to the endowment that ran this hospital, and no one barred my progress.
Tucker stopped outside her door, taking up a post beside the two security bots already seated in chairs. I took a deep breath, which did nothing to make me feel less like I was about to lose my shit, and pushed open the door.
It wasn’t like the last time. There were no monitors or tubes, no incessant beeping, just an I.V. in the back of her hand and a plastic bracelet around her wrist. The place even smelled better—like Kennedy—and she wore her own pajamas instead of a hospital gown. Ruby or Blair must have brought her a few things.
For the first time since I saw her in that bathtub, I could breathe again.
I pulled a chair up to the side of the bed, taking care not to scoot it across the floor and wake her. As much as I missed talking to her—hearing her voice, watching her try not to smile, drinking in every little expression that floated through her green-brown-blue gaze—this would be easier for both of us.
Her hair looked like spun gold against the dingy white pillow. She was too pale and way too skinny, but was still, to me, the most beautiful girl in the world
. This moment reminded me of the day we met for some reason, when the sight of her skin in the Swiss sun stole my breath. It had taken me almost two months to admit it, but she started the process of stealing my heart that day.
For a long time, I did nothing but sit at her side and listen to the soothing sound her breath made when it poured in and out of her lungs. It filled me with peace and longing in equal measure. They clung together inside me until they were one thing, and I thought it might be a long time before the idea of peace was not tied to the emptiness of missing her.
My hand wrapped lightly around hers and her fingers twitched softly against my palm. I brought it to my lips and brushed a kiss over her knuckles, and it took every last ounce of willpower in me to let it go. I pulled a copy of my screenplay out of my bag and left it on the bedside table. It wouldn’t make any difference, probably, but it was my way of telling her I understood. That I didn’t blame her, that I didn’t expect anything.
All of the weeks we were together, all of the years I fought for Trent, I hadn’t gotten it. Not really. The fight had been under the guise of me caring for them, but at its deepest point, it had been about them caring about me.
But it wasn’t about me. It was about my brother finding his own way home. It was about Kennedy being able to look into her past without feeling guilty. It was about them.
And I loved them both. I’d been too late to tell Trent it was okay if he needed time, if he couldn’t care about me, but if she read it, hopefully my script would let Kennedy know that she had taught me about real love—and that it had to be selfless.
It might not change anything, but she would know. And that mattered.
“See you around, strawberry. Take care of you.”
The words choked me. For the first time since middle school, I started to cry. My throat burned and my eyes were on fire, but there was nothing I could do. The tears boiled out accompanied by a steaming rage, even though I wasn’t sure why I was angry. I only knew that walking away from this girl was the most painful thing I’d ever done. It felt like tearing myself in half. I struggled to stifle a sob, wiping the back of my hand over my eyes.
