Dylan hadn’t replied.
What if he’d met someone already? It wasn’t like the opportunities weren’t always there for him. Women flocked to him like piranhas on fresh blood when I was around. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him when he appeared to be an available man. Yikes.
In Hawaii, it was the capital of romance. And he was ripe for a rebound. Horror at just how monumental my mistake was shredded my nerves. I needed to get out of my house and head back to Hawaii. What if he wasn’t there? What if he... No, wait.
I needed to breathe. I could give him some time to think things through. He deserved that. If he was with someone else, that was okay, too. I could cope. I could figure it out.
He needed more time than just a couple hours to reply. I sat around Sunday waiting for a text from him, but I never got one.
While Big Dog Amusement Park was closed for the next week or two, I still had access to the office and I’d originally planned on checking in on the training that was going on. We would open in less than two weeks and I wanted to make sure everyone was ready.
Chewing on my inner cheek wouldn’t be good for anyone. I tried to drink more water, but every time I got up to fill the water cup or use the restroom, my chair scraped against the back of my calf where the scabs of the sting were.
I hunkered over the staff sheets and tapped my pencil on the paper. Why hadn’t he called or texted? Maybe he was coming home early. If I hadn’t heard from him by that evening, I’d call the condos and ask to talk to him. Maybe he’d dropped his phone in the ocean or something.
The desk phone rang beside me and I jumped. Hoping it was Dylan, I picked up on the first ring. “Big Dog Amusement Park. This is Kayla.” Lovely, my voice was all breathy like I was working for some kind of a phone escort service.
“Kayla, this is Don Watts.” Don was our lawyer both with the company and for us personally. He was a good friend of our families and he always watched out for Dylan and me. I’d been waiting for final waivers and contracts to come in for the new season and I was glad to get those in before Dylan returned. He hated dealing with the legal aspects.
I shoved my disappointment that it wasn’t Dylan to the side. “Don! It’s so nice to hear from you. Do you need me to come down and pick those contracts up?” I stood from the desk, holding the receiver in my shoulder while I grabbed the car keys from the hook by the door.
“Oh, that makes this a lot easier since you know about them. Yes, the sooner the better.” Of course, I knew about them, was he crazy? I had drafted the initial idea and I was the one who’d rejected the first two versions. With how terribly demanding I’d been, I wasn’t surprised he was blocking the entire thing from his memory.
“I’ll see you soon.” I hung up the cordless. Dylan would have a laugh at that one. We were always saying Don was going to be older than dirt one of these days.
Clouds rolled across the dark blue sky. We were scheduled to have rain the rest of that day and then beautiful skies and to our normal temperatures in the 50s and 60s for May. The meteorologist even promised 70s and 80s the following week. But they were all liars, so I didn’t get my hopes up.
When I pulled into Don’s offices not more than 30 minutes later, I checked my phone again. I spun the keys around my finger as I climbed from the car and made my way into his office. Smiling at the receptionist, I strode toward the conference room she pointed me toward.
Centered in the large meeting room, a long low table was surrounded by ten chairs. Don manned one with a high back opposite the door. In front of him on the table he’d stacked five piles of paper. He was scanning one when I came in.
“Wow, that’s a lot. You know Dylan’s not here, though, right? He’s on vacation for a few more days. Is it okay if I sign them as a representative of Big Dog or does he need to be here, too?” I claimed a seat across from Don and smiled at his red forehead. “You’ve been out in the sun, Don.”
A brighter pink encapsulated his face and he handed me a pen. His double-chin quivered but he spoke with authority and firm understanding. “I know Dylan is gone. That’s why you’re here. Dylan would like to sell his share of the company to you. His terms are very generous, but they’re all laid out here. As a joint lawyer, I don’t want to come across as saying anything that is self-serving, but I would recommend taking the deal. It’s extremely generous.”
I slouched forward, bracing my forearms on the table. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach with steel-toed boots. “This is some kind of joke, right?” I glanced at the date on the first set of contracts. Sheldon Dylan Drake had signed the papers four days before we’d left for our trip.
Four days before.
Don shook his head sadly, avoiding my gaze.
Everything fell into place. Hawaii was an attempt to get me to see him for what he was – in love with me. I failed the test and he was leaving me. I wasn’t surprised because I always manipulated men into doing just that. Why would I be shocked that Dylan fell into that same group? He was different, but he had feelings. I’d been stringing them along for so long, I’d just assumed he wasn’t as attached to me as I was to him.
My hands shook as I picked at the corner of the closest contract. I blinked back my tears and breathed in deep. “Was this a contingency plan? He called you from Hawaii and set it into motion, right?”
At Don’s silence, I lowered my head. What had I done? I knew I’d hurt him, but how irrevocably hadn’t occurred to me.
Don was waiting and I just had to pick my head up and sign them without losing my control. That wasn’t going to happen. I sat up, wiping my damp cheeks. “Would you mind if I took them home to look them over?” I didn’t wait for his answer as I stacked up the file piles and held them tightly in my arms. I didn’t look at Don or even wait for anything as I darted from the room. He’d have to be okay with it. I wasn’t taking them back.
What if I burned them? Would that force Dylan to return to me? Would that make him face me?
Would I be able to face myself?
I drove as if in a fog, pulling up to my driveway and parking the car. Leaning forward, I rolled my head from side to side on the steering wheel fighting back tears I’d already lost the battle to.
“Why would you do this, Dylan? Why would you leave me now?” I rolled my head so I looked towards Dylan’s house. A sign in his front yard made me sit up straight. I dashed at the river of tears coursing down my face and jumped from my car.
I ran as fast as I could down to the sign and stared. The logo on the sign was some realtor’s office from downtown.
Dylan had listed his house. He wouldn’t answer my texts but he would list his house for sale? He was declaring to me he was never coming back. What a lousy way to tell me. I should’ve texted him I was sorry. Doubt rippled through me at the ways I’d texted him.
I ran up to the door, a realtor’s lockbox already in place. Peering through the windows, I covered my mouth in horror. It was empty. He’d had it emptied while I was gone? When had that happened? When was I gone long enough for them to empty his house? But the last two days I’d been in the back yard of my own house, staring at the phone, waiting for a text that was never coming.
How long was he going to punish me? I slumped onto the front porch, reaching into my pocket for my phone. I still hadn’t gotten a text. Fine. I was going to bombard him with texts. Jar him. See if I could make him answer.
My fingers worked furiously as I oscillated between anger, sadness, longing, and despair.
What’s going on? You’re selling me the company?
But that wasn’t enough.
Why is your house for sale?
I had to know, and the text messages limited me in so many ways.
Why aren’t you texting me back? Call me or text or something. This isn’t how we treat each other, Dylan.
And one last one to get my point across.
Please.
Anchored to the steps for another thirty minutes, I couldn’t leave. I had
to hear back from him. I didn’t want to lose the connection his house gave me to him. But it slowly sank in that he wasn’t at that house anymore. He’d abandoned it. Just like he’d abandoned me.
I was losing him. Almost irreversibly. The worst thing that could possibly happen, the thing that I was scared of the most, was happening and it was outside of my control.
Running to my house, I screamed when the door slammed behind me. I couldn’t lose him.
The next few days passed in a fog, and I could’ve sworn the flu came back. Every time I thought of him being out of my life I threw up. Every. Time.
I had driven him away. I needed him back. I loved him.
The truth dawned on me. I pushed him away and destroyed everything between us. That fact was driven home and I could see myself for what I was.
I had been happy the last sixteen years with things steady and concrete between him and me because he’d never gone anywhere. I knew the women weren’t a challenge, because I knew he loved me. I thought he knew that I needed him as much but that was all I was willing to give. He’d called my bluff. He was making me choose.
Didn’t he know that I couldn’t breathe without him?
I was scared to even try before. I wasn’t willing to go a day without him. I had to fix it. I had to risk everything. Because even if we wouldn’t work as a married couple, I refused to give up our friendship.
Friendship aside, I loved him and if we got married it would be forever.
Chapter 22
DYLAN
Traveling Europe wasn’t such a bad idea with my house empty of things to live in and the business no longer a problem. My parents were traveling and so they had offered me their house to stay in. My mom was apologetic when she heard what had happened. She knew or had assumed that Kayla and I would always be together.
Hadn’t we all?
All of my things had been packed up and moved into a storage unit. If I did decide to travel, I wouldn’t go anywhere tropical. The last week in Hawaii had been torture and I couldn’t put myself through that again. Even the curve of the palm trees had reminded me of her.
I caught a taxi to my parents’ house. The residence was far enough away from my neighborhood and Kayla it shouldn’t hurt too bad to be there. When the yellow cab dropped me off, I made a point not to look at her mother’s house which was still next door to my parents.
Maybe coming there hadn’t been the brightest move I’d ever made. Images of Kayla bouncing the basketball to me flashed in my mind as I stared at the driveway. The backyard would be worse since she and I had played back there more than anywhere else.
I had done my best to make the cut clean and to eradicate her from my life, but I had already failed. It was like telling your body you didn’t need your lungs. It was an impossibility when I wasn’t sure I would survive without her.
The morning after she left, I woke up and called the lawyer, turned around and blocked her number from my cell. I didn’t want to be tempted to go to her or push her into agreeing to something she obviously didn’t want. Plus, she would most likely text me like we were friends. Just friends. I didn’t want to deal with that with my heart so raw from her rejection.
I went inside my parents’ front door and sluggishly tossed my bags to the side. I didn’t want to be there. I honestly didn’t want to be anywhere. There was nowhere in my life that Kayla hadn’t permeated.
The house smelled fresh, like they were still on a trip for three weeks. I think they had left on a cruise but I wasn’t sure. Mom and Dad traveled all the time. My childhood home was decorated with a classic style that was still moderately child-proof. My mom constantly nudged me for grandkids. I’d threatened her with a Newfoundland puppy for a grandson. She’d backed off after that.
I slid my shoes off and stretched. At the bottom of the stairs I turned, catching the out-of-place color from the corner of my eye. A bright yellow Post-it note had been stuck on the mirror in the front hall.
Come to the patio.
I recognized the loopy handwriting and my heart skipped a beat. I didn’t want to just make up as friends. I thought I had made that clear to Kayla. I had promised her normalcy if things didn’t work out, but I wasn’t going to survive normal. Not again.
No matter how much I tried pep-talking myself, a fine sheen of sweat collected between my shoulder blades and my heart skipped a beat as I went to the back door. I wanted to see her. I had to see her.
Even if it was for one last time.
I slid open the back door and my jaw dropped.
She had set up my parents’ back deck to look like her first night in Hawaii, the table with a white cloth, the dinner we weren’t allowed to eat because she got the flu. White Christmas lights had been strung up along the arbor and could have passed for the night sky over the ocean.
Soft sounds of the ocean played from a small stereo hid on the side of the deck. Real potted palm trees lined the deck in random spots and a collection of leis had been strung up by the table. The scent of hibiscus was strong.
Kayla stepped from the shadows in a white and blue dress and her hair decorated with flowers. She raised her eyes to mine, visibly shaking as she held out a long jeweler’s box. “I love you. I always want to be with you. I’m so sorry for what happened in Hawaii. I... I’m starting to realize I’m not a good person.”
I stepped out of the doorway completely. “You’re the best kind of person.” I watched her, slowly closing the slider behind me. The setting was more than I could have expected and it was confusing me. She said she loved me, but she always said that. Did she mean be with me as a friend or as man and wife like I wanted? “Why now?” Had she changed her mind because she thought it was the only way to keep me in her life? Like she would sacrifice herself for my friendship?
Flattered wasn’t what I was feeling, if that was the truth.
“I didn’t know what it meant to lose you.” She looked at me with dark circles under her eyes. Had she lost sleep worried about her and me?
Losing me would hurt her, and I knew that. But I still couldn’t stop myself from trying to cut my losses.
“I don’t want that.” I shook my head, frustrated that I had to say again to her what my expectations were. Didn’t she get it yet? My hopes crashed again and I mentally rebuked myself for my stupidity. “I don’t want desperate love.” I sighed, turning back to the door.
“Not a desperate love or a pity love, or even a friend’s love.” She stepped forward, holding out the box and opening the top. An elaborately made wooden watch rested inside. There were no hands and a selfie we had taken at one of the beaches had been etched into the wood. “How about a forever love?”
Disbelief rattled through me. Would I be able to hold things together? I’d been on an emotional roller coaster the last week and the reception from Kayla was unbelievably hoped for but never expected or even believed possible.
I pulled the ring from my pocket and held out the box one more time. This would be the test. The final test. I couldn’t handle anymore rejection. “If you’re serious, marry me for real. Not the online one. For real. I should’ve asked you a long time ago.”
“I don’t believe in divorce. If we get married, its forever.” She warned me, lowering the watch a couple centimeters but holding her gaze steady as she held me in her regard.
“Are you sure?” I had to know that it was a definite yes. A forever yes like she’d promised.
Tears brightened her eyes and she nodded, helping me slip the ring on her finger. “Yes, I’ve never been surer.” She blinked at the hibiscus flower on her finger. She looked up at me, her eyes wide. “It’s perfect.”
“At least we can say we already had our honeymoon.” I laughed when she giggled and we fell into each other’s arms. I was never going to let her go. No matter how much she pushed.
This was forever.
Chapter 23
Kayla
We only had two months left of the summer season and our grand opening of the
Paradise zip line ride would start any second. Tourist numbers were up and we’d surpassed our goals by almost two-fold. The renovations couldn’t have been smarter.
I stood on the last platform of the three lines, having offered the first ride to Dylan. He didn’t know yet why I was being careful. Three months since our honeymoon and our real wedding was scheduled in two weeks. Our parents were so excited for us.
We were going back to Hawaii for just a few days. Our parents were meeting us there and then we were coming back. We had to finish what we started on that island.
Tom, the ride-specialist lifted his hand to shade his eyes. His radio hissed and beeped, announcing the first rider was on his way.
Each line was only 45 seconds to a minute long, and I counted in my head the moment when I knew he would see my announcement.
There was a billboard that was set up halfway between the two ends of the second zip line. Instead of an advertisement for one of our vendors like we usually had, I had reserved the space for just that day. On the board I announced we were pregnant with twins and a shot of the ultrasound.
He came into view, his smile huge as he swung onto the platform.
Dylan landed in the final spot only ten feet from me. The brightness of his eyes and excitement on his face weren’t for the ride. He had seen my sign.
As soon as the harness had been detached from the zip line, he rushed me, swinging me around in a circle and squeezing me tight. “Are you happy?”
I took his face in my hands and stared into his eyes. “I didn’t know I could be this happy.”
We kissed – not for the first time and not for the last.
All my life my other half had been right there. Right in front of me. I didn’t know what I was missing.
Never again. And he would never leave me.
He’d put me back together and made me whole.
Epilogue
COLIN DAVIES
The afternoon light faded into early evening. Colin couldn’t leave the floor of her closet. The rough texture of the carpet dug into the soft skin of her calves. She ignored everything, tried to shut off her sensations. Too much sensation could overwhelm you. Wasn’t that what caused heart attacks?
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