by Tasha Fawkes
Wow. That felt good to get out. I'd never been so candid with someone all at once before. It had taken me years of knowing Martin to talk to him about all my issues with my dad, but Brin seemed to pull the information out of me just by being her fabulous self.
"Your dad sounds like a dick," she replied.
I smiled. "He's just old-fashioned. And yeah, I guess a bit of a dick."
"You're incredible, Chad. I mean that. You've built something wonderful, and anybody who doesn't see that can go suck an egg." She reached across to pat me on the arm, smiling warmly. "Either your dad will come around one day or he won't, but in the meantime, you should mind your own happiness. You've only got this one life, do you really want to live it trying to get one stodgy old man's approval?"
"Don't you think that seeking his approval might have been the motivating factor that allowed me to achieve all this in the first place?"
Brin turned her face to the sun and closed her eyes, smiling and absorbing the light. She glowed.
"No," she said finally. "I think you've got all the motivation you need inside of you. You're passionate. You're driven. Don't ever let anyone else take credit for your success."
With that, she revved up her engine and flew down the other side of the hill, screaming joyfully. I watched her with a giant grin on my face, and then I followed.
Eleven
Brin
One thing I would never get used to from being a part of Chad's posse was the constant body ache. Zip lining and ATVing earlier had taken a major toll on me, and I was still a little sore from all the cliff diving too. It was a good sore, overall. It said, you did something, you pushed your body, and you won. It also said, get in a hot bath now or face the consequences.
I ignored the second part. I knew this was probably the only time I'd ever be able to afford Hawaii, and I was going to make it count.
I woke up at eight the next day, which was early for me. Chad was already awake, sipping coffee in the separate living room with his laptop open in front of him.
"There's sleeping beauty," he commented with a wry grin. "What's pulled you out of bed at this unholy hour?"
"Since I've got the day off I have decided to head down to the Honolulu farmer’s market and get some stupid tourist knickknacks. Kim will be pissed if I come back without any goodies for her."
"That's not a bad idea." He closed his laptop lid, and I was acutely aware of now receiving the full brunt of his attention. "I've got some good news you can take with you."
"Oh yeah?" I slumped down into the chair across from him. There was a second coffee waiting for me there, and it was still hot. It brought me back to yesterday morning when coffee and pastry had quickly turned into ridiculously hot sex. Neither of us had said anything about it, and we hadn't done it again. Not that we'd have been able to last night. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were both practically sleepwalking. I barely remember even getting to the bed.
"Our second video has gone viral. It's taking off faster than the first one did, and I bet it's going to top the view count by the end of the day."
"Nice!" I raised my hand for a high five. "Go team Brad!"
Chad raised a skeptical brow. "Team Brad?"
"Don't leave me hanging," I said, wiggling my hand.
Chad chuckled and slapped my palm. I reached for my coffee and took a sip.
"It's the natural combination of our names," I explained.
"I got that much," he replied. "It's just that now it sounds like we're cheering for some dude named Brad instead of ourselves."
"We are Brad. We are unstoppable. Embrace it. Love it." I winked.
He shook his head and shot me a bemused smile. "Just when I think I've got you all figured out, you go ahead and throw me for another loop. Where the hell did you come from?"
"A burlesque club in Vegas, don't you remember? You stared at me like a creep all night."
Chad snorted. "Rude. You stared at me like a creep."
"I stared at you with the appropriate amount of non-creepiness," I defended.
Chad got serious all of a sudden. His green eyes filled with curiosity and he leaned over the table to get closer to me. "I told you my first world sob story. How can I wrangle yours out of you?"
All humor fell from my face, and my grip on the hot paper cup tightened.
"What makes you think I've got a sob story?"
"Everyone does. The fact that you're about to strangle your coffee to death is a pretty good indicator that I was right."
I abruptly pulled away from the cup and set my hands in my lap. "Trust me, you don't want to hear it."
What surprised me was that I was hesitant to reveal details of my life to anyone, but it felt different with Chad. I felt comfortable opening up to him. After this trip, we were going to go our separate ways, and that made him safe in a way. We were in our own bubble over here, and the rules weren't the same as the rest of the world, where I held my cards close to my chest and never let them see me cry.
"I do." Chad reached across the table and urged me to draw a hand from my lap, which he then cradled in his own. "I'm curious about you. Help me figure you out."
I swallowed and met his eyes. He meant it. I didn't know why he meant it, but he did. Chad Harlan wanted to know about me. And I wanted to tell him.
"My parents abandoned me right after I was born, crack addicts or something like that, so I never knew them," I began. "The state put in my aunt and uncle's custody. Bill and Val never let me forget how much of a burden I was. I grew up thinking I was a waste of space. They controlled me, never letting me go play with other kids, never letting me do anything, really. Bill was the worst. He was the one who punished me when I pissed them off. He..." I took a breath. This was hard, but therapy had taught me to own my trauma. "He would beat me. And other stuff. It never went far, and I consider myself lucky in a way, but I'll never forget how helpless I was during it all. There was nobody I could turn to for help, nothing I could do, and for a while, I lost all hope and just accepted that my life was not my own."
Chad's hand squeezed mine, and his jaw locked tight. I could see the rage spreading in his irises, and it surprised me. I thought he would be sympathetic, yes, but I never expected him to care so much. And there was no doubt about it—Chad cared. He cared to the point that I thought he might hop out of his chair at any moment and take the next flight back to Nevada.
"I got out of there at eighteen and, not knowing where else to go or what else to do, went to Vegas. I wanted to lose myself, and that seemed like the right place to do it. I answered an ad for a roommate, and that was when I met Kim. We've been best friends ever since."
"Was Vegas everything you hoped it would be?" Chad asked. "Are you happy there?"
I shrugged. "I guess so. I stumbled for a few years, going out with assholes and never being true to myself and my passion. I doubted myself a lot. I still do. I'm a work in progress."
"You don't need to say anything. It's just a part of my past now. In a way, I'm stronger because of it."
"I'm so sorry you went through that, Brin. I wish I knew what to say."
I felt raw, exposed. I also felt lighter than I had in years. Chad didn't look at me with pity or disdain for what I'd been through or what I later put myself through. There was something else in his gaze—admiration.
So, of course, I needed to get out of there immediately.
"I'm just going to jump in the shower and then head out to the market," I said. "Thanks for the chat."
Chad grabbed my arm. "You're not running away from me, are you?"
A pleasurable shiver ran down my spine. I tossed him a cheeky grin. "If I were, would you chase me?"
"To the ends of the earth." He let me go, electricity sparking between us. "I'll see you for dinner later, right?"
"Of course."
I turned and headed into the bathroom, legs like gelatin. When I came back out into the room after my shower, Chad was gone.
The market turned
out to be the perfect place to lose myself for a few hours, to zone out and wander while my mind whirred and ticked like a mechanical clock. Getting some distance from Chad gave me a better view of our situation, and I was beginning to wonder what I was doing.
Everything was happening so quickly. One second I was Chad's fake girlfriend who he wasn't even allowed to flirt with, and the next I was having the best orgasm of my life while being screwed halfway to Timbuktu. I just didn't know what to think. On the one hand, I figured I should enjoy the moment while I could. I should take it at face value, have fun with it, and take the memories with me when I went home as a little keepsake.
On the other hand, I felt like things had already gone too far and I needed to draw back. I was becoming attached. I was revealing things to Chad, opening up to him in an unprecedented show of wall destruction not seen since 1989 Berlin. I kept to myself. It was what I did best, what I'd always done best. I had previous boyfriends who didn't even know about my childhood, and the ones who did didn't get as much detail as Chad had. Chad wasn't my real boyfriend, and he didn't care about me. Not long term. I had to remember that. It might seem like he did, but once I was back in Vegas that was it—no more heart to hearts, no more adventures, no more Chad.
Why did that bother me so much all of a sudden? Chad wasn't long-term relationship material. He was all about fun and living in the moment, not about setting down roots and committing to someone.
I groaned in frustration, and the person minding the stall I was in gave me an odd look. I grimaced and backed away, moving on to a stall selling silver jewelry. I fingered a filigreed pendant, remembering for the first time that I was supposed to be looking for something for Kim. She would love the pendant. I paid for it, and the merchant passed it back to me in a small brown bag, which I tucked into my purse.
My thoughts did not get any simpler. In fact, I reached new heights of crazy when I started to feel like someone was watching me. At first, I thought I was two seconds away from seeing Chad or one of the guys, but I whirled in a circle and saw only strangers. I tried to ignore the feeling, attributing it to the intense emotional spectrum I was traversing, but it persisted.
I was officially losing it.
It wasn't until the cab ride back to the hotel that I made my decision. This trip was my vacation—from my life, from my worries, and from my tumultuous emotions too. I was living in a fantasy here, and that was exactly what I needed. If that fantasy happened to include a stunningly attractive YouTuber with abs any washerwoman would be thrilled to have on hand, then so be it. I could handle that. I just needed to take a step back in terms of emotions. We could have fun together and be friends, but if I wanted to not get attached I needed to leave it at that and not think about him when he wasn't around.
I had a bad feeling that was going to be easier said than done.
Twelve
Chad
I left the room while Brin was still in the shower, not sure of what to make of her sudden change in mood. One second we were having a weighty chat, the next she was vaulting as far away from me as possible. But, in typical Brin fashion, she made it seem like that wasn't her aim at all. After our conversation, I understood a little bit more about her, about why she was so guarded and flighty, and I figured having some space from me would help calm any ruffled feathers. I needed a little space too. The inside of my head was like a fireworks show at the moment, and I needed some time to unpack.
I grabbed my laptop and headed down to the lobby, where I jumped into a waiting cab and directed the driver to take me into town. I scoped out a relaxed cafe and snagged a table outside, ordering a coffee from the diligent waitress and opening my laptop to my most recent video.
I still couldn't believe how much it was taking off. This trip was going better than I ever expected, and I knew I couldn't have done it without Brin. My fans loved her. They loved us together too, which I found particularly interesting considering it was all a lie.
If the view count kept soaring like this, it could be my most viewed video ever. My head was spinning with the rush of it. The reaction to the video was more exciting than making the video itself. But even more exciting than that? The morning's events before the shoot.
I still couldn't get my hot encounter with Brin out of my head. We hadn't spoken about it,
and when we got back to our room last night, we'd gone right back to our separate duvets and separate sides of the bed. If we weren't so dead tired, maybe we would have had a repeat performance. Then again, I had no idea how Brin felt about it. I had no idea how I felt about it. I couldn't get her out of my head and that was unusual for me. I barely knew the girl, but something about her had been reeling me in since that first night I saw her perform. It wasn't real though. It couldn't be. We were both living in a fantasy land for these three weeks and that was that.
I was glad to be spending the afternoon on my own, in any case. I needed some time to remember what I was here for and why. When Brin was around my head got all foggy, and all I could think about was trying to make her smile and how exquisitely she moved.
My coffee came, and I closed my laptop. I needed space from the new video too. I just wanted quiet, to let my mind wander for a little while. A little peace.
"Hey, stranger," came a high, drawling voice from somewhere behind me.
I nearly jumped in my chair. Lori?
She came into my field of view a second later, draping a hand over the back of the free chair and smirking down at me.
Lori looked hotter than ever. Her hips were wrapped in a tight black skirt, and the white chiffon tank top she wore revealed a bright pink bikini top underneath. She was propped up on high wedges that looked impossible to walk in, but as a model, her walk was one of her greatest strengths. As always, her hair and makeup were impeccable. Her wheat blonde hair was tied in a knot at the nape of her neck, a few strands framing her face.
My first thought was that she was incredibly sexy. Then Brin's face flashed through my mind, the rounded cheeks and laughing eyes, the way she scrunched up her nose when she laughed, and something about Lori didn't look right. She was trying too hard, always trying way too hard.
"Are you going to sit there and stare at me all day or are you going to invite me to sit?" she asked.
Fuck. My heart raced, and I couldn't tell whether it was the surprise of seeing her or just from seeing her in general. I nodded coolly, trying to appear more composed than I felt.
"Go ahead."
Lori draped herself across the chair and reached for my coffee, bringing it up to her lips for a delicate sip. She never wasted an opportunity to make an impact, always acting like there were cameras on her at every second. It was one of the reasons she'd made such a good companion in my videos.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
Lori smiled coquettishly and looked up at me through her lashes. "I made a mistake," she said. "I miss you."
I'd been waiting to hear those words for the last two weeks. Hell, I'd constructed a whole ruse of a relationship in the farfetched hope that it would urge her back into my arms. I should have been delighted, thrilled, fucking jumping for joy, but I couldn't help but feel hollow inside. This was what I wanted, so why didn't it make me happy?
"You came all the way here just to tell me you missed me?" I asked.
"Of course not. I came all the way here to get you back, handsome. We belong together."
I sat back in my chair, grinding my teeth as I considered everything she'd said. Maybe not what she said, but how she said it. I hadn't noticed until now, or I suppose hadn't acknowledged, how fake everything sounded coming from Lori's lips. The whole winning me back "speech" sounded contrived and lacked any emotional depth. I couldn't help but compare it to Brin, who even when she said something as simple as "thank you" meant it from the core of her being. She didn't say things she didn't mean. The contrast was off-putting.
I couldn't make this decision right now. I couldn't give Lori what she wanted, not until
I knew what it was that I wanted. The only reason I wasn't sending her packing right off the bat was that this was what I'd been angling for this whole time.
"I need time," I said finally. "Things have changed since you left. I think I might have changed."
Lori raised a questioning brow and scoffed. "I highly doubt that."
Her comment grated on me, but I chose to ignore it. Lori never reacted well when she didn't get what she wanted.
"Give me a couple of days, Lori. Please."
She studied me like she was trying to discern meaning from an abstract painting without context or clues. I'd never seen Lori genuinely puzzled before, and I found myself enjoying it. She expected me to take her back without question or complaint, which made it that much more satisfying when she finally gave a short nod.
"You can have two days," she said. Her gaze turned sharp, anger briefly marring her pretty features. "After that, I'm done. And we're done for good. Think about that."
Lori rose just as elegantly as she'd sat down, but her energy had changed. Me needing time to decide had angered her, but for whatever reason, she was trying to contain it. But, like a cracked window, her facade was letting the cold air through.
Lori left, and the more I thought about what it would be like to get back together with her, the more that hollow ache expanded in my chest. Finally accepting that my afternoon of being alone was ruined, I finished my coffee and hailed a cab back to the hotel. I texted the guys on the way to see if they wanted to get out and do something, but only Russell replied. Martin was probably sleeping, which was a shame. I couldn’t wait to tell him about this latest development. He was going to be shocked.
Thirteen
Chad