“Can we talk—”
“Shh.” I put a finger to his lips and it takes everything I have not to step into his arms and stay right there. To let him talk me into whatever he wants to because this pain in my chest is enough to swallow me whole. “Zane Phillips, you deserve the kind of love that makes you believe in love.”
And without another word and with my resolve hanging by a thread, I walk down the corridor with my head held high and my heart breaking in two on the floor at his feet.
“MORE THAN TWO TONIGHT?” THE bartender asks.
“Tonight calls for a helluva lot more than two, Barney,” I say with a nod as a plane roars overhead on takeoff.
“Lady troubles?”
“Something like that.” I down the drink in my hand and look across the way to gate forty-nine where Harlow sits. “Just keep them coming.”
She’s curled in a ball on the chair with her knees tucked up to her chin and her arms wrapped around them.
“Is your plane not ready?” Barney asks. He’s my usual bartender when I pass through JFK airport and knows my routine.
“The jet’s ready, but I’m not flying out for a day or two though.” I realize how weird that sounds, but I don’t explain about the ticket I had to buy just to get past the security gates and he doesn’t ask.
Instead I just watch her, my own form of personal torture for not succeeding in making her stay.
For not being able to give her what she needs.
My chest tightens again. The same damn way it has since I couldn’t find her at the launch party. And then again when I watched her walk away.
Correction. When I let her walk away.
So now I sit and torture myself with something I can’t have just so I can make sure she gets aboard safely. Just so I can know she’s okay.
Because I’m sure as fuck not okay.
Not by a goddamn long shot.
Do you love her, mate? Can you actually say you love her?
Love is a bullshit emotion.
My canned response lilts through my mind and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t buy into my own bullshit.
Because this feeling that I’m feeling? This sick to my stomach because she’s there and I’m here and she wants everything and I’m not sure if I can fucking give it to her—this isn’t anything I’ve ever felt before.
You deserve the kind of love that makes you feel in love.
Christ.
Is that what this is? Love? Because if that’s the case it feels like goddamn misery.
Only because you’re here and she’s there, mate.
What is it you want from her then? A booty call every now and again? To lie in bed at night and laugh till your stomach hurts from her silly antics? To close down an arcade playing pinball and Galaga because it’s so goddamn fun to feel like a kid again and to have someone let you be that way? To be scared out of your wits end, facing one of your biggest fears, but have her eyes to look into and her hands to hold? To talk about work over your morning coffee and have someone really listen? To pull all kinds of strings—strings you don’t even have—to try and help out her career because she damn well deserves it?
Fucking hell. What do you want Phillips? Because out of all of those things, only one of them has to do with sex.
I slide the empty glass away and grab the fresh one Barney places in front of me.
The old me knows what I would have wanted. To walk over there and tell her she’s not going anywhere and bring her back to my place. We’d have a great time living it up in the city for the next couple of days. Then we’d leave for home, part ways once we got there, and walk away free and clear and tired as fuck.
The new me . . . Christ. I run a hand through my hair and blow out a frustrated sigh. The new me is right back where I was when this whole thing started—wanting to stay as far away from Harlow as possible because she scares the shit out of me all the while fixated on the fact that I can’t stop thinking about her. Or wanting her. Or needing her.
But I can’t give her what she wants . . . what she deserves. I can’t be her knight in shining armor.
I can’t change who I am.
You deserve the kind of love that makes you believe in love
Or can I?
“YOU’RE MAKING A MISTAKE BY sending that text, mija.”
I glance over my shoulder to my mother. Behind her is the kitchen and the postage stamp backyard, all the same but they feel so very different.
It’s been two months—on the road, exploring, experiencing, growing—and it’s only given me a hankering to want more. Out of my career. Out of my life. Out of everything.
It’s also been a very good lesson in how you can’t control who your heart falls in love with.