hannah
Day 4
I must have listened to his latest voice message at least twenty times by now.
I paced the room. “Maybe this was a bad idea…”
“Well it’s sure-as-shit not a good one,” Tyler deadpanned, not even taking his eyes off his computer screen.
“Do you think I should go home?”
This wasn’t the first time I’d asked him this question over the past few days and I was surprised he hadn’t lost his patience with me yet.
“You’ve come this far, may as well see it through,” he drawled.
I’d spent three nights without him, and I was already struggling.
Hell, I was struggling after one.
I bit down on my lip and looked out the window, looking for some type of sign that I was making the right decision.
I knew this wasn’t what people did. But then, I’d never been particularly good at doing what other people did. I’d always followed my own path.
When I was younger I was told that a girl couldn’t wear pink princess dresses and want to ride a dirt bike. ‘You should pick one or the other’ they all told me.
Well fuck that…
Here I was at twenty-eight years old – still obsessed with the colour pink, and still riding a bike like a boss.
I was told that if I didn’t finish my education I would never amount to anything, yet somehow, I’d managed to drop out of school at sixteen and still make my way into a hugely successful career.
I’d been advised to ‘reign in’ parts of who I was – ‘you’ll never keep a man if you show him the real you’ my meddling aunty had told me.
Maybe she might have been right about that part…
I’d been called it all… silly, crazy, daft, flaky, insecure, wild, mad…
I’ve heard them all…
I knew Jasper loved my crazy, I just didn’t know how far he was willing to go to prove that to me.
I guess I’ll find out.
I needed to get on with my plan. I knew damn well that Jasper wasn’t going to be able to find me quickly – Ty was too good, but if he or Charlotte had a brainwave and realised that I might have come here for help, Jasper would be on the first plane out.
I really didn’t want him to find me in the home of another man.
“I’m going to hire a car tomorrow.”
That halted whatever it was he was doing on that damn computer of his.
“I don’t think you should go yet.” His words were rushed, hurried, and slightly laced with panic. “Stay a few more days.”
I ignored him.
“You know, Ty, that thing,” I pointed at his computer, “is probably why you don’t have a girlfriend. If you looked at a woman the way you look at that hard drive, you’d be married with kids by now. Why aren’t you?”
He shot me a dirty look. “That’s not a hard drive,” he muttered.
“Whatever. Don’t avoid the question.”
He shrugged and pushed his chair away from the desk. “What do you want me to tell you? That the right woman has never come along… or that the one time I thought maybe I might have some real feelings, she was so unavailable it may as well have been tattooed across her forehead? Is that what you wanna hear?”
“Brutal.”
He nodded. “I’m thirty-six years old and I’ve got more of a chance of hacking Google than I do of getting myself a girlfriend.”
“You done?” I asked, crashing his pity party. “For fuck’s sake, Ty, you’re not that old, you’re smart, gorgeous, kind… you have a hell of a lot to offer a woman if you’d pull your head out of the cyber world for five seconds.”
His face crept up into a sly grin. “Gorgeous, huh?”
I rolled my eyes and threw a couch cushion across the room at his head. “Ugh, you already know you’re hot, let’s not pretend this is news.”
He leapt to his feet and did his best impression of Gracie Hart in Miss Congeniality, “You think I’m gorgeous… you want to kiss me… you want to date me…”
I tried hard to keep a straight face, I really did, but I failed miserably.
I burst into laughter, tears pooling in my eyes as he pranced around singing the stupid song.
“How many times have you seen that movie?” I cackled.
“More than any grown man should, thanks to my sister.”
He went back to his performance and I was in total fits of laughter.
He was such a clown. It was easy to see why Charlotte had turned out so great. Her parents had been virtually non-existent in the process of raising her, but Tyler had always been her fiercest protector – the twins too, until Parker had come along and filled the position.
He’s got it covered now.
I missed them. I knew Charlotte would be sad and Parker would be fuming; he would probably never forgive me for this, but I missed him anyway. I didn’t know how long I was going to have to go without seeing everyone and the thought made my heart ache.
Ty abandoned his terrible singing and sat down on the edge of the coffee table so he was facing me, our knees nearly touching.
“I have to go tomorrow,” I whispered. “I need to go to where I’m supposed to be and then I just have to wait for him.”
“What if he doesn’t come? Have you thought about that?”
I looked into his blue eyes. “I’ve thought about that every minute since I left.”
He squeezed my knee lightly. “He’ll come. He’d have to be crazier than you are to let you get away.”
God, I hope he’s right.
“Seriously, princess, you’re one of a kind.”
His hand was still on my leg, and while I felt entirely comfortable with Ty, this seemed a little too intimate.
I laughed it off and got to my feet.
“Wanna get takeout tonight? It’ll be like our last supper.”
He didn’t answer and when I looked back over my shoulder at him, he was still sitting where I’d left him.
His shoulders rose and fell with a deep sigh before he got to his feet and followed after me.
“Beers,” he stated. “We need some beers – can’t have a last supper without beer.” He looked at me with a resigned smile and it made me feel sad for some reason.
Maybe Ty wanted company as much as I did.
* * *
Day 5
Tyler had reluctantly agreed to drive me to the car rental place. I was nervous about providing my real drivers license, but he’d assured me that he would wipe me from the database once I returned the car at the airport up the coast.
I had a four-hour drive ahead of me, then a three-hour flight. Once I arrived, I needed to find a taxi to get my stuff up to the house, and then I planned to buy myself a bike.
I had enough money in my account to live off for a very long time, and I intended to treat myself to a damn nice set of wheels.
I watched as Tyler got smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror before disappearing entirely from view.
One lone tear slipped down my cheek.
Now, I was truly alone.