Chapter 6
Colt
“Rationalize it however you want, girl. It’s still called stealing.”
“It is not!” Rory gives another indignant sigh. Another slap on my arm. I’m actually beginning to enjoy these smacks; a good thing since she’s been doling them out at regular intervals for the past hour. “Obviously no one wanted them, and they were sitting there all alone.”
“They were sitting there on a counter. It doesn’t matter that a clerk wasn’t there to take your money, you can’t just grab something and walk out with it.”
“I needed mints and it was an open package! Besides, you’re the one who said I had bad breath. We’ll go back when the store opens and I’ll give them the…” I try not to smile at the cute way she turns the tube upside down to look for the price. “…dollar nineteen it costs, so get off my back about it.”
I rather like being on her back. Or at least the idea of it.
“Fair enough. But from now on, no steal—”
“I didn’t steal them.”
I smile this time, because we’re right back at the beginning. Except with Rory Gray, I’m not exactly sure if it’s all the way back to our hostile introductions or if we’re a few yards past the bullhorn blast and sprinting away from the starting line. She’s a girl of many contradictions—that much is sure. She’s independent but hates to be alone. Tough but clutches onto that backpack like it’s a box of buried treasure or a security blanket she can’t bear to part with. Sharp-tongued but swift with an apology. And slow as hell when it comes to walking, but quick to catch up when she thinks I might disappear.
I’ve got to admit, there wasn’t much better than hearing the sound of her rushed footsteps approaching from behind me after I made my dramatic exit from the VIP room. I didn’t really want to leave her behind, but desperate times call for desperate measures and all that poetry crap, if that’s even poetry at all. I’m more of a suspense fan when it comes to books, but not much of a fan at all considering I don’t like to read much.
I knew it was her before I turned around, partly because I could hear the obnoxious swish slap swish of her backpack, but also because I was purposely walking slow and straight down the middle of the aisle to keep myself noticeable on the off-chance she might actually try to locate me.
She did. Score one for me.
“So what do you want to do now?” she asks in a tentative voice that could quite possibly become my undoing before the end of the day. Despite the innocence in her tone, at that moment about twelve completely inappropriate responses shoot like darts through my brain and try to land in my mouth—none of which I have any business saying. But hey, when a girl asks a guy that question, you can bet your life savings he’s thinking the same thing as me.
I swallow the suggestive comebacks and answer.
“Well, our choices are limited. But they seem to fall somewhere in the category of either racing each other up and down the escalator, seeing who can ride the elevator the fastest to the top floor, or making suicides at the soda fountain.”
“Suicides?” Her eyebrows push together, and she looks worried.
I can’t believe she doesn’t know this. “You grab a glass and fill it up with all the soda flavors in the fountain. So essentially you’re drinking a mix of orangecherrygrapecolalemonade and it tastes like crap. Makes you want to kill yourself right after the caffeine crash.”
I expect this gorgeous supermodel to make a face. Give me a drawn out explanation of how disgusting the idea sounds. Recite a lecture on how terrible carbonation is for your skin and body and metabolism.
What I get is a grin this side of wicked.
Time for suicides.
* * *
“I changed my mind. You actually expect me to drink this?”
The overwhelming enthusiasm she had for my suggestion died minutes ago. She stares into her glass without saying a word, then up at me with big doe eyes, then back into the orange-brown liquid that honestly resembles an infected urine sample. Gross. Unappealing. She hasn’t touched any of it, not one sip. Not that I blame her.
“Yes. Drink up, babe,” I say. “If I remember right, your actual words were I’ve got to try this! So…down the hatch. Bottoms up. Drain it, don’t strain it.”
She gives me a quizzical look with that last stupid line. I admit, I pulled it out of nowhere. “I really wish you would quit reminding me of the things I say. From now on, try to remember that I rarely mean any of it.”
“I’ll remember that later. Now drink up.”
If I expect an argument, I don’t get one. She raises an eyebrow—slow and calculating in a silent challenge—and tips her glass. Gradually it empties…gulp after long gulp…until nothing is left but a filmy sheen of leftover orange syrup. She’s so deliberate I almost expect her to lick the inside of the glass. With a grin that slowly tilts upward, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand in a move that has sexy written all over it. It stops me momentarily. All thought, reaction, and snappy comebacks leave in a rush of tripping pulses and rapid heartbeats and rushing blood. But only mine; she’s as cool and collected as she’s been since the second we met.
“Make me another and I’ll drink it, too.” She sets the glass on the counter and looks up at me, ready and waiting. A small drop of soda rests on her upper lip, orange and sweet and sticky and inviting. It’s all I can do not to brush it off. With my tongue. My lip twitches, but I force my mind on something else. After all, I have a no-more-women policy to stick to. It’s only been a few freaking hours, and I can’t find my self-control anywhere. With a desperation that can only be described as pitiful, I gather up the few broken pieces lying around my feet and fumble them into my hands.
“How about we go for a walk instead? Count all the poorly decorated Christmas trees in this joint, maybe.” I say, trying to sound like my little lapse in judgment hasn’t just happened.
“Seriously,” she says. “I’m convinced all the workers in this airport hate Christmas.”
“Clearly. Though I’m not a big fan of it either.”
“You’re not?” She says this like I’ve declared a boycott on faith and God and all things church. I haven’t, I’m just not real fond of holiday commercialism.
“Calm down. I like God fine, I’m just not a fan of Santa Claus.”
“Someone’s getting coal in his stocking this year.”
“Someone’s getting nothing at all, seeing as we’ll probably be stuck here through Christmas and the New Year from the looks of things.” On cue, thunder rumbles overhead as the rain picks up. She frowns and stomps a foot. It’s cute.
“You’re right, what if we’re here through Christmas?”
She looks so worried that I scramble for something to say to lighten her mood. “Then we’ll have to steal bigger things than mints and have our own little gifts exchange right here in the airport.”
“Really?” Her face brightens so much I can’t help but laugh.
“You know, for someone so successful, you’re quite the little kleptomaniac.”
She bumps into me with her hip. “What can I say? I like gifts, even cheap drug store ones. Hey, maybe we can find an escalator somewhere and race like you suggested.”
I eye her backpack. It’s hanging around her hips like it weighs more than her. “As if you could win with that sad contraption holding you up.”
“Baby, you have no idea what I can do with this thing.” She bats her eyelashes and smiles.
I try an awkward laugh. But again, my pulse hammers. Again, everything aches. Again, I’m a weak, pathetic mess. Again, I tell myself: no more women!
That last line sounds all wrong, even in my head.
We step out of the soda shop and turn toward the main walkway—me with a paper cup filled with Dr. Pepper, her with a backpack that bumps into things and falls lower and increasingly seems more trouble than it’s worth. I want to ask her why it matters so much but figure the question is better left unasked for now. I stick with something safer.
“So where are you from?”
She readjusts her ball cap. “Depends on the time of year. Right now, Seattle. It’s where I grew up. But I have an apartment in Los Angeles that I’m supposed to stop by tonight, and I spend a few weeks every year in New York.”
I don’t tell her that as far as schedules go, we follow almost the exact same routine. Except for me, replace Seattle with Phoenix and we’re practically twins. “That sounds exhausting. Do you ever wake up and wonder what city you’re in?”
I already know the answer to this question—a great big depressing yes. Before I took off six months ago, I worked for my father. Expected, what a Ross man did without question, but that isn’t the point. The point is that I once hailed a cab to the airport to catch the red eye out of LAX. I was in Houston and didn’t realize my mistake until the agent informed me at check-in. Especially embarrassing since, thanks to a wicked hangover—weird how my hangovers often coincide with flying—I barely remembered arriving in that city in the first place.
I wound up flirting with that cute little agent, got her phone number even though I never intended to call, and spent over two-thousand dollars on a new flight before that fiasco was resolved.
“A few times,” she says. “More than once I’ve searched for an In-N-Out Burger in Miami and had to settle for a local coffee shop.”
At this, I smile. Getting lost in life might be a small thing to have in common, but it’s something.
“As someone who hates even the smell of In-N-Out Burger, I can’t say I’m sad for you.”
This gets her to stop. “Are you even human? In-N-Out Burger is as American as it gets.”
“Says the supermodel who had never experienced a soda suicide before today and is probably required to drink Kale smoothies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have a feeling a hamburger is nothing more than wishful thinking for you.”
An indignant gasp escapes her lips, one I quickly cut off.
“Sweetheart, don’t even try to deny it. I’ve dated a few of your types before. A treat for you is the occasional peanut.”
I expect a hit on the arm, a shove for my bold words. What I get surprises me.
“I’m more of a raisin girl, myself.” She shrugs, bites her lip on a smile. The move is more than a little hot. But then again, isn’t everything from her? She’s a freaking supermodel whose figure has graced the cover of Sports Illustrated more than once.
“But oh my gosh,” she whines, bringing me back up from thoughts that have definitely taken a dip south. “I’m always hungry. I’d kill for a burger right now.”
“Then I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy you one when the food court opens. But only if you promise to eat the whole thing, including the bread.”
She adjusts the strap on her bag and smirks at me. “If you’re buying, I’ll eat the bread. I might even eat yours.”
Does she have any idea how suggestive all her words sound?
“I bet you can’t.”
“I bet I can, and as punishment for your doubt I’ll make you watch the whole thing, even the part where I lick my fingers.”
I think she knows exactly how it sounds.
“What are we betting?” I say, seizing the opportunity to up the stakes. Do we even have stakes? I’m not sure, but I want to raise them anyway.
She thinks for a minute. “If I pull it off, you have to tell me where we met.”
My insides deflate. I haven’t talked about that life in six months, and I’m still not ready for it. “Tell you what, if I lose I’ll tell you one thing that happened the first night we met.”
She frowns. “Was there a second?”
I smile to myself. “There was definitely a second.”
This gets her to look at me. “What about a third?”
No, not happening. I change the subject. “Of course there’s a possibility you might lose.”
Her face falls like the possibility hadn’t occurred to her. “What are you going to do to me if I lose?”
She sounds so fearful that I can’t help but laugh. “I’m not going to do anything to you.” I force a suggestive tone into my voice. “Unless you want me to…”
She rolls her eyes. “What happens if I lose? Give it to me in simple terms.”
“You have to show me one thing in that bag of yours.”
At this, she looks worried. “I don’t know. There’s nothing in there that…”
“Just one, and you can choose what it is.”
She thinks on this for a moment before appearing to relax. Whatever she’s hiding inside that backpack, some things must not be as private as others.
“Okay.”
We come to a row of benches away from the throng of bodies and sit down. Rory drops her bag to the floor and props her feet on it. Funny how she scolded me for doing the exact same thing only a handful of hours ago.
I look across the desolate terminal, at the storm picking up intensity through a western window and the abandoned planes lining the edges of each gateway. The wind is crazy-loud. I think I hear raindrops hitting the roof. I don’t know much about hurricanes, but this feels like only the beginning. There is literally nothing happening in this airport. No one in uniform roams the hallway in pursuit of a specific destination. No tram blares its horn to urge slow walkers out of the way. No moving sidewalks or shoeshine men offer a quick touch-up to hurried passengers. Not even a single announcement comes through the loudspeaker to update us on weather conditions or flight schedules. We might be here for days.
Funny how the prospect doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it did a few short hours ago.
“Of course, if you eat my hamburger, I’ll have to eat all your fries, and then the bet will be off,” I say.
“If you eat my fries, I’ll make you buy me a milkshake. And the bet won’t be off.”
“And what if I drink your milkshake too?” It sounds innocent enough, but in my mind this conversation has gone into the gutter and down the spout, fast. And when you’re me, the mind is a terrible place. My thoughts are pretty much swimming in the sewer at this point.
“Then I’ll have to kill you.”
She says it with such conviction that I laugh.
“At which point the bet will most certainly be off. But it’s a deal.” I hold out my hand to seal it.
She looks at me with false pity but takes my hand anyway. “Wow, you’re so willing to die, and at such a young age.” She shakes her head. “Not that it matters. We’re in the Dominican Republic. At the airport. Everyone knows calories don’t count when you’re overseas. So really I have no reason to kill you at all. Which means I have no reason to lose.”
“I’m not sure anything you said made sense.”
“It totally made sense.” She licks her lips as though the mere thought of a milkshake has her all hot and bothered.
And this girl. Maybe her moves are deliberate or maybe she’s clueless or maybe she plays by a set of rules that reside somewhere in between the two. But in the five whole hours I’ve known her…
She’s taken sexy to such a high level that I’ve completely abandoned my stupid resolve.
I know she’s a supermodel and that makes her appealing by default, but I lean back and rub my forehead anyway, wondering if there’s any way to get any of that resolve back.