He moved toward me and took the bag from my arms so I could use both hands to unravel the knot. “Aye, I was. I just came up to get some papers I need to grade tonight that I thought I’d taken home with me,” he replied. “I thought you were off as well?”
“Yeah, well, plans changed and I returned early, so I came on in.”
Grinning, he nodded as if he understood. “You could’ve told me you were seeing someone, you know? I mean, I’m a handsome bloke and all, but even I’m aware that I’m no Jonah Jennings.”
My chin snapped up so I could glare at him, yanking out some hairs in the process. “I’m not dating him,” I spat. “All of that crap from this weekend isn’t true. I can’t fucking stand the guy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.” Liam’s face fell and his eyes grew wide at my harsh tone, and immediately I felt bad for taking out my frustrations on him.
Finally, untwisting the last lock of hair from the strap, I shook my head out and took the bag back from him, offering a regretful smile. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. You’re not to blame,” I apologized with a heavy sigh. “It’s just been a long day with all of the kids and other teachers asking about it continuously. I should’ve just stayed home. This is all such a mess.”
The kind smile returned, crinkling the edges of his eyes, as he pulled me into a friendly hug and pressed his lips to the top of my head. “No need to apologize. I should’ve asked before assuming, and I’m sorry you had a bad day. Why don’t you go home and have a bubble bath with a glass of wine?” he suggested, as he released me. “Tomorrow will be a new day and the kids will all be buzzing about something else. I promise.”
I nodded and half-smiled up at him. “Thank you, Liam. I think that sounds like an excellent plan.”
As he walked away in the direction of the school, I thought I recognized the rumble of an engine to a specific light blue truck, but when I scanned the surrounding streets, I didn’t see anything. Shrugging, I assumed hallucinations were probably just another part of losing my mind and got in my car to drive home. I needed that bath and wine. Stat.
“WHERE’S BELLE? IS she still up in the room?” my mom asked, as I joined her, Dad, and Ashlynn for Saturday brunch in the hotel restaurant.
I shook my head once, my jaw set in a hard line. “She went back to Houston this morning,” I ground out, as I added cream and sugar to the coffee in front of me, refusing to meet any of their baffled gazes.
I’d been dreading this conversation for the last hour, and had even contemplated lying and telling them I didn’t feel well enough to meet them. But I figured they were going to find out soon enough, so there was no point in putting off the inevitable.
“Back to Houston?!”
“Why? What happened?”
“What did you do, son?”
They all blurted their questions out at once, my dad being the one to give me the “son” treatment. His immediate assumption that I had been the one to screw up didn’t sit well with my already-pissed-off mood, and I cut my eyes over to him and scowled.
“I didn’t do anything, Dad, but thanks for the vote of confidence,” I grumbled. “Just because you acted like a punk at my age, doesn’t mean I do.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could have them back. I never disrespected my parents like that, but after the fight and Belle leaving, I’d been a ticking time bomb waiting to explode at the first opportunity.
The veins in Dad’s neck pulsed as his dark brows bunched together, his menacing glare speaking a thousand words. “Obviously, something’s happened between you and Belle that’s gotten you so worked up that you’ve forgotten who you are and who the hell is still in charge around here, so I’m gonna forgive you for that outburst just this once,” he said, his voice low and intimidating. “But the next time you disrespect me like that, I will not be as understanding. You got it?”
I nodded and swallowed hard. “Got it. Sorry.”
Relaxing the tensed muscles in his face, he leaned back in the chair and tipped his chin at me. “Now, tell us what happened. When I talked to you last night, you said everything had gone great on your big day you had planned yesterday.”
It was hard to believe the lunch Belle and I shared and our trip to the museum — the first time I’d ever used the L-word — had been less then twenty-four hours ago, and now… now I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. Was she telling the truth about the kiss? Even if she was, why didn’t she tell me about her relationship with Jonah? Was it truly a coincidence that she’d dated another guy who was on the road to fame before me? And had I really not told her about the tour? Why hadn’t I thought about what would happen with her when I left?
I was a fucking wreck.
“Everett,” Mom said my name, snapping me out of my haze, “are you going to tell us what’s going on?”
Unable to say the words aloud, I dug my phone out of my pocket and opened up the internet to the photo of her and Jonah kissing. “This is what I woke up to this morning,” I mumbled, as I pushed the device across the table for them to look at.
Studying their expressions as they quietly read the article, I watched as confusion washed over Mom’s face, fury creased Dad’s forehead, and Ashlynn looked… panicked?
“What, Ashlynn?” I probed, using our twin-sense to try and read her. “Why do you look like that? What do you know?”
Mom and Dad peered over at Ashlynn then shifted their attention back to me, trying to figure out what was going on. After eighteen years, they were used to my sister’s and my uncanny ability to sense things about each other.
“Well, I-uh, I didn’t know it was Jonah Jennings,” she played with her napkin in her lap, clearly uncomfortable, “but I did see when that happened last night, and it wasn’t at all like this picture makes it seem.”
“What do you mean you saw this happen? And how is it not like this seems? Explain,” I demanded, as hope sparked inside me. Maybe Belle had been telling the truth.
Glancing over at our parents nervously, she offered an apologetic smile. “I’d been down the hallway the bathrooms were in and I was coming back to the party, and when I turned the corner, I saw this guy grab Belle by the arm and just yank her to him and kiss her,” she explained, her story coinciding with Belle’s. “It stunned me at first, so I froze in place, but immediately, Belle kneed the guy in the balls then took off running in her heels, disappearing into all the people. The guy staggered into the men’s room before I made it to him, so I hadn’t gotten a good look at him to realize he was the Jonah Jennings!”
I scrubbed my hands over my face then pounded my fists on the table, glowering over at her. “And you didn’t think it was important to tell anyone this? To go check on her? She could’ve been hurt,” I seethed.
Guilt swam in her hazel eyes. “When I got back in the ballroom, Dad and the guys were taking the stage and the place got packed. I could barely move with all the people. It wasn’t until they were done and the crowd disbursed that I finally saw her, and she was with you then. You guys were heading toward the exit, so I figured she’d told you and y’all were leaving,” she defended.
Slumping back into my chair, I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to process the information. What had I done? I’d been so jealous, so overwhelmed by rage, when I saw another man touching my Belle that I assumed the worst. Assumed she was just playing me for a fool.
All three of their stares were locked on me, waiting for me to say something. “It still doesn’t explain why she never told me she dated him in the first place.” I peered over at Dad. “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that she just happened to date a famous actor before me? A little coincidental?”
“Did you ask her about it? Why she didn’t tell you?” he questioned.
Nodding, I took a drink of my coffee as conflicting thoughts and feelings dueled in my head. I prayed to God I hadn’t fucked this up. If Belle had been truthful about the kiss, and it
seemed she had been, what if her reason for not telling me about Jonah was also true?
“She said he was her high school boyfriend and that she’d moved to LA with him after they graduated, but things didn’t work out,” I repeated the story she’d told me earlier that morning, and my stomach coiled up tightly. Just thinking about her living with him made me want to punch a fucking wall, and if he’d really cheated on her and hurt her like she claimed, I’d kill the motherfucker. Shit, I’d probably kill him just for laying his hands on her last night.
“But you assumed she was just using you, moving from one up-and-comer to the next?” Mom chimed in, her confusion morphing into disappointment.
Another nod. “Yeah, I mean, what was I supposed to think?” I contended. “I wake up to find a picture of my girlfriend kissing some other guy, and it just so happens she used to date another entertainment star? Of course that’s what I thought.”
“Oh, Everett…” my mom lamented, with a shake of her head.
“Are you serious?” Ashlynn hissed, staring at me incredulously. “First off, calling yourself an ‘entertainment star’ is a little premature, don’t ya think? We’ve never even played outside the city of Houston. If it wasn’t for Dad, our chances of making it big would be like less than one percent. And secondly, why in the world would she risk going to prison just for a chance to date someone who may become famous one day? That’s ridiculous.”
“Prison?” both Mom and Dad gasped at the same time.
Now it was my turn to shoot daggers at my sister. Why couldn’t she just keep her damn mouth shut? This wasn’t any business of hers anyway.
“Well, what does it matter now? You’ve obviously ended things.” She shrugged then turned to our parents and opened her damn trap again. “Belle is actually Ms. Sloan, the new art history teacher at our school. Everett wasn’t lying when he said he met her at Empty’s on New Year’s Eve. I saw them together that night, and she didn’t start teaching at our school until after that. When I saw her the first time, I actually thought she was some crazy groupie who had found out where he went to school and was stalking him, so I threatened to beat her up in the parking lot.”
“Beat her up? Dating your teacher?” Mom exclaimed, as her eyes grew as wide as saucers. “What in the world is wrong with you two? Have you both lost your minds?”
I shifted my focus to my dad, who was clenching his teeth together, silently simmering in his seat. “I didn’t know, Dad,” I tried to explain, but he held his hand up in the air to stop me.
“Enough,” he growled, piercing me with his incensed gray gaze. “I’ve had enough of all of this. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, but do you have any clue the field day the media would’ve had with this if anyone would’ve found out? Not only did you put your career and your future in danger by what you did, but you could’ve ruined Belle’s life. Prison is no fucking joke. Now, I understand she had a part in this too, and for whatever reason, she thought you were worth taking that risk, though after the way it sounds you treated her this morning, I’m sure she’s probably hating herself for that.”
“But Mason, she’s a grown woman who took advantage of our son,” Mom argued. “Serves her right. I bet once she found out he was your son, she thought he’d be her ticket.”
Dad turned to face her, his expression softening. “Angel, what did you tell me last night about Belle and Everett? What did you whisper in my ear when we saw them at the gala?”
“I said she looks at him the same way I used to look at you,” she admitted softly.
“And did you use to look at me like I was ‘your ticket?’ Is that what you thought of me when Jobu’s Rum started taking off? Is that why you put up with me and all my bullshit? Was I taking advantage of you when you were eighteen?”
His questions needed no answers, but she shook her head anyway, and murmured, “No.”
Realization of what I’d done sliced through me so sharply, so quickly, that I doubled over in pain and sucked in a deep breath. I’d fucked up. Big time. I’d let my pride and my ego cloud my thoughts, and consequently, accused the girl I loved of lying and being manipulative. Even though my instincts had told me she wasn’t. That she really loved me too.
“So what do I do now?” I asked him, suddenly feeling much more like a child than the adult I’d tricked myself into thinking I was.
Clearing his throat, Dad rolled his shoulders back and regarded me. “You apologize. You tell her you were wrong and ask her to forgive you for being an immature dumbass,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Then, if you’re lucky and she does, you tell her that you care about her enough to not want her to get in serious trouble, so you have to put things on hold between you two until after school lets out and it’s no longer an issue. However, like I reminded you before the San Antonio trip, we leave for LA literally the night you guys graduate. They want us there earlier, but I told them not until we watch y’all walk across that stage. So, I’m not sure what kind of relationship you guys can maintain while you’re on the road and she’s in Houston. It’s not an easy life, son. Your mom can attest to that, but I think the important thing right now is clearing things up with whatever happened between y’all this morning. Then, let the rest work itself out.”
My head bobbed up and down as hope once again filled me. “Okay, I can do that,” I breathed as I picked my phone up off the table and opened up the text messages. “I’m not sure if she’s on a plane or at the airport or what. She left a couple of hours ago and said she was going home.”
“Go ahead and try to call her or find her. Maybe you’ll get lucky and she won’t have left yet,” he urged, tipping his chin toward the lobby of the hotel, “but don’t you dare get on a flight back to the States. You will be at that racetrack tomorrow morning to sing the national anthem.”
He hadn’t even finished his sentence when I was pushing back from the table and standing up, eager to go find my girl and tell her how sorry I was. Praying she’d forgive me for acting like a fucking tool.
“And Everett,” he added, before I walked away, “the next time I find out you lied to me or your mom about something as serious as this, just like the warning about the way you spoke to me earlier, I’m not gonna be such a nice dad. I will not put up with this kind of shit. You want to be treated like an adult on this tour, you best learn how to act like one. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” I replied, looking him in the eye to prove my conviction. “Thank you.”
“Good, now go fix it.”
As I turned to move away from the table, I heard him say to Ashlynn, “Now, young lady, you want to tell me what you were doing in that hallway and with who?”
I didn’t stick around to hear her answer; I just knew I owed her a huge thank you for whatever — or whoever — she was doing there. Without her having seen what happened, I might’ve never believed Belle’s version was the truth. And ruined things forever between me and Belle.
TO ADD BAD luck to my already shitty-ass day, I arrived at the airport literally a half hour after the direct flight to Houston took off — the flight Belle was on. Her phone had been turned off since I’d started trying to call and text, which was the moment I walked out of that restaurant with my family. Well, that, or she’d already blocked my number. Either way, she was gone, and for at least the next eleven hours, she’d be in the air without cellular service anyway.
Defeated, I caught a taxi back to the hotel, wanting to kick my own ass the entire way. Never had I hated myself more. I’d finally found someone I connected with, someone I couldn’t get enough of, someone who all I had to do was look at to make me smile… and as soon as I found out she definitely felt the same, not a day after she told me she loved me, I fucked it all up. Destroyed my everything.
After hanging out in my room the rest of the afternoon, hosting a first-rate pity party where I laid in Belle’s spot on the bed, creepily sniffing the sheets, my parents insisted I go to dinner with them and Ashlynn, despite the fa
ct I had no appetite. But I went and picked at things on my plate, even cracked a smile a time or two as Dad recounted his and Mom’s afternoon sightseeing tour on horseback. Apparently, Mom’s horse had an agenda of his own and had taken off, galloping down some street with her on him, and the guide had to go save her. I knew they were trying their hardest to cheer me up, so I did the best I could to not be totally ungrateful.
We arrived back at the hotel a little after 10:30, and after one glass of wine with them in the piano lounge, I excused myself to my room, knowing Belle’s flight was set to land in a little while. There was a good chance she wasn’t going to answer when I called, or respond to my texts, but I had to try. I couldn’t let her go without a fight, and definitely not without an apology.
I struggled to stay awake as I tracked her flight all the way to touchdown at Bush Intercontinental Airport, the mental and emotional fatigue weighing heavy on me, but as soon as I saw her plane was at the gate, I picked up my phone and dialed her number. Her voicemail picked up on the first ring, so I messaged her, begging her to answer so I could talk to her. No reply. So I tried again. And again and again and again. For the next hour or so, I called and texted every few minutes, hoping she’d finally cave, but finally, I passed out, teeming with disappointment and frustration.
When I woke up the next morning, my phone was still in my hand, but adding salt to the wound, there were no missed calls or texts from Belle. The dark circles under my eyes mocking me, I begrudgingly showered and got dressed to go to the racetrack then packed my stuff up in my suitcase, ready to get the day over with so I could get back to Houston. She couldn’t ignore me when I showed up at her front door.
The singing of the national anthem went off without a hitch and I did my best to enjoy the race, mostly for my dad’s sake. I knew what a dream it was for him to be able to meet some of the drivers and tour the garages, even though my heart wasn’t entirely in it. At one point, I’d gone off in search of a bathroom and stumbled upon Ashlynn in a heated lip-lock with none other than Milan Barcelo, one of the top drivers in the sport who was also known for his wild ways, but I didn’t have it in me to give her shit about it. All I cared about was getting back to Belle, and finally, that night, thirty-six long hours after she’d stormed out of the hotel room, I boarded a flight to take me to do just that.