Lane
“Listen, Alan, I don’t care what you budgeted for software upgrades next year. This is my cost. Either take it or leave it, because this price isn’t going to be on the table for much longer. I have a long waiting list.” I barked into the phone, tapping an expensive pen rapidly against the arm of the chair I sat in, sick of this guy’s runaround.
But inside, I was just plain sick. And tired. Inside, I felt like the young boy I once was, afraid to risk feeling again.
I was in my office in downtown Miami, unable to appreciate the stunning sight of the bay glittering in the window behind me. My Italian leather shoes propped on the desk, I’d been making phone calls, taking out my aggressions on anyone who crossed me as my perfectly pressed jacket hung on the back of my office door.
To look at me, you would never suspect there was a brutal war raging inside me. My brain’s foot soldiers were standing guard at my heart, not allowing anyone entrance. I had fully retreated to my safe space, the four walls within which I controlled everything. For there were no loose ends when it came to my business; there I was the master of my fate, the controller of my destiny.
My office was on the fiftieth floor of the tallest office building in southern Florida, and that was where I’d spent the last few weeks. Outside my domain, my control wasn’t guaranteed. After all, I couldn’t mastermind the world. And I knew all too well what happened when there was no one in charge.
I hadn’t been home since returning from Pennsylvania. Home was where chaos only bled into the nightmares, where the sheets still reminded me of her scent, even though they’d been washed countless times. No, thank you.
“Okay, Lane,” I heard from the other end of the landline. “You drive a hard bargain, but we desperately need what you’re selling, especially since our competitor has your software. You have a deal, sir.”
You bet I do. In business, I know what the fuck I’m doing.
I was in the middle of saying, “I’m going to put you through to my assistant, so she can set up when I can come back to your property,” when my cell phone started vibrating on my desk.
Setting the landline back in the receiver, I swiped the smartphone. It was an unknown caller.
“Wrigley here,” I grumbled into my headset.
“Um, Mr. Wrigley?” a man said with a Mexican accent.
“Yeah, who is this?”
What now?
“Sorry to disturb you, sir, it’s Chaz. Um, I take care of your pool.”
“Chaz, if there’s something you need or a bill is outstanding, please call my main office number and ask for Shelly. This is my private cell.” I dropped my feet from my desk, thinking about heading down to the hotel for some lunch.
“Uh, sir. It’s not that. I’m here now at your place, taking care of some things, and there’s a girl here. A young woman who’s sitting by the front gate, with her bag by her feet.”
“What?” I stopped dead in my tracks, bracing myself against the floor-to-ceiling window facing the water, my hand chilled against the warm glass.
“A girl, sir, all wrapped up in a sweater even though it’s seventy-five degrees out. I asked her if she needed help, but she said she’d just wait for you to get home.” He paused for a moment and said in a strained voice, “I’m not prying, sir, but I noticed you haven’t been around.”
I was putting on my jacket, wrinkling it all to hell as I tried to shove my arms in the sleeves while still on the phone. “I’m coming,” was all I said as I ended the call, willing my private elevator to get me to the garage faster.
Grinding the shit out of the clutch, I shifted like a lunatic all the way home. As its tires shrieked a protest, I slammed my car into park in front of where Bess waited at the gated entrance to my home, and jumped out.
Bess got to her feet, the sun blazing down on her dark hair, casting a glow on her face as she turned it expectantly toward me.
“Bess.” “Lane.”
We spoke at the same time, cautiously closing the distance between us on the scorching Florida pavement.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice sounding gruffer than I wanted.
God, I’m so tired.
Her brow crinkled, and she took a step back instead of continuing to move forward.
I held out a hand, embarrassed that I was already screwing this up. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not mad, just disappointed . . . in myself. How did you get here on your own? Why are you just sitting out here by the driveway? You didn’t call?” I tried to steady my tone, tamping down my own inadequacies and anxiety.
She stood her ground, her arms wrapped tightly around her own narrow waist. “I wanted to say I was sorry, sorry for dragging you into everything with AJ and me. And, well, I wanted to thank you for when you saved my life years ago.”
Before I could say anything, she continued. “That day was both a beginning and an end for me, you know. An end to who I’d been for a long time, and the start of who I am now. I can’t ever be that Bess again, and I’m not sure this new one is much better,” she said as she looked down at her Nikes. “My selfishness replaced drugs as a survival mechanism—both of them let me off the hook when it came to really getting close to anyone. So, I’m sorry for that, both now and then.”
I couldn’t move. She was sorry? Standing there in her athletic shoes, wrapped up tight in a sweater that hid her tattoo, she looked like a young college girl, but her attitude was fierce and grown-up.
I need to get my shit together.
She bought herself a plane ticket with her hard-earned tips to tell me she was sorry?
I’m a dick.
I was so stubborn that I ran from this woman, never considering how that would make her feel, and she turned around and did something like this for me. Something I doubted she could afford—either financially or emotionally.
“Bess, you have nothing to be sorry for. This is all on me,” I said. The heat of the car’s engine reflected off of me, causing sweat to drip down my back, coating me in a glaze of my own shame.
She shook her head. “No. I need to be selfless and apologize, Lane.”
I walked to her and gathered her in my arms. “No, you don’t.” Because I was the caring one, the enabler in relationships. At least, I used to be.
“I need to apologize,” I told her. “There were so many times I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. I knew it would ruin everything, and it did exactly that. It ruined it all.”
When I rested my lips on the top of her head, she wriggled out of my arms, and I immediately felt the loss.
“Well, I want to know why,” she said as she stared at me. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?” Her eyes narrowed, she challenged me on the edge of the street.
“Let’s go inside. It’s hot. Let’s get you a cool drink, okay?”
After settling her in my car, I opened the gate and we drove to the house, not bothering to pull into the garage. I waved to Chaz where he was working by the pool, and we went inside. The house was cool and silent, a welcome and soothing greeting to my pounding heart and overheated soul.
“Wow, it’s so clean and quiet here,” Bess said, looking around with wide eyes.
“I haven’t been home much.” I took my jacket off and tossed it over the banister. “Actually, I haven’t been here at all,” I confessed.
“What?”
She moved a little closer, and the warmth of her body defrosted my lonely heart.
“I’ve been staying at the hotel that sits under my offices. I’ve been working nonstop, and I haven’t wanted to be home.”
Bess took my hand. When her small fingers intertwined with my large ones, a strange combination of lust, possessiveness, and fear took hold of me, making me suddenly want a drink. Would she grant me that one wish? I needed one—my nerves were jumping at her mention of the word why—but could she handle it?
“Come in,” I said, leading her to the great room. “Would you like some water? Soda?”
“I’ll take a glass of water.”
I set Bess on the sofa, treating her as if she were some delicate piece of glass even though I knew she’d hate that comparison, but I couldn’t help it. Now that her past was spread out in front of us, my involvement intricately woven through it for anyone to see, I couldn’t help but to look at Bess and see the messed-up college-age version of her. The young girl crying for help that I ignored, convinced I had to stop fixing others for my own sanity.
I’d forced my way back into her life, and had left nothing but destruction in my wake. I should have never asked for that first dinner.
And I never should have covered for Jake.
This couldn’t be fixed, no matter how much I wanted it to be. This being my fucking shit life.
Grabbing the water, I came back with one glass.
“What about you?” she asked as she reached for it.
“Do you mind if I have something stronger?” I said as I closed in on the bar, clearly unable to wait for her response.
“No, go ahead. Please don’t treat me with kid gloves, Lane. I can see you’re doing that, and you need to stop.”
After pouring a small tumbler full of scotch, I tossed back half in one gulp.
Silence sucked all the air out of the room. I stared into my drink, unable to find the words that might make this situation right.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come,” Bess said in a low voice, “but I don’t care. I’m here for you, Lane.”
“I’m a living, breathing mess,” I said as I barked out a demented laugh. “You can’t fix me, Bess. I’m the one who fixes others. I don’t have a fixer.”
Quickly unraveling, I tossed back the rest of my drink, mindlessly grabbing the whole bottle and settling into the chair across from the recovering alcoholic proposing she’d make it all better for me.
“Well, I could try,” she said, staring at me intently. “I’ve never really been the fixer, but I’m up for it. Even with you sitting across from me guzzling down a bottle of high-priced liquor.”
Glancing down, I noticed the almost half-empty bottle in my tanned hands. I stared down at the bottle, mesmerized with the liquid sloshing around inside it when she moved in for the kill.
“Why don’t we start with you telling me about your parents?” She leaned forward and grasped my hand, her thumb rubbing small circles on mine.
Looking at a point over her shoulder, I said, “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Jake told me they died.”
That was when it was clear that I was nowhere near getting my shit together. I erupted like a volcano, jumping to my feet and yelling, “Jake did what? When did you see Jake?”
Red. All I saw was blood red.
“Jake came to me,” she said, her eyes wide as she gazed up at me. “Told me you weren’t doing great. He just knew somehow, and he gave me the courage to come. And he said your parents died.”
“Well, of course he did. After years of handing his sloppy seconds to me, he wanted to take a run at mine.”
Bess gasped. Leaning back into the couch, she looked like she’d been slapped. Essentially, she had, yet she didn’t move.
Furious with myself, I hung my head. “I’m sorry, that was rude.”
Jake, what a fucking traitor. After all I’ve done for him.
Dragging my poison in a bottle, I moved to the couch and sat down next to her, trying to pull her to me, but she wouldn’t allow it. “Bess, God, I fucked up. Let’s start over. You have my emotions doing backflips in my head.”
“No,” she said firmly, then stood up and moved toward the door. “Maybe this was a mistake. Here I am facing my own demons,” she said pointedly, giving my scotch the evil eye, “and all I want to do is help you stare down yours. And you won’t even talk to me. I’m such a fool.”
I rushed after her, grabbing her before her hand hit the doorknob. “Bess, don’t. It wasn’t. I’m tired. I haven’t slept since I left Ligonier. I’m so fucking tired, and now I’m sloppy drunk.” I whispered the last part as I sank to the floor in front of her, on my knees.
I needed absolution. For everything.
My head rested against her knees as she stood above me, and I repeated, “I’m so tired.”
A moment passed that seemed like years until she dropped to the floor next to me and wrapped her arms around me, soothing me like a little boy in my mother’s lap.
With my head buried in her stomach, her legs crossed Indian-style in front of me, I murmured, “The nightmares, they’re chasing me. Finding me down here, and they won’t stop.”
And then I fell asleep on the cool tile floor in the cocoon of Bess’s warmth. I hadn’t been so embarrassed since I prematurely ejaculated with Cindi Swanson in the attic at my grandparents’ house when I was a teen.
Needy was not becoming on me. I was a man, resolute and firm in my convictions.
Yet there I was nodding off in the lap of a woman I had wronged, allowing her to care for me.