by Tribue,Alice
“Says who?”
“Says my boss. You’re not allowed back there.” She shakes her head at me. “And he said I was lucky he didn’t fire me on the spot.”
“Like hell, I’m not allowed back there,” I half yell, getting agitated. I don’t like her working at that place, I don’t like the fucking outfit she has to wear, and I don’t like the idea of fucking men touching her. “If you’re there, I’m there.”
“That’s not how it works, Oliver.” Her voice is raised now, matching my tone. Of course, we would have an argument moments after declaring our love for one another. That’s just fitting. “You may not like it, but that’s my job.”
“A job that I’ve told you to quit countless fucking times.” I push the issue, throwing my hand out to the side for effect.
“And what?” she spits out taking several steps back. She looks at me as if she can’t believe my nerve. As if she can’t believe I would actually want better for her than working at some place where she’s getting groped left and right.
“You could do so much more, baby. You can go back to school, you can bake your cakes, I don’t care what it is, but you’re living your life in a holding pattern, and I don’t understand why.”
“Like you’re one to talk. You’re doing the same thing. You hate working for your father, but you do it anyway.”
“We’re not talking about me; we’re talking about you, about your wasted potential.”
“Why do you even care? You’re fucking leaving in a few weeks,” she yells, actually fucking yells at me. I see her pain, it’s everywhere, and it’s exactly what I was trying to avoid all along. “What exactly happens once I’ve quit my job and you’ve gone off to another job site or back to New York, Oliver? Are you going to send me a monthly allowance to keep my head above water? Drop into town every few weeks for a quick fuck? Is that how this works?” she yells. “Or do you just leave and forget that this happened, that I ever existed.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know to address her concerns or answer her questions when I don’t know the answers myself. This was never supposed to happen; I hadn’t planned to meet anyone, let alone fall in love.
“What do you want me to say? You think I don’t know that we’re in an impossible situation? You think it doesn’t weigh on my mind every day? Every. Fucking. Day, I think about what’s going to happen to us.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this anymore then,” she suggests defiantly, her arms crossed over her chest. I know she’s saying it because she’s hurt and angry, but it still hurts to hear the words come out of her mouth.
“This isn’t a game, Riley,” I warn.
“Isn’t it?” she counters, as I run a hand through my hair in frustration. “It’s been a game to you since the very first minute.”
“I know you’re upset, but trying to piss me off and destroy our relationship isn’t the way to go. It isn’t going to help anything.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There is nothing to destroy. It was over before it started. You know it, and I know it.”
“That’s not true. We haven’t even discussed it.”
“Of course, it’s true,” she screams. “It’s true. You’re leaving! You were always going to leave, and I loved you anyway.”
“You need to calm down so that we can talk about this.”
“I can’t calm the fuck down, Oliver. Okay? I can’t. What I need is to get some air,” she says turning on the balls of her feet and storming past me.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, would you come back here.” I yell at her, but she’s already out the door. I look up and say a silent prayer for patience, but I follow her out the door anyway. By the time I get out into the hallway, she’s already on the elevator, and the doors are sliding shut.
“Do you always run away when things get hard, Riley?” I say, loud enough for her to hear me. She’ll be back, she’ll come back, she has to. She’s just angry and hurt right now. She’ll get downstairs, realize that she doesn’t have a car here, and come back. That’s what I tell myself in order to go back inside the room, in order not to chase after her and make a scene in the middle of the lobby or outside. If I go downstairs, I’ll fucking drag her back up here if I have to. It’s better if I let her come back on her own.
***
I wait fifteen minutes. Fifteen very long minutes for Riley to come back … and she didn’t. I came down to the lobby, and there’s no sign of her. I’ve called her, texted, and have gotten no response. Now, I’m fuming. Now, I’m worried. Would she walk back to the restaurant to get her car all alone? Did she call a cab to take her home? I have no idea where she is, and it worries and pisses me off.
I give the valet my room number and ask him to bring me my car thinking that I’ll drive in the direction of the restaurant first, and if she’s not there, I’ll drive to her house. He takes my ticket and comes back a few moments later with one of the other valets.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Parker. The other young man says your wife was down here a little while ago. She asked me to bring the car around for her, I just assumed …”
“It’s okay,” I tell him feeling both amused and relieved that she would just take my car. She told him she was my wife, and what’s shocking to me is that the thought of it doesn’t completely horrify me. In fact, I don’t think I mind the idea of it at all. “I didn’t realize that she’d taken the car. Would you mind getting me a cab.”
“Yes, sir,” they say simultaneously, looking relieved that they aren’t in any trouble. Little do they know that I could kiss them both for giving her my car instead of letting her walk. I give my cab driver Riley’s address, and sure enough, my car is parked outside her house. I hand him some money, get out, and not caring one bit about what time of night it is, I ring the doorbell. It takes only a minute for the door to open. I’m expecting to see Riley, but instead, her mother opens the door.
“Mrs. Sims, I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to speak with Riley.” This isn’t the most comfortable position I’ve ever been in. I’m this woman’s boss, and now, I’m at her door asking to see her daughter.
“Maybe you should give her the night, Mr. Parker,” she says. Clearly, this is equally awkward for her.
“Oliver. Call me Oliver, please.”
She nods, but she doesn’t say anything else. She doesn’t open the door wider for me, and she doesn’t offer me any other words.
“I need to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s not. She’s not going to be okay because she loves you, and she knows you’re eventually going to leave her. She’s not okay.”
It seems that Riley has filled her mother in on what’s been going on between us. I can’t argue my point of view to her because it’s already too weird. I say as much as I can without coming across as crazy.
“I love her too, and this isn’t easy for me, either. Please, I need to see her. I won’t be able to have any peace until I see her for myself.”
She stares at me for a minute, unsure of what to do. She wants to do what’s right for her daughter, but she also sees that I’m being sincere. Ultimately, she opens the door for me and lets me in.
“Last door on the right,” she tells me before turning and heading into the kitchen.
“Thank you,” I call after her, then turn and head toward Riley’s room. We’re beyond me being polite and knocking at the door at this point. I open it and walk right on it, finding her lying on the bed in a fucking fetal position.
“What are you doing here?” She sniffles. “Did you come for your car?” she asks in a condescending tone. She’s in rare fucking form tonight; I’ve never seen her like this before.
“No. I didn’t come for my fucking car; I came for my fucking girl. And if you ever, ever leave me like that again, I swear to God I will put you over my knee.”
“Why do you care?” Her lips quiver, and all the anger and worry I felt earlier dissipates, falls by the wayside, and all I can see is her pain a
nd fear. Maybe even regret for falling in love with a temporary situation. “Why shouldn’t I leave you? Isn’t that what you’re going to do to me? Why shouldn’t I walk away from you first?”
I’m on the move before she even finishes speaking. I take a seat on the bed and pull her up into a hug, my hand buried in her long blond hair.
“I won’t leave you, Riley,” I assure her, but I’m not certain on how I can make that promise to her and keep it. I mean it, though. At this moment, I mean it, and I’ll do absolutely anything to stop her tears. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll make this work; you just have to give it a chance.”
“How?”
“We’ll sit down and talk about it. That’s how,” I say quietly. “We’ll weigh out our options and come to a solution together.”
I have no idea what I’m even saying or even if it’s the right thing to say. I’ve never done this shit before. I never thought I’d be the relationship type. I wanted no part in anything that could potentially resemble my own parents’ relationship. I didn’t know if whatever was in him was in me too. Whatever it was that made him mean and violent, but I know that I would never hurt this woman. I know without a doubt that I’d never intentionally want to hurt Riley.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s not. But nothing worth having is ever easy.”
She sniffles but fists my shirt a little tighter, making me smile.
“I don’t know how this happened. I hated you; I wanted so badly to hate you.”
I chuckle, giving her hair a tug. I can feel the quiet beat of her pulse against my lips. “I know you did.”
“Do you really love me?” The vulnerability behind those words damn near breaks me because I realize that she’s been broken. She’s frayed and imperfect at the same time that she’s polished and perfect. There’s sadness in her happiness and beauty in her pain, and I want to be the one to help mend the cracks in her spirit.
“I really do.”
“Will you take me home?”
“You are home.”
“Not this one, my home with you.”
“Our hotel room is home?” I chuckle at her adorable, yet fitting assessment of our living situation.
“Anywhere that we can be together is home.”
Done. Life as I know it ended with those words. I loved her a moment ago, but now … now, I LOVE her.
“Then let’s go home.” I stand, pulling her up with me, wiping the remnants of her tears away with the pads of my thumbs. I kiss her once because I need it, because she needs it, because I know she’s craving reassurances, and I’ll give them to her if I can.
She reaches over to her nightstand, picks up my keys, and hands them to me.
“Sorry about stealing your car,” she says, with a smile that tells me she’s not sorry at all.
Narrowing my eyes at her, I give her a playful slap on the ass. “Yeah. Sure you are.”
She’s fighting laughter, and that makes the last couple of hours so much fucking better. It makes it almost seem not that bad. When we walk into the living room, Riley’s mother is sitting on the couch with the TV set on but entirely focused on us. Riley walks over to her, bends down, and places a kiss on her cheek.
“Good night, Momma, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She says nothing else to her because, with that, she’s delivered her message. We’re fine, and she doesn’t need to worry. In response, she gives Riley a nod and a half smile.
“Good night, Oliver,” she says, and I respond. I take Riley by the hand and lead her out of the house and into my car.
“I’m sorry I caused a scene at your job. You’re right; I could have handled that differently.”
She doesn’t respond, just reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze. She rests her head on my shoulder and lets out a contented sigh.
“Any chance you’ll actually do what I ask and quit?”
Her response is immediate “No.”
I know better than to push it tonight. It’s too much too soon, and I still have no idea what I’m going to do now. How I can manage to do what’s expected of me with my family and my job and what’s right for Riley and me. The only thing I know is that no matter what happens, I can’t let her down.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
RILEY
I didn’t have to quit my job because they fired me the next day. Unfortunately, the co-owner wasn’t as okay with Oliver’s outburst as Jim was. But losing the kitchen to bake in hurts me more than losing the job did. Mom and Oliver had both been pushing me to quit anyway. The thing is, I don’t know anymore if going back to Duke to finish my degree is my dream. I don’t know if it’s quite as important as it used to be; so much has changed since then.
I started temping at a local doctor’s office a few days after being fired. Oliver loves this because I’m not working at all hours of the night anymore. He offered to give me a job at the hotel, but I have no desire to let him fix all of my problems. It would be so easy for me to sit back and let him take care of me, but then what happens to me? What happens to my identity? It’s about time I figure out what the hell I’m going to do with the rest of my life, which is why a few days ago, I applied to a local culinary institute.
What’s even more concerning is that since the night that he told me he loved me, Oliver and I haven’t talked about what’s going to happen with us. His work on the hotel is nearly done; the grand re-opening is scheduled for two weeks from now, and the future of our relationship is still up in the air. Maybe it’s just easier for both of us to deny the reality. He lives in New York and travels a large portion of the time, and if all goes well, I’ll be in culinary school. The thought of us not being together is heartbreaking to me, literally painful, but I just don’t know how this is ever going to work.
“Baby.” Oliver comes up behind me as I stand gazing at the night sky out of the window of his new room. He finally deemed his hotel worthy enough to move into and now occupies one of the penthouse suites. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulls me against him, and brings his mouth to my ear. “What are you thinking about?”
I could lie, keep on living the dream, ignoring what’s right in front of us, but I just can’t do it anymore.
“I’m thinking that time is running out for us.”
“Riley …” He’s going to try to pacify me, I know. He’ll tell me it’s all going to work out, but we both know better, and it’s time to face that.
“It is, isn’t it? That’s why we never talk about it. We’re so caught up in the moment and making sure that we’re happy in the here and now, but the future is right there. It’s right around the corner, and there’s no place for us there.”
“That’s not true,” he says, maneuvering me to face him. “We have a future.”
“How?”
“Let’s go for a walk.” He releases my waist and grabs onto my hand. With a tug, he gets me moving, leading me out of the room and into the elevator.
“Where are we going?”
“Not far.”
We walk hand in hand off the elevator, and Oliver leads me through the lobby and into the hotel’s restaurant.
“You can’t possibly be hungry. We just ate,” I tease, wondering why we’re here. We make our way through the virtually empty restaurant and into the kitchen. Oliver positions me in the middle of the room, releasing my hand.
“Have at it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to have this conversation, but I thought it might be a little less stressful if you’re doing it while we bake.”
This is why I love him. The thoughtfulness people rarely see. It’s the way he thinks about my comfort level, and how he always finds a way to take care of me, even when I don’t want to be taken care of.
“We? Are you actually saying that you want to bake with me?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. What do you want to make?”
“Surprise me,” he says with a grin. “I’m sure we have everything y
ou need for just about anything you want to make.”
“Okay.” I spout out a list of ingredients, and one by one, he gets them for me, setting everything out and getting the oven preheated in record time. He watches as I begin to work. He’s not really helping me at all, but I like that he’s here with me anyway.
“I’m supposed to leave for London after the hotel re-opening.”
I use a little bit more force in cracking open the egg that I had in my hand, but I throw out the discarded shell and look up at him.
“How long is the project in London?”
“Jacob seems to think it’ll take two months, but until I get out there, I won’t know.”
My nose stings, and I fight to hold back the tears. I will not allow him to see me break down, especially since he assured me we had a future just moments ago.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave?”
“No, baby.” He tips my chin up so that our eyes are locked. “I’m not just going to leave. I want you to come with me.”
“What?” I ask on a whisper, questioning if he actually wants to take me with him. A part of me had always hoped he’d ask but never believed he would.
“You’re working a temporary job right now anyway, your mother is in a good place, and even if you got into culinary school, your program doesn’t start for three or four months. We’ll be back by then.”
He lets me go, but only so that he can wrap his arms around my waist. Instinctively, my hands go up, resting on his chest, needing to touch him as much as he needs to touch me.
“We’ll be back?”
He nods. “Yes. I want to do the London job so that I don’t leave Jacob in a bind, but then I’m resigning.”
“You’re just going to quit your job?” I know this shouldn’t shock me; it’s not like Oliver has to worry about money. He could probably never work again if he chose not to, but in my world, people don’t just walk away from their jobs.
“That’s the plan.”
“And you’ll come to Savannah?”
“It’s as good a place as any? I’ve kind of learned to like it here.” He hoists me up and places me down on an empty prep station before settling his frame between my legs. “Something about it feels like home.”