by Tasha Fawkes
Despite the luxury, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. Things felt different than they had when we were together. They weren't as smooth.
It was obvious to me what the problem was—Lori wasn't Brin.
Sure, she was just as beautiful as Brin. And, to an outsider, we got along just as well. As a billionaire's daughter, she had been trained in all the fine arts of conversation, having had to entertain her family's connections since she first wobbled into a pair of designer shoes. She could talk politics, world events, entertainment, all while looking as polished as one of the opal pendants she favored. We kept up a conversation the whole day, but the entire experience felt flat.
I always thought that Lori and I's ability to converse for hours was the hallmark of a good relationship. The juxtaposition of Brin and Lori was not kind to my former lover. I quickly realized that our conversations lacked any real emotional depth. I didn't feel any warmer toward her after talking, and I didn't get the feeling she did either. We were just two instruments of conversation.
Brin was ultimately much quieter, but she made more impact with her words. She meant the things she said. She meant the questions she asked. She was genuine and funny and made me want to lean in to catch her every word. I barely knew the girl, and I already found it easier talking to her than I did to Lori, my girlfriend of two years. What did that mean?
I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel and seeing Brin. Lori expected a decision from me soon. At this point, I felt like telling her to sod off so I could be with Brin, but I knew it would be a mistake to make my choice too hastily. Brin wasn't my real girlfriend. None of this was real. The connection we had felt sincere, but I couldn't know that for sure this early on in the game. In many ways, Lori and I were perfect for each other, and she'd certainly be the path of least resistance, but did that mean she was the right choice?
I had to talk to Brin tonight. I had to figure out exactly what we meant to each other. What I meant to her. Only then would I be able to give Lori her answer.
Lori drove with me back to the hotel, claiming that she'd told her driver to pick her up there. I would give her credit at least for trying. She was putting effort into getting us back together, which suggested I had to mean something to her, right? Lori wasn't big into emotional displays, so I noted her persistence.
We reached the hotel's grand marble breezeway, and a valet opened the Jeep's door for me. I jumped out, walking around to open the door for Lori. She hated getting her own door and would complain if I didn't do the 'gentlemanly' thing.
"I had a wonderful day," she chirped, gliding out of the car.
"Me too," I replied. "Is your driver already here? I can wait with you."
She waved airily. "Oh, he's on his way. In the meantime, I'd love to see your room."
Lori stared at me lustily, lashes fanning her cheeks and her lips parted ever so slightly. One look from her like this used to have me panting. She looked hot, but something was still missing for me.
"I'm afraid that's not possible," I told her.
"Why not?"
"Brin's probably up there. I don't think it would be fair to burst in and have my ex-girlfriend sniffing around."
I didn't tell her that I also just didn't fancy spending any more time with her today. I was officially over it.
Lori rolled her eyes. "Boo. You're no fun."
"I had a nice day, Lori," I said, making my dismissive intent clear. "I'll talk to you tomorrow." I leaned in to kiss her cheek, then gave her one last smile and headed for the elevator. As it lifted me, my spirits lifted too. I was heading back to Brin, back to the girl who made me smile just by being her adorable self. The girl who injected my veins with fire every time she looked at me. The decision I had to make weighed heavily on my conscience, but at least I could be free of it for a few hours more.
The elevator doors slid open, and I started down the hall. I unlocked the door and stepped through, but didn't notice the door not closing behind me because I was too distracted by the scene inside the room.
Brin wasn't there. Not only was she not there, but it looked like all her stuff was gone too. The bed was perfectly made, and her side was free of clutter. No suitcase. No clothes. I strode forward, unable to believe what I saw.
"Where is she?" Lori asked from behind me.
I turned just as she let the door close, smiling innocently.
"Did you follow me up here?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I wanted to see my competition for myself. Can you blame me?"
"Yes." I frowned. "I told you that it wouldn't be fair to Brin. How did you even get up here?"
"I took the stairs," she replied. "These long legs can do more than just catwalks, you know."
I shook my head and continued further into the room. Lori was the least of my problems. Could it be that Brin had just put all her stuff somewhere else? The bathroom was empty. Her toothbrush was missing from the holder. The living room was empty too, except for the few items strewn about that were mine.
She was gone. Brin was really gone.
Lori followed me into the living room. "The way you're freaking out makes me think that perhaps your little bird has flown the nest?"
I ignored her and whipped out my phone, dialing Brin's number. It went straight to voicemail. I cursed and tried Martin. Maybe he knew what the hell was going on.
Martin answered straightaway. "Hey man, I'm going to come down to your room real quick. Be there in a minute."
I didn't like that. It meant that Martin did know something, something I wasn't going to like.
"See you soon."
I hung up, and Lori came to my side, picking my hand up in hers. I let her, my mind too busy whirring for answers to think of anything else. Why would Brin leave? The only thing I could think of was that she'd found out about Lori being here. Had she seen us together? Fresh guilt crashed over me, and my head started to spin.
Martin's knock on the door brought me back to the present. I charged over and yanked the door open.
"Hey," Martin said with a soft smile. "Can I come in?"
I nodded, and he entered. He straightened when he saw Lori.
"Lori," he said. "What are you doing here?"
Her grin was utterly feline. "Wouldn't you like to know."
"Martin, where's Brin?" I asked.
Martin ran a hand through his hair and winced. "Uh, she packed up this afternoon after you left. I tried to get her to stay but she just told me to tell you that she's sorry, but coming on this trip was a huge mistake. I tried to ask her why but she wouldn't tell me. I'm sorry, man."
I sighed and sank down on the bed, defeated. Lori slid down next to me and rubbed a hand on my back. Why was she choosing now to be supportive? This was my new girlfriend, after all. Part of me suspected her of some wrongdoing, but what could she do? If Brin thought the trip was a mistake, she thought the trip was a mistake. And maybe it was.
Unless Martin was lying, of course, but why would he? I trusted him with my life. We'd been in this together since the beginning, and he wouldn't put me over like that. Much as I didn't want to believe that Brin would leave me so easily, that was the only possibility that made any sense.
"Do you want some time alone?" Lori asked in a surprising display of sympathy.
I almost told her I did, but something stopped me. I couldn't sit here and be upset about Brin all day. I couldn't spend the rest of this trip moping about how my fake girlfriend had left me. I had to get my shit together and do the work I came here to do. In a way, it was a good thing Brin had left. It didn't feel like a good thing, and in fact, it felt a little like having my heart ripped from my chest via my splintered rib cage, but at least she'd solved my dilemma for me. If nothing else, she'd shown me that us being together wouldn't work. If she could leave that coldly without even saying goodbye, I must not have meant as much to her as she meant to me. I still couldn't believe she'd do that, but I was going to have to figure out a way to believe it p
retty damn soon.
"Don't go," I said, forcing a smile. "Let's go down to the bar and have a couple drinks. I feel like I could use one."
Lori's lips turned up at the corners. "That sounds great."
"Martin, you in?" I asked, directing my gaze at my best friend.
Both of them seemed surprised that I'd included Martin in this equation. Lori probably thought that after our drink we'd be coming up and making up for lost time in the sheets, but I wasn't feeling it. Not yet, anyway.
It meant something to me that she'd come all the way out to Hawaii to win me back, and that she admitted that leaving me in the first place was a mistake. I owed it to her to try to make things work now that there was nothing else in the way of us doing so. Besides, I needed to cap my devastation over Brin's departure and get this trip back on track. I could and would make great videos without Brin. Lori was here. I still had Martin and Russell.
"Yeah, I'll come for a bevie or two," said Martin gamely. "Just let me grab my wallet."
He left Lori and me alone in the room together. The silence was deafening.
"Chin up, Chad." Lori pulled me up and rested her hand on my heart. "We're back together. We should be celebrating."
She was right, wasn't she? After all, this was what I wanted. Since when did success taste so stale?
Seventeen
Brin
The SUV rumbled through the city, tinted windows leaving the backseat shadowed and cool. My two captors were speaking softly to each other in the front seat. I clutched my backpack to my chest and hoped like hell they were driving me to the airport like they said they were. I didn't know why they would lie, considering I was powerless in this situation, but I didn't trust them.
"Excited to go back home?" Blondie asked, craning his neck to look back at me. Baldie was driving, eyes on the road. I wished they both would forget I existed until we got to the airport.
I didn't dignify the question with a response. Blondie gave up waiting after a second and shrugged, then turned back to front. Considering the hellish night I'd had, I wasn't feeling very chatty. It's hard to fall asleep when you're worried that at any moment one of the two brutes holding you captive might change his mind about not touching you. Whoever hired them had apparently told them not to hurt me but, as I said, I didn't trust them.
Who hired them, anyway? It couldn't have been Chad. He would never do something like this; he was too good. Martin? It didn't make any sense for Martin to want me gone. He was kind to me and genuinely seemed to like me, and I'd never done anything to him. But why would he give me that address if he wasn't a part of the plot? I wanted to believe that he'd been merely a pawn in this whole thing and that he'd unknowingly had his strings pulled by a separate entity, but then I remembered how odd he'd been acting the last time I saw him. It made sense why now.
It was hard to feel anything under the numbing blanket of fear, but my fury bubbled up from time to time. Who was Martin to say who Chad dated? Why the hell did it matter to him? Did he know that we weren't even really dating, or was he ousting me because he thought I was a distraction? The not knowing was one of the worst parts of the whole thing. I doubted I would ever get any sort of answer, but I hoped all the same.
I started seeing signs for the airport, and I allowed myself to relax a little. In a matter of hours, I was going to be home, and I was going to find out what the hell had happened to me and make sure Chad knew that his friend was a literal piece of shit.
"Here we are, miss," said Baldie mockingly. "Hang tight while I come around to help with your luggage."
Hang tight. Like the doors weren't child locked.
Blondie opened the door for me a minute later, and his companion stood a couple feet away with my suitcase. I stepped out, swinging my backpack onto my back and glaring sourly at them.
"Your flight leaves in a little over an hour." Blondie passed me a ticket, one way to Las Vegas. I snatched it out of his hand and grabbed the handle of my suitcase.
"Oh," he continued, "And before I forget..." Blondie put up a finger to stop me while he searched his pants pockets, producing my phone a moment later.
I didn't think I was ever going to get my phone back. I held it to my chest tightly. Maybe I wouldn't be getting on a flight at all. Maybe I could call Chad once I got inside the airport, and he'd rush out to get me.
Blondie grinned as if hearing my thoughts. "Here's the thing, princess, you get your phone back, but don't contact Chad ever again. I've already blocked his number on your phone, but if he tries to contact you another way you are to ignore him. If you don't follow these instructions, then things could get very messy for you and your little friend Kimberley. Understand?"
My heart dropped into my stomach with an almost audible splash. How did they know about Kim? How much did they know about me? The realization that I was in way over my head settled in like knives against my ribs.
"Understand?" prompted Baldie when I still hadn't answered.
The horror and shock did wonders to dry up my vocal chords. When I opened my mouth to answer, I half expected just to wheeze out a cloud of dust.
"I understand."
"Good."
They both looked very pleased with themselves, giving me a hearty salute before getting back into the SUV and peeling out of parking spot. That left me in front of Honolulu airport, hand squeezed so tight around my phone that it was a wonder the screen didn't crack. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
For the first time in a long time, control had been ripped from my grasp and replaced with terror.
Just like that, I was a scared little girl again, hiding in the hall closet and hoping that my uncle would be too drunk to keep looking for me. Martin's actions were unforgivable. Even if his motivation was somehow pure as freshly fallen snow, I hated him for bringing me back here, for wresting the control I'd worked so hard to gain out of my hands and shoving me off back to Las Vegas. I headed for the airport with long, angry strides. I could practically feel Vegas calling for me, telling me that it would always be there for me when I needed. She'd saved me once, and she would do it again.
The flight was long. It felt longer than it was just because I wrestled between being too angry to even think, to being so sad that I had to pull myself out of the swamp of my depressing thoughts. I hated Martin. I missed Chad. Sometimes I hated them both. Martin for the blatant act of betrayal and treating me like I wasn't even human, Chad for making it all hurt so much. It wasn't Chad's fault that I'd fallen for him, but it was easier to hate him than it was to miss him. The realization that I would never see him again, outside of his YouTube channel, didn't just sting—it seared through me. I'd known that this thing between us wouldn't work out of Hawaii, but I guess I'd held out hope that we'd make it through somehow. That was all gone. He'd been torn from me in one fell swoop, and now I just had to stumble back into my old life, taunted by painful memories of things that could never, ever be.
I told Kim that I was on my way home and that I'd explain everything when I got there but was surprised to see her smiling face at the airport all the same. I didn't tell her what flight I was even on. She must've done some serious detective work to piece it out, and who knows how long she'd been waiting here. That was my best friend. God, I'd missed her.
"Hey superstar," Kim greeted, pulling me into a tight hug.
For the first time since this nightmare began yesterday, tears threatened to bust out of my ducts in a big way. I fought them back and inhaled deep, focusing on the creamy coconut smell of her hair.
When she pulled back from the hug, Kim reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of beer. She uncapped it and handed it over.
"I figured you might need one. Sorry if it's a little warm."
I chugged the beer back. It was a little warm, but that was a-okay with me. At this point, I'd take anything that would dull the ache a little.
"Let's get you in a cab. I figured we could order pizza tonight and I snuck a box of wine into your
fridge."
I took another chug of beer as she led me out to the cab line up. Pizza and wine. That was how we always dealt with breakups. Sometimes we'd watch action movies and pretend the hero was punching whoever hurt us instead of the goons on screen. Sometimes we'd watch Jane Austen adaptations and throw pepperoni at the TV. Our pizza and wine nights always made me feel better. Always. Somehow I didn't think this one was going to make the cut, but I loved Kim for trying.
It was dark outside, or as dark as anything ever got in Las Vegas. I caught a glimpse of the not-so-distant strip as the cab drove toward the more residential part of town, and the glittering lights welcomed me home. I closed my eyes and pretended I was anywhere else.
Kim grabbed my suitcase once we reached my building and hauled it up the front steps for me. Inside, she rolled it all the way into my room while I settled onto the couch, then returned a couple minutes later with two generous glasses of wine. Kim had no idea what had happened yet, but she knew it wasn't good. I was almost afraid to tell her the truth, like Baldie and Blondie would pop out from behind my TV set the second I did to make things "messy", but there was no way I'd survive keeping the last twenty-four hours to myself.
"Thank you," I said to Kim, accepting the glass of wine.
She sat down beside me. "Not that I'm not thrilled to have you home much earlier than expected, but weren't you supposed to be sunning yourself on a beach for another two weeks?"
I took a large gulp of wine and nodded. Then I took another gulp. And another. After the third, I told Kimberley everything.
By the time I was finished, I was half-drunk, crying, and curled up across Kim's lap. She stroked my hair the whole time, listening and nodding but never commenting. Only once I was finished did she speak.
"Don't you think you should call the police?" she asked.
"And tell them what? I don't have any way to prove that it was Martin. I don't have any way to prove anything. The ticket was probably paid for in cash, and that's the only evidence that any of this shit happened besides my word. Anyway, I'm not risking it. As long as I stay away from Chad, I get to forget that all of this ever happened and you get to stay safe." I looked up at her with pleading eyes, hoping she would understand. "I can't do anything to risk something happening to you. I won't. Going to the police would probably be the right thing to do, but for me, the right thing is keeping my head down so you don't get hurt."
