by Anna Lewis
There was so much that she wanted to say at that moment, but she felt frozen to the spot in shock. Much as she knew Rex liked her, she hadn’t been expecting him to say what he’d said. She didn’t know how to deal with him basically asking her to be his, especially as he came with just as much baggage as she did. Would they be crazy to give it a chance? But would they regret it if they didn’t? Would it be the biggest mistake that both of them would make?
“So what I’ll suggest is this…” he continued, dragging her attention back into the present moment. “Take a week at home, really think about it and let me know how you feel after that. I would love it if you said yes, let’s go for it, but I also will completely understand if you don’t want to. There won’t be any hard feelings. Does that sound okay?”
She nodded numbly, not knowing what else to do. This had just become so much heavier than a simple holiday romance, and she didn’t know how she felt about that.
Then he ended their conversation by kissing her lightly on the lips, and turning to walk away. She wanted to yell out to him, to beg him to come back, but she knew that he was right. She really did need to take out some time to consider this properly before she jumped into this. She needed to be absolutely certain that she was prepared for everything that would come with being Rex Ryder’s girlfriend. She would be under constant scrutiny, her every move would be watched, and that would cause all kinds of pressures.
Plus there was the fact that she had her own messes to sort out too. There was no denying that her own life was complex, and that if she really wanted to be with this man, to give him her everything, she needed to be ready for that. She needed to bring absolutely no baggage with her.
***
On the plane ride home, Abbie really considered everything in her life. She thought about everything from every angle, using her travel time wisely. With the space that she had away from everyone, it was easier to see things much clearer. Without Travis or Rex with her, confusing her thoughts, she could really see where she wanted her future to go. In fact, it was so obvious, she couldn’t believe how long it had taken her to work it all out.
Travis didn’t want her – he had made that obvious. She might have liked him at the time, but maybe that was just because he was the first man after Greg. He was dangerous and exciting, but he had heartbreaker written all over him. He wasn’t the man that she should even want to spend a considerable amount of time with, even if he did want her. He was trouble, and that was that.
Rex really did want her. Yes life with him would be hard, and not what she was used to at all, but he would worship her and adore her until the end of time. She couldn’t imagine life without him now, and that was the right answer… surely? It certainly felt like the smart one, the one that would lead her into happiness.
She could take the week to think about it, but it seemed pretty straightforward to her. Rex was the one for her. She was comfortable with that decision, really happy about it, and she made the snap decision that she would call Rex as soon as she got home to tell him about her conclusion. She couldn’t see any point in holding back and waiting when she already knew that her opinion wouldn’t change. Sure, it was going to be a little complicated, but she felt confident that it would turn out okay in the end.
As the plane descended towards home, she bounced excitedly in her seat, feeling like a child about to get everything that she’d ever wanted.
This is right, this is it. Everything is going to be straightforward from here on out.
***
Abbie stepped off the plane with a newfound happiness in her heart. For the first time in a very long time she actually felt settled. She grabbed her bags quickly, and went to exit the airport, but as she strolled towards the outside area, she found herself faced with the last person in the world that she expected to see.
The sight of him made her heart stop in her chest. Her blood ran cold. She eyed him up and down, trying to work out if she was imagining things.
“Travis?” she gasped in shock, feeling a little dizzy and nauseated. “What the hell are you doing here?”
She couldn’t deny to herself that he still had an effect on her body. She felt butterflies and nerves all at once, especially when he handed her a massive bunch of beautiful flowers – but she’d just decided that he was her past now, so what was he doing in her present?
“I came here to say sorry,” he told her, with a genuine look in his eyes. “I really screwed up. I know that now. I was an idiot, and well… I’m just sorry.”
“What are you talking about?” said Abbie. Her mind was spinning. She thought that she might go crazy with the confusion. None of it made any sense, and she was too tired to fathom it all properly. It was as if destiny was stepping in all over again, just to screw up the choice that she was so certain about only moments ago.
“Look, I only said all that stupid stuff about no commitment and ‘one time only’ because the depth of my feelings for you scares me – it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before and I acted like an idiot.”
“Erm…” What the hell was she supposed to say to that? She couldn’t deny that it was melting her icy exterior, and that she was feeling things for him again, but that didn’t matter. She couldn’t like Travis anymore. His gesture was all too little, too late.
I like Rex, she told herself. He’s been wonderful to me – Travis wasn’t.
“I just… please give me another shot? Let me make it up to you? As soon as you stopped texting me in that sweet way of yours, I started to lose it. I almost flew out to Hawaii.”
Abbie’s heart thumped; she was glad he hadn’t flown to Hawaii. She would have been caught red-handed, screwing up what she had with both Travis and Rex.
“So what do you say?” he asked, pleading with her eyes. “Will you give me another shot? Please?”
“I… I erm… I don’t…”
Oh God, what was she going to do? She thought she was so sure about her future, but now it had been thrown into disarray. Her breaths started to come out short and ragged as panic coursed through her. She wanted to stick to her guns and think about only Rex, but with Travis in front of her, it became too complicated for that. He might not have been the smart choice, but she could not deny that he drove her wild with desire. Just standing in front of him, she wanted him, but it felt wrong, because she’d just decided to commit to someone else. She’d never found herself stuck between two lovers before, and she was quickly realizing that it wasn’t a situation that she felt comfortable with. No matter what she decided someone was going to get hurt – whether it was Rex, or Travis or herself.
What was the right choice to make here?
What the hell was she going to do now?
Book 3: The Decision
“What?!” Abbie gasped, looking on at Travis in shock. This was all a little too much. “What are you saying? Why are you all of a sudden saying all of these things?” She grabbed onto her head, allowing his crazy conversation to spin through her mind.
“I only said all that stupid stuff about no commitment and ‘one time only’ because the depth of my feelings for you scares me.”
“As soon as you stopped texting me in that sweet way of yours, I started to lose it. I almost flew out to Hawaii.”
“Will you give me another shot? Please?”
If he’d been standing in front of her, asking her to give him a chance a few weeks ago, just after they’d slept together, she would have been over the moon and jumped at the opportunity. She adored him and would have done anything for him.
But this wasn’t then. What he’s actually said after he hooked up was that he didn’t do commitment – and now… well, things were different now.
She had just got back from Hawaii, where she had been the lead dancer in the music video of the very sexy, very talented rock star Rex Ryder. She hadn’t intended to fall for him while she was still hung up on Travis, but she did. Rex was sweet, kind, and so much fun. He had drawn her in with his sweet personality, and he’d been on
her mind ever since.
Now Rex really wanted to be with her, and not just as a hook up but in a proper relationship. The only reason they hadn’t already made it official was because he had told her to give it a week to think over whether she really wanted to be in his life, with its constant travel and media intrusion.
Despite those drawbacks, she had just decided that he would be worth it all – no matter what the cost. But now… with Travis standing in front of her, giving her those eyes and offering her what she’d pined for only a few weeks ago, she didn’t know what she thought anymore. The only reason she had decided to let Travis go was because she assumed that he didn’t want her; that he really meant that he did not ‘do’ commitment. Now that he seemed to have changed his mind, she didn’t know that to think.
“I’m sorry Travis,” she told him. “This is all a bit much. I’m tired, stressed and jetlagged…” she wanted to be honest with him and tell him about Rex too, but this didn’t seem the time or place for that. They were standing in the middle of the airport for crying out loud. “And you’re here, saying all of these things… I just, I need some time alone to think.”
He looked utterly crushed by her words. So much so, that she almost backtracked and completely changed her mind, but she forced herself to stay strong, knowing that it was the best thing for everyone involved. She couldn’t just jump into something with this guy, knowing that her head was all over the place, knowing that she’d just decided to be with Rex only moments before.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said sadly, wishing once more that she hadn’t gotten herself into this mess.
“It’s okay, I understand,” he replied, looking like he had been expecting her to just fall into his arms. “But will you at least think about what I’ve said?”
“Of course,” she insisted – knowing that she wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. “Of course I will.”
“Okay, well I’ll see you soon then?” he asked. “You will let me know when… when you’ve decided?”
“Yes,” she nodded vigorously. “Of course I will. This isn’t… it’s not goodbye or anything. It’s just… I need some time that’s all.”
Just tell him! She scolded herself, but the words wouldn’t come out. Just tell him the truth.
“Okay, bye then.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek, and turned on his heels and walked from the building. She sadly watched him leave, wishing that everything was different.
But he wasn’t the only one in the picture anymore. He’d made it clear that he wanted space – if he’d never said that, then she would have waited for him.
But he’d left her waiting for too long. He could wait for a change. It certainly wasn’t tit for tat, and she didn’t want to be petty about it, but she couldn’t change what had happened, and she couldn’t make things better without some time alone to think it through.
***
As she finally got back to her parents’ home – where she’d been living after the nasty break up with her cheating ex-boyfriend Greg – she showered, and then locked herself in her room for some privacy.
She called her friend Lauren for advice. She might have only just reconnected with her, but she knew that she would give her an honest opinion which was exactly what she needed.
“Lauren?” she gasped as soon as her friend answered the phone. “I’m back from Hawaii. Are you free to talk?” Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall just yet. She needed to get some answers from her friend first.
“Yes, of course. How are you? How was Hawaii? How was the music video?” So many questions that she didn’t really have the time to answer. If Travis hadn’t turned up at the airport with all his confusing words, she knew for a fact that she would be having a really nice chat with her friend, but she was far too distracted for that.
“It was great – but I’ve got myself into a bit of a pickle,” she admitted, feeling the coldness of indecision and confusion descend on her.
“Oh God,” Lauren groaned, sounding shocked by her friend’s admission. “Really? Tell me everything.”
“Okay, well you remember me telling you about the meeting with that music producer – Travis Bunney?”
“Yes, he got you the dancing job on the music video in Hawaii,” said Lauren.
“Well… the thing is… we kind of ended up sleeping together.” She hadn’t told her friend that part at the time because she was afraid that people would assume she only got the job because of that – but now there was no more room for pride. Now she needed to just lay it all out on the table to try and get some perspective.
“You did?” Lauren squealed excitedly. “Why didn’t you tell me? What was he like? Was he amazing? Oh my God, the good girl Abbie that I knew in school would be shocked by this!”
“So, so good,” Abbie replied, remembering the sexual awakening that she had had with him. “Unbelievable – but afterwards he told me that he only ever did one night stands.”
Lauren was right about one thing – Abbie had been such a good girl in school. Maybe not studious, as she leaned more towards the athletic side of things, but quiet and sweet.
“Ooh,” Lauren could feel the pain in those words, and it left her a little speechless. “That’s harsh.”
“Yeah, it was. I know that he’s a player and everything, but it still stung,” she sighed. Remembering how cold that night had left her. How hurt she’d been to find out how he felt. She didn’t have any high expectations of him at the time, but that hadn’t made it any easier to hear. “So I went off to Hawaii… and I kind of fell hard for Rex Ryder…”
“Rex Ryder? You’re going to be in the music video for Rex Ryder? That’s huge – you’re going to be so well known now!”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing here,” Abbie laughed, actually feeling a little better from her friend’s reaction. At least she hadn’t jumped down her throat and told her that she was a horrible person. “Yes, and he showered me with attention and made me feel really special.”
“Are you going out with him now?” Her friend could barely contain her excitement. “Are you going to be his celebrity girlfriend?”
“Well… he told me that he wants to date me, but that his life is a constant media intrusion, which sucks… he told me to take a week to really think about it.” She recalled the moment that he said those words and her heart melted all over again. She knew that the choice should be easy, and she really had no idea why it wasn’t. Why was she struggling so much with this one?
“What is there to think about?” Lauren exclaimed. “This is Rex Ryder. The awesome, hot, talented, dreamy Rex Ryder… and he wants you.”
“Well, here is where it gets complicated,” Abbie led into the rest of the story. “Travis met me at the airport and begged me to give him another shot, and now I really don’t know what to do.”
Silence.
Lauren’s stunned silence caused Abbie’s heart rate to kick up another level. She was expecting an outsider to have an easy answer for her, but it seemed like she really didn’t. She thought that Lauren would stick to the fact that she should chose Rex, but it seemed that she could sense the indecision coursing through Abbie’s veins through the phone line.
“So… which one do you like best?” She asked eventually. “Do either of them feel right?”
“I honestly don’t know,” she admitted, wishing it could be that simple. “They’re both so different and I like them equally in different ways.” Rex was sweet, safe, and caring. Travis was sexy, dangerous, and a player – why was she so equally attracted to two very different men? It really didn’t make any sense. “What the hell am I going to do?” She threw her head in her hands in despair. “This is a mess.”
“It isn’t,” Lauren reassured her in the calming tone that she only used when things were deadly serious. “You haven’t committed to either man so you haven’t done anything wrong, but I think that you need to be honest with both before you can move forwards.”
�
�Yeah…” Abbie agreed, knowing just how difficult that was going to be. “You’re probably right.”
Abbie sighed, wondering why the solution had to be even harder than the problem. As she hung up the phone, she tried to imagine the way that things would play out in an ideal world – just to try and figure out where her head was really at – but she found herself drawing a frustrating blank. She was utterly bewildered and had no idea what to do.
***
Abbie bit the bullet and called Travis the moment she woke up, wanting to get the very difficult meeting over and done with before she had any time to talk herself out of it. Her intention had been to meet in a public place, so that nothing would get out of hand, but as soon as his chocolate-smooth voice got on the other end of the line, she found herself agreeing to go to his place without even thinking about it.
He just had this way of convincing her to do things, without her even realizing it. She didn’t even notice until it was far too late. Rather than being a quality that she hated about him, it kept her on her toes. After being in such a stale relationship for such a long time, it was nice to have something a little different to deal with.
As the cab picked her up, and whizzed her along the city, she felt her nervousness rise. She knew that this was the right thing to do, but that didn’t make it any less difficult. It was going to hurt Travis a lot, telling him about Rex. That was the last thing that she wanted, and it might just push him away forever. If everything that he’d told her was true, then he hadn’t let any woman close to him for a very long time, and now he was about to be crushed by the first person whom he opened up to.
Urgh no, the thought of upsetting him almost put her off entirely. The more that she thought about it, the more aware Abbie became that she might end up with neither Travis nor Rex, and that cut to her core. She dreaded the idea of losing both of them.
As she pulled up to the building, she found Travis already standing outside to welcome her in, which made her feel even more anxious. He looked excited, as if he knew that she was coming with good news, expecting her to give herself over to him completely – and a big part of her wished that was exactly what she was doing.