“Humph.” Even two weeks after my visit to Kansas, I still don’t understand things any better than I did that night. I can’t tell if the whole situation is killing me or making me stronger, but I know that the hurt’s turned to anger and the disbelief to resentment. The one thing I know for sure is that the unknown still looms like a weight in my chest that I’m slowly ignoring more and more, bit by bit, day by day.
But that twist? It’s still there.
“So more like kinked than twisted now?” he says, earning a smile from me.
“Something like that.” I exhale loudly, not in the mood to talk, not in the mood to surf either now that I think about it. But there’s nothing like getting out in the water to clear your head. The sun feels good on my face, and the water steadily lapping over my legs on the board unwinds me bit by bit. I almost don’t even care if I catch a wave or not because for the first time in forever it feels like I can relax – ironic in itself since I haven’t gone on a story in almost two months.
And usually that’s the only thing that can relax me.
“Kink can be good, brother,” he says, and lifts one eyebrow with a smirk.
I flash him a warning look. “I don’t want to know,” I say, drawing a laugh because I sure as hell don’t want to even remotely know anything about my sister’s sex life. Our eyes hold for a minute, and I can see him trying to figure out how to get to whatever he wants to say. “Just lay it on me, man,” I finally tell him. As much as I’ll take a day surfing at Trestles, I also know that Colton had an ulterior motive when he asked me to meet him here.
His was the same motive my sister’s had with every phone call she’s made in the two weeks since I’ve been back from Kansas: to see how I’m doing or try to get me out of the house. To make sure I’m not wallowing in whatever it is I’m supposedly wallowing in.
Oh yeah, heartbreak. That’s what it’s called.
“Lay what on you? Your brother-in-law can’t invite you to go surfing without a reason?” he asks, and earns a long, disbelieving laugh from me.
“Look, any excuse to get out in the water is a good one, especially here of all places,” I say as I look toward the renowned Southern California beach before looking back to him. “But remember, I grew up with my sister. I know from experience how well she can assert her will to get you to do what she wants.”
Colton throws his head back and laughs and doesn’t need to say a single word to tell me that I’m right. “Ah, God, she’s a trip, but I love her to death,” he says, making me smile because I feel the same way. And it’s good to know that he does.
I debate how to play this, wondering if he’s really going to go to that place men don’t go, to talking, and yet it feels good to be out of the house and hanging with someone I like since everyone else I know is still on assignment somewhere. “You don’t have to do this, Colton. I appreciate you inviting me to meet up, but if Ry wants to fish and see how I’m doing, she doesn’t need you to do her dirty work for her.”
“I know,” he says, and ruffles a hand through his hair to shake the water from it. “Look, it’s none of my business, but what the fuck, man? You’re a good judge of character… Didn’t you see crazy coming from a mile away?” he asks incredulously with a half laugh.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” I shake my head, still at a loss over everything but slowly moving on.
“Dude, we are talking about women, right?” he jokes, and garners an amen from me. “When it comes to women, what you believe gets thrown out the window and whirls around in a little eddy I call the estrogen vortex. It sucks you into their crazy and spits you out completely dazed, confused, and questioning why you ever stepped close enough to begin with… well besides the tits and ass and curves…”
“You can say that again.”
“It’s the mythical blooming onion.”
“The what?” I question.
“You know… She’s got all kinds of layers you can’t wait to taste, but then once you peel them away, your gut feels like shit and you’re left with a bad taste in your mouth.”
I snort and roll my eyes while we fall into a comfortable silence as the set of swells on the horizon dies down some.
“Bad taste is right. Shit, I didn’t see any of it coming, Colton, not at all. I feel like a fucking chump. No idea she was married. Didn’t realize the sneaking away in the middle of the night to take pictures was a cover because she was calling her husband. Not the text she sent me where I tracked her to Kansas, thinking she was leaving me a goddamn clue to come and save her. Not the sex we had when I found her that she used as a final good-bye before filing a fucking restraining order against me…” My voice trails off, incredulity in my tone and frustration reflected in my posture.
“That’s cold, man,” Colton says with a shake of his head. “I had a woman do that to me once. Have sex as her way of saying good-bye.”
“What did you do to get over her?” I’ll admit I’m surprised the infamous ladies’ man Colton Donavan was played like I was. Makes me feel a little better.
“I married her,” he deadpans, causing my head to whip over to meet his eyes as he throws his head back in a laugh.
“Rylee did that shit to you?” I ask, completely surprised by the ballsy move on my sister’s part. “You probably deserved it, though.”
“Yes, I did.” He smirks at a memory, but the way his face softens tells me that it was a good one and that he wouldn’t want it any other way because he got the girl in the end.
“For some reason, though, I think the restraining order tells me that I won’t have the same ending.” I laugh at myself because there’s not much else I can do.
“Would you really want one, though? Legal action is kind of an extreme move to play in the game of hard to get.”
“True,” I murmur.
“What’s her deal? I’m assuming you dug into her background.”
“Couldn’t find anything. Not even mortgage records for the house, nothing. So either they have a friend on the force who buried their information, or I’m getting rusty. I’ve got to be careful, though. Don’t want to get caught snooping between losing my job at Worldwide and the restraining order… so who knows…”
“You should have checked the asylums.” His comment earns a snort from me in response. “I mean the only advice I can give you is the next time you fall in love, make sure that you’re the crazy one.”
My laugh comes out long and deep. Such a typical comment from the former playboy himself. “Well some say love is a serious mental disease,” I say with a shrug. “Guess that proves something I’ve spent a lifetime trying to prove.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“That my sister is crazy,” I state matter of factly.
He laughs and shakes his head before staring out to the ocean around us. “Look, man, I know how hard it is… but everyone’s life is like a story. Maybe that chapter of your book is closed…,” he says, his voice fading off. “Then again, maybe you need to open the damn book back up and rewrite the shit you didn’t like. Don’t accept it, Tanner. Some people say you can’t change your fate. I’m living proof that you can. If you don’t like the ending, change it,” he finishes with a shrug before duck-diving under a wave as I’m pushed toward shore, my mind toying with the truth in his words.
Colton’s analogy rings in my ears but brings a smile to my lips as I make the drive home down the coastline. My mood is the best it’s been in a while, so I’m glad I took the offer of a day on the water to get away from my doldrums right now. After the guy talk, I feel like my head is back on straighter than it has been in the last month, an affirmation that I need to hold on to the anger a little tighter and let go of the want a little more, because what I need to do is forget all about her.
My cell rings through the Bluetooth as I exit the freeway, and for the first time in two weeks I decide to pick up Rafe’s call.
“You’re finally talking to me again?” he asks with a chuckle, and
I feel the smile tug at the corners of my mouth.
“I’m slowly forgiving you.”
“For what? Saving your ass? Thank you is what you should be saying.”
I sigh into the line. “Don’t press your luck.”
“Regardless, you sound good.”
“I feel good,” I answer as I try to figure out where he’s going with this.
“Feel good enough to head back into action?” he asks, which stuns the hell out of me so much that I miss my own street.
“What do you mean?” There is a cautious tone to my voice, and I’m not sure exactly where it’s coming from. Maybe getting back on assignment is just what I need to distract me from the temptation of seeing her again.
“You haven’t seen the news today, have you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask as I turn down my street, noticing William finally moved his beast of a car because I can actually see my house when I turn on the road. Thank God. At least some other neighbor was the asshole and told him to move it before I did.
“The U.S. embassy was bombed. On your old stomping grounds. An ambassador and an agent lost. Figured you’d want a chance to report —”
“When?” Immediately I’m sitting taller in my seat because it’s been a long time since this has happened; it’s usually a precursor to a military campaign of some kind. And a military campaign means I have something to occupy me overseas to avoid the temptation of knowing where she is and that she doesn’t want me. Somehow distance seems like it will help.
“A few hours ago. There’s a briefing first thing in the morning in D.C. with intelligence officials to explain the objective of the mission, make sure it is spelled out and not misrepresented,” he says.
“So basically the government’s inviting the press to handle the image we’ll portray in regard to what’s happening,” I say, discouraged and frustrated all at the same time, but I know my reputation precedes me. If Rafe’s calling me, he knows the story he’ll get from me, that I won’t bow to the pretty wrapping of the package they are trying to tie up for me. “I’ll go. No one is going to tell me what I can and can’t report, though.”
Rafe chuckles. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you were going to say. You know my rules – report the truth; I’ll worry about the rest. When can you leave?”
For the first time ever in my life, I hesitate before answering him. And that I don’t know why makes it even worse. Is it because I’ve gotten the longest taste of normal life that I’ve had in forever? Or is it because a small part of me is still hanging on to the hope that regardless of how much I tell myself that whatever was between Beaux and me is dead, I still have the slimmest margins of hope that she’ll call?
And that thought alone spurs me to respond immediately.
“I’m turning down my street. Give me two hours tops to pack my shit and take care of a few things, then I’ll head to the airport. I’ll start making calls with my sources on location while I’m waiting for my flight. See what I can dig up to get ahead of the story,” I say as I turn into my driveway.
I hang up the phone, my thoughts running faster than my mind can process as I grab the bag of stuff Rylee gave Colton to give me, get out of my 1976 restored Bronco, and pull my surfboard from the open back. I quickly hang my wet suit up in the garage and rinse my board off, acting as if I won’t be coming back for a while.
The funny thing is, I’m going through the motions of things I’ve done so many times in my life, and yet they seem so halfhearted compared to normal. There is no urgency, no hurried movements, just more a quiet resignation that I’ve never felt before. My mind travels to thoughts of clapboard houses on quiet streets and teaching a little girl with long dark hair and amethyst eyes how to ride a bike without training wheels. Shit, I never thought it would happen until much later in life, but for the first time ever, I find myself wondering how much I’m missing, how many memories I’m missing out on making, because of my career choices.
Sure, the rush of getting the story first is such a fucking high, so then why don’t I feel anything close to that right now? Why isn’t my blood humming and my mind already back in the dirt and dust of a foreign country that doesn’t seem inviting right now?
I enter the house from the door in the garage and toss my shit on the table, cursing when the bag from Rylee falls on its side, the contents spilling out. A card, as well as some random get-well presents from the boys that they made me after the blast that are so sweet they make me smile, tug on those heartstrings a tad more, but it’s the bottle of bubbles that rolls to the edge of the table and falls to the floor that causes my bittersweet smile.
As soon as I pick them up, memories of Rylee using them to work out her life’s disappointments and then the laughs Beaux and I shared on the rooftop that last night when everything seemed so crystal clear assault me. Too bad I didn’t know it was all murky as fuck. Without thinking of the bags I have to pack, the phone calls I have to make, the task of emptying my refrigerator so that nothing spoils in case I’m gone more than a couple of days, I open the bubbles and blow a few into the empty space of my living room. Perfectly round, they float in a mix of colors, before they pop, each memory, good and bad, disappearing with them.
There’s something about watching them that brings some kind of closure, one that’s tinged with sadness. Stupid in the grand scheme of things when I should be packing, but it’s there nonetheless.
I stand from the couch feeling like an idiot, a grown man blowing bubbles and not wanting to let go of the woman he loves. “God, Thomas. You’re acting like a schmuck. Get over it. Get over her. Pack your shit and leave her behind.”
But I don’t want to leave her behind. The bubbles make me think of Beaux. Of rib-hurting laughter and sigh-worthy sex. Of her undeniable feistiness contrasted with her incredible tenderness. Of just how much I want to rewrite the last chapter or the whole fucking book if that’s what it takes, because I want her in my life.
I blow out a breath, knowing I have so much shit to do and I’ve wasted a fair amount of time with a childish novelty, but I have to do one more thing. I pick up the phone and dial.
“Hello?”
“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I picked up a story and am gonna hop on a flight. Should be gone a couple of days, but you know what?” I say to my sister, so amped up by my decision, I know by that alone that it’s the right one. That I’m being true to myself.
“Tanner… A story? So soon? I thought you were taking a break. What’s going on?”
“Never mind the story. It’s not important, because I figured it all out. Bubbles. It was the damn bubbles.” I’m rambling and don’t care if she thinks I’m losing my mind. I’ve lost it and found it, and everything is so damn crystal clear to me for the first time in far too long.
“What in the world are you —”
“I was blowing – never mind,” I say, speaking ahead of my thoughts that are running out of control. “Look… You were right. I’ve never walked away without a fight before, so why am I walking away now?” Rylee starts to speak, and I just step right over her. “I love Beaux. Like I’m whipped, want to do anything to make this work.”
“There’s a little thing called a restraining order,” Rylee says cautiously, trying to hide the sarcasm mixed with the need to protect me from her voice.
“My gut tells me that there’s more to it than what’s going on. I just need to get a handle on what it is.” I pace the length of my hallway as I agree with my own self-diagnosis that I’m crazy. “You told me you fight like hell for what you love… Colton told me to rewrite the chapter and —”
“Rewrite what chapter?” she asks, confused.
“Ask your husband,” I tell her, not wanting to waste any time. “But I love her like no one else I’ve ever been with before, and I know she feels the same way and damn it, I’m going to fight for her.”
“Well, okay.” She laughs. “But wait! You can’t tell me all of this, get on a plane, and leave on
that note!”
“I’ll be back in a few days, Ry. The way I feel isn’t going to change, and neither is my determination to win her back. You said love’s crazy. Well now it’s my turn to be crazy, but this time? This time, crazy is going to get the girl!”
Her laughter fills the line. “Go get ’em, Tan!”
I hang up the phone with the incredible feeling that everything is falling into place. I’m going back to work, gonna do my job, get the story first, do it better than anyone else. Because like Beaux said, I’m the one. Then I’m going to fly back to Kansas and fight for the girl. Get her out of whatever situation she’s in with John that puts that constant worry and fear in her eyes. I may be the farthest thing from the white knight, but I sure as fuck can save the day.
But right now I need to get ready to leave.
I get everything packed, clothes, electronics, passport – all of the shit that sits in the closet waiting for the word go on a moment’s notice – but when I turn to take one last glance at my bedroom to make sure I’ve got everything, my feet falter as my eyes fall on Stella’s camera collecting dust on the top of my dresser. Conscious that time is limited, I walk over and reach out for it, my finger wiping away a streak of dust.
It’s been a little over nine months since I last saw her smile, heard her voice, laughed with her. For the first time since then, I think I’m ready to see the images from that night. I’m ready to face them.
Not to forget her, but just to say good-bye.
Because for the first time in forever, I can admit that guilt held me hostage from doing it. And not guilt because she was out buying me a birthday present when she was killed but instead for not protecting her long enough for her to find her once-in-a-lifetime. God yes, I loved her. Loved her company and her corny jokes and so many more things about her, but I wasn’t that person for her. It’s taken me the longest time to realize that. And maybe, just maybe, when the hurt fades from all of the shit with Beaux, I’ll be able to be thankful to her for that because learning that I loved Beaux, feeling the intensity of that connection, made me realize what that once-in-a-lifetime might possibly feel like.