Chapter 23: Laney
Hot, angry tears run down my cheeks as I walk further and further away from the party. It’s been half an hour since I left the party, and I don’t feel like stopping anytime soon. Images of Travis play in my head as I go, from our awkward, sexually charged early days, to the blissful, even more sexually charged days we spent honeymooning around the hotel. In my mind’s eye, I see his massive naked body and hear his stupid jokes, and I can practically feel the way his eyes devour me and the way he holds me at night. And the thought of that all going away, maybe forever?
I guess that’s why I’m still walking.
Up ahead of me, a huge red firecracker streaks up into the sky, arcs over my head, and explodes into a hundred shimmering embers. It’s beautiful, but it’s also another reminder of what I’m going to be leaving behind: lying in bed with Travis, watching these fireworks from the window of the suite.
I walk for a few more minutes under the firework-lit sky, and then I start to slow down. The rum is starting to soak into my blood, and I’m starting to realize just how far away I am from civilization at this point. So after a couple more angry steps, I stop, let out a deep breath, and look up at the fireworks in the sky.
“Shit, Laney, I thought you were going to walk all the way to the guy’s house.”
I spin around in the sand and practically slam right into Travis, who’s watching the fireworks right behind me. “Travis! What are you doing?”
“Watching fireworks with my sexy-ass stepsister, what are you doing?”
I run past Travis, squinting into the darkness behind us and expecting to see an army of paparazzi coming for us. But if they’re out there, I can’t see them. “You have to get back to the party before people realize you’re gone!”
Travis has that lost in thought look on his face again. I grab his arm and try to snap him out of it. “Seriously, go! I’m pretty sure Anna knows something’s going on. If they find us together out here, then— ”
Travis looks at me. “Then what?”
A firework explodes directly over us, bathing Travis in warm red light. It reminds me of the dream I had on the first night of the honeymoon. The one where we were alone on the beach at night…the one where I gave myself to him completely.
“Then…it’s all over. We’ll be on the front of every tabloid in the country. Nina will kill you for making her look bad. You’ll probably lose all your sponsors, your endorsements, your fans…everything.”
Travis shrugs. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean, that’s it? If we get caught, it’s going to be the worst thing ever.”
The thought gets to me so much that I almost want to turn around and start walking again. But before I can, Travis pulls me into his arms and holds me tight, and it feels so good that for a second, I don’t even care who might be watching.
“The worst thing ever? That was walking around that fucking party pretending like we didn’t even know each other. That was having to pretend to be interested in every single girl the tabloids paid to flirt with me while I watched you deal with my mom’s bullshit. And that was watching you leave, with tears in your fucking eyes, because you thought it was over.”
Travis takes a step back and unzips his bike jacket, pulling it off his shoulders and throwing it down onto the sand.
“That’s what I think about my fucking sponsors. I’d rather lose every last sponsorship I have than see that look on your face again.”
Without his jacket, Travis is shirtless, the ink on his body blazing in the dark. And for a second, I don’t know what to do. All my inhibitions scream in my head for me to run away as fast as I possibly can. But I don’t. I stay there, watching him in the dark.
“I’m done looking at you from across the room. I’m done catching you looking at me and not doing anything about it because our parents are fucking married. I’m done pretending this isn’t real, like we’re just drunk, or crazy, or getting carried away with being fake married whenever something happens between us. And most of all, I’m done pretending that all of this is going to magically go away when we get on that plane and fly back to LA. And if that means I have to lose everything I have, then I guess I’ll just have to lose it all, because I’ve wanted you ever since I saw you sitting at that little kitchen table in Pasadena, and I don’t think I’m ever going to fucking stop.”
Three fireworks go off at once, blanketing the sky with streaks of red and lighting up the whole beach. Suddenly, it feels like we’re standing on the edge of the world, where no cameras could ever find us. The voices in my head telling me to run fall silent, and I look into Travis’ eyes, where I can see that every word he just said is the absolute truth.
All of a sudden, I’m in his arms, totally at his mercy. And from by the way he’s holding me, I can tell that he really has wanted me ever since the day we met. It seems so obvious now, as I rest my face against his chest and think back to the days when we lived in the same house. And the more I think about it, the more it brings a deep, dark secret to the surface, something that I’ve even been denying to myself: I’ve wanted him, too. I’ve wanted him this whole time.
My eyes are starting to fill with tears again, but this time they’re tears of relief, relief that we’re not hiding any more, that I don’t have to deny my feelings, don’t have to call them something else.
Not out here, on the edge of the world. Out here, I can hold Travis as tightly as I want.