Chapter 13
Lucy
The rest of the week passed quickly. I spent a whole day with Aunt Emmie on Wednesday. We didn’t talk about what had happened on Monday and I was grateful. I didn’t want to rehash all of that crap all over again. They were sorry. I was sorry. End of story.
The same happened when I spent Thursday at Lana’s house. She wanted to say she was sorry, but as far as I was concerned she was the one who least needed to apologize to me. My sister had done what she had done from the second I was born: taken care of me. Had my back.
Instead of letting her apologize, I’d hugged her hard and then told her to shut up. We’d had a great day just hanging out at her house with all four of her girls and Drake. I spent the night, camped out between my three older nieces where we all fell asleep after I’d read them a few chapters of the Ever After High series Lana had gotten Nevaeh addicted to.
Friday I went from Lana’s house straight to Shane and Harper’s, who lived only a few minutes away. No one mentioned Monday and I wondered if it was because they didn’t know what had happened. Still, I knew Harper and Dallas were as close as sisters, so she had to know even if Shane didn’t.
“Are you sure you won’t intern for me?” Harper asked with a pout as she put a plate of sandwiches on the kitchen table for lunch. “I mean, I know you want to get your degree as quickly as possible, but think of the experience you’ll get and be able to put on your resume when you finish school.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her with a smile. “I’ll think about doing it next summer, okay?”
The pout only grew. “So you’re going to subject me to a bunch of interns who know nothing and can’t write for beans? I thought you loved me.”
I laughed. “I’m sure you will find great interns who can write even better than I can, Harp. Besides, you don’t want your staff to accuse you of nepotism, do you?”
“Like I care. What’s the fun in being the boss if I can’t play a little favoritism every now and then, huh?” She picked up one of the sandwiches and took a small bite. “Is it the money, or rather lack of money? Because I can square it with human resources and get you a salary.”
“Oh, my gods!” I shook my head, laughing even harder now. “You are a nut case, you know that, right?”
The pout turned into a cheeky grin. “True, but I would still pay you.”
“Shane,” I called out. He was outside with the kids who were playing in the sand. “Tell your wife to stop already.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” He chuckled. “I like sleeping beside her too much to do that, Lu.”
Harper kept it up for another ten minutes, until her children came in to eat with us. After that everyone’s energy was focused on Violet and Mason and I was happy to forget about anything and everything else. It was nice to know Harper wanted me to work with her so much, but I was still debating where I wanted to go with my career and I had plenty of time to figure that out.
I went home after dinner to find the house empty. My mom had texted me earlier in the day to let me know they were all going out to dinner with Emmie, Nik and the kids. I was tired and just wanted to crash so I went up to my room and flopped face down on my bed. My phone landed on the pillow beside me and I lifted my head to glare at it before burying my face in the pillow once again.
Kin was in Virginia with Jace now so I couldn’t call her to come hang out with me and Harris…
He had taken me seriously and hadn’t tried calling me. Not once. The disappointment that had flooded through me every time my phone would go off and it wouldn’t be from him cut like a knife. Everything he’d said about not giving up on us had apparently been just a load of BS.
Refusing to cry over him—yet again—I turned on the TV to some boring rerun of a crime show I liked and kicked off my jeans before crawling under the covers and falling asleep.
Saturday was spent packing. Our plane left early Sunday morning and since I wasn’t coming back to California for the rest of the summer I had to pack up everything I wanted to take back to school with me. When I’d left back in January, I didn’t do any packing. Mom did all of that for me because if she hadn’t, nothing would have gotten packed. This time I wanted to leave, so I made sure to take everything I wanted and needed.
We had an early dinner that night and then went to bed. The twins were more hyper than normal with excitement for our trip and Dad had to yell at them to knock it off and get to sleep. I wasn’t nearly as excited but still couldn’t fall asleep.
This was it. I was leaving in less than twelve hours and I had no idea when I would be back. Or even if I should come back. Sure my family was all there, but they spent time on the East Coast throughout the year too. Kin was there, but whenever she was in Virginia, Marcus could drive me down to spend some time with her.
Harris was here.
He was here and I would be over three thousand miles away. The distance would be good for us both. We could move on.
Eventually.
Fuck it. There was no use lying to myself. I wasn’t ever going to get over him, but our chance was over.
We were over.
With that thought, I fell into a restless sleep with tears still dampening my lashes.
As babies, the twins hated flying. It had hurt their ears and made them sick. Now that they were older, that was still the case. Mom pumped them full of Dramamine and gave them gum to chew in hopes of helping with the ear problem, but they still hated flying. Luca more so than Lyric. Thankfully, we were all in First Class, so that made it a little more bearable for them.
Mom and Dad both sat with Luca, hoping to keep him calm while I sat with Lyric. He put on his Beats headphones, turned his music up to full blast and leaned back in his chair. Closing his eyes, I watched him mutter to himself from time to time, but I couldn’t tell if he was praying or cursing.
Once we landed at the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, it was just an eighteen-mile drive to Panama City Beach. The heat in SoCal and the heat in Florida were completely different heats. SoCal’s was a dry heat and bearable. The heat in Florida was full of humidity that weighed a person down, and if they had curly hair like myself, then they were screwed.
I hadn’t bothered to try to straighten my hair and would probably leave my flat iron in my case the entire trip. Even with product in my hair to calm it down, it became a giant ball of frizz the second we stepped off the plane. I pulled out a sturdy hair tie and put the thick tresses into a knot on top of my head as Dad picked up our rental and started putting our luggage in the back of the SUV.
Before we got to the condo where we would be spending the next two weeks before moving on to Orlando for some fun at Disney World, we stopped for some dinner. The condo was supposed to be ready to go with the fridge stocked, but no one felt like cooking that night. Dinner took over an hour because fast food wasn’t something anyone wanted and the sun was starting to set by the time Dad was unlocking the door to the condo that belonged to Aunt Emmie, Natalie Cutter and Annabelle Brockman.
Aunt Emmie had started off her management company solo and then Annabelle had come on as an equal partner. Natalie, who had worked her way up from being Aunt Emmie’s assistant now owned a third of the company. The three partners had decided to invest some of their money in real estate, not just around the country but worldwide. They had the condo in Panama City Beach, a house in Toronto and various apartments in London, Paris, Rome, and Germany.
It was nice to have a place to hide out in that offered privacy. The condo in Panama City Beach was a gated complex with its own private beach. Security was tight because celebrities owned most of the condos. Paps were kept out as well as fans and any kind of crazy trying to get close to one of the many famous residents.
The door now open, Dad stepped back and let the twins in. Mom followed behind them and I slowly made my way inside after her. I was hot, sticky and ready for a shower followed by a date with my pillow. My mind was already starting to shut down with jet lag and all I could think about was the lukewarm shower washing away all the grime that felt caked into my skin.
“We’re here,” Mom called as she set her overnight bag down on the couch in the living room.
“Yeah, Mom, we’re aware.” I yawned as I passed her on my way toward one of the many guest rooms.
This condo took up the entire top level of the complex and had six bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms, as well as a large kitchen and dining room; not to mention the theater-size living room with the sixty-five inch 4K television that took up the majority of one wall. It wasn’t the space that had sold the place to Aunt Emmie, though. It was the view from the balcony—or rather, balconies. The sun setting over the Gulf was priceless.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Lucy,” Mom told me with a note in her voice that had me pausing and turning to look at her.
“Then who? The twins are already in their room.” I glanced behind her at Dad, who was pulling our luggage inside.
“We have company joining us,” Mom informed me, her brown gaze going around the room as she tried to avoid meeting my eyes. “It was last minute.”
“Oh. Okay.” I was too tired to try to figure out what was up with her, so I turned back toward the bedrooms.
Four took up the west wing and two others were on the east wing. Mom and Dad always took one of the masters on the east wing, and because I knew how ‘affectionate’ they still tended to be, I was happy to have that kind of distance between their room and my own.
Hearing the twins excitedly talking about going down to the beach to play from behind one of the closed bedroom doors, I smiled to myself and took the one across the hall and to the right of theirs. I loved this bedroom. The bed was huge and the perfect combination of soft and firm, but the view from the bedroom’s private balcony was what had caught my attention the first time we had spent a week there. At night, when the moon was out, it glowed off the Gulf. The sight was always breathtaking and had always brought me a kind of peace that had been lacking in my life for too long now.
I was so distracted by the thought of bed and the view I would be taking full advantage of when I was less tired, that it took me a moment to realize the shower was already running. I paused halfway into the bedroom and looked around. There was a suitcase already on the ottoman at the end of the king-sized bed.
Groaning because I didn’t want to fight with whoever was joining us on our family vacation, but I didn’t want to give up my favorite room either, I marched the rest of the way to the closed bathroom door and knocked. When no one answered and the water continued to run, I opened the door a few inches and stuck my head inside. The room was full of steam from the shower so I couldn’t see much of anything. “Hello?”
No one answered so I stepped farther into the bathroom. “Hello?” I called out again.
The bathroom was large with a walk-in shower that had the most beautiful stained glass I’d ever seen, offering some privacy in case someone walked in on you. The shower head was the kind that rained down on you from the middle of the shower with several other heads that had the kind of power to release the tension in your shoulders and lower back.
When I still didn’t get an answer, I blew out a huff and knocked on the stained glass shower door. “Hey! This is my room. You’re going to have to switch.”
The water was instantly shut off and less than a full second later the door opened. The head that popped out of the shower was one that I hadn’t been expecting. Shocked, I jumped back a step, my heart already racing while my body responded to the sight of Harris completely naked and dripping wet.
Holy hell, he was the sexiest guy I’d ever seen.
“Hey, sweetness. Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.” He reached for the towel hanging on the wall beside the shower and wrapped it around his narrow waist before stepping out.
I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Even with his lower body covered I was reacting to him in the only way my body knew how. I was going up in flames and I was just standing there gawking at him. He hadn’t touched me, hadn’t kissed me, hadn’t even said one sexy thing to me. Yet I was ready to have a repeat of what had happened Monday morning, and this time I wanted to take my time exploring every inch of his body.
With my body going into hyper-drive in the sexual department, my brain was trying to make sense of his presence there. What the hell? No one had said he was joining us. He hadn’t called or texted me once in the last week. I’d thought for sure he had given up on us, yet here he was.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” I choked out through a very dry throat. Every drop of moisture had flowed south and was now soaking through my panties.
He shrugged his wide shoulders and my gaze followed several drops of water as they trailed down his abdomen—fuck, I wanted to lick his six pack—and disappeared into the towel. “You’re here, that means I’m here too.”
Stupidly, my heart turned to mush at his answer. Damn it. I wrapped my arms around my middle and tried to glare at him but knew it fell short. “You’re in my room,” I told him, trying to keep my voice firm, but it shook with the need I was trying so fucking hard to suppress.
Dark brows arched over aquamarine eyes. “Really? This is usually the room I use when I come with my parents.” He grinned and took a few steps in my direction. I was so caught up in watching more droplets trailing downward that I didn’t think to move away. The next thing I knew he was right in front of me, his large hands lifting to finger one of the many curls that had escaped from the knot I’d pulled my hair into. “How pissed do you think your dad would be if we shared?”
My next breath escaped on a sigh full of all the need that was quickly raising my body temperature. “He’d probably kill you,” I murmured.
“Figured.” He dropped a kiss to my forehead and then stepped back. I just stood there, trembling with the desire only he could produce in me. “Okay, I’ll grab my things and take the room next door. But you have to share the balcony with me at night. I’m not giving up that view, sweetness.”
I couldn’t make my voice work so kept my mouth shut as I stood there watching him move around. I was still standing there when he went into the bedroom and pulled on boxers and a T-shirt. A million different things flashed through my head but only a few stuck out the most.
Harris was in Panama City.
For me.
He hadn’t given up.