by A. J. Sand
Wes, suddenly incensed, shoved him backward, knocking Brody’s drink to the floor before shoving him again. They were soon tussling on the carpet, but neither had an opportunity to throw a punch before people were pulling them apart. Wes’ entire body seized, rage still wielding control over him to the point that he struggled in whomever’s grip he was in. There was a one-track stream of thoughts in his head. Get to Brody. Punch. Keep punching.
“Lana’s magical box strikes again!” someone shouted.
“You! Shut the fuck up or you’re next!” Wes yelled at the instigator, and the guy who was holding him suddenly tightened his grip, preempting Wes from lunging forward to search out the speaker. “Lana…I know we’re new at this, but when your douchebag ex is trying to fuck you, you tell your boyfriend so he can give him several really painful reasons to stop.”
“I didn’t want you to do that! And, babe, he’s not telling the truth,” Lana said, her apologetic and soothing tone matching how she touched his face as she adjusted his askew clothing.
“He’s not calling you?”
“He is, but it has been about Sadie strictly and some pictures I sent him and some stuff I wanted to give him from the Olins. They were hardly over late night calls. Most of our conversations have been over text message. And he knows that.” She shot a look of frustration and disgust at Brody.
“But he is calling you.”
“I am,” Brody announced with pride.
“Yes, but—”
“How long?”
“Baby—”
“How long, Lan?”
“Two weeks!” Brody let out a loud laugh.
Wes narrowed his on Lana. “Two weeks, Lana? Two weeks?” Wes pointed to Brody. “Stay the fuck away from my girl.”
Lana growled at Brody. “I am so done helping you get to know Sadie. So done. It’s one thing to fuck with me, but don’t fuck with my boyfriend.” She turned to Wes. “Baby,” Lana said, reaching for his arm to pull him away.
“Not right now,” he said, turning away from her. He really hated that Brody now had a really great way to get under his skin, and it made him feel like he had relinquished some power to him.
“Deuce!” Christian was running toward him, suddenly the happiest person in the place. “Deuce! They’re calling you. You won Fan Favorite again, dude. They need you up on stage!” Christian wrenched him out of the situation and dragged him into the event hall. “What happened?”
“Brody just baiting me over Lana,” Wes explained. “I’m so aggravated that he’s in our lives—her life. Pisses me the fuck off.”
“I know, man. Just cool off, go get on stage, come back and work it out with your girl,” Christian said, with a reassuring pat on the back. The presenters were engaged in some forced comedic routine that wasn’t going over too well.
“I will. Wouldn’t let that asshole destroy my relationship. Thanks,” Wes said as he jogged up on stage to accept the award. After dedicating it to the fans, he stepped down and took quick steps to where Lana was waiting for him.
“Congratulations, baby!” she said, hugging him. “Three years in a row.”
“Thanks,” he said as he kissed her shoulder. He loved that she knew that. “Because it’s online, I forgot I was even nominated again, so I didn’t expect to win.”
“How could you not? Everyone I know got emails about voting for you!”
“Are you saying you singlehandedly got me the award?”
“Exactly! Hey, are you still mad? You don’t want to break up, do you?” Lana asked, her voice growing small. “You know I would never—”
“Lana, I’m still your boyfriend, and I still want to be your boyfriend.” His anger had dwindled to slight irritation. Some small part of him wanted to tell her not to see or talk to him anymore, but he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t that guy, and he didn’t want to control or dictate her actions, but he just didn’t believe Brody’s intentions were about forming a relationship with Sadie. Maybe it was mostly intuition but it was genuine jealousy, too. “I trust you, Lan, but please tell me when he’s trying to mess things up between us.” Wes sighed. “I just feel like you give him too much leeway, and I don’t like that you didn’t tell me about the calls. I want us to be able to tell each other everything.”
“But you know why I deal with him the way I do…”
“I get it, Lan, I really—”
“No, you don’t, Wes. But I just wish you would let me handle it. I don’t like fighting with you.”
“I don’t like how he’s been wedged between us since day one.” Wes pressed a kiss to her hand. “But I don’t want or like to fight with you, either. Let’s blow the rest of the show and just get out of here. We’ll go straight home and get our stuff and go!”
“Okay. I’m really sorry…” Lana kissed his hand too.
“I love you,” Wes said then dipped her back suddenly to smash a kiss to her lips. “Now, can I please take my girl and my award home?”
*
“Do you really like it?” Wes asked, sneaking up behind Lana as she leaned in the open entry of the balcony, while going over the details of his last-minute hotel deal on his phone at Caesar’s Palace for a two-night stay. These things were a saving grace when it came to dating someone like Lana.
“The easel? Are you kidding?” she said as he kissed the curve of her neck. “I would sleep with it if I could.”
“You’re allowed to cheat on me with painting.”
“Good to know, but I meant that platonically,” she said, spinning. “Who gets custody, though, if we break up?”
“You know I hate when you joke like that. We’re not back to this again, are we?”
“Sorry! I didn’t mean anything by it, babe.” Lana dropped a kiss on his nose and led him out of the house.
“But you mean that, though? You really mean you don’t mean anything by it, right?”
“As confusing as that is, yes. Yes, I meant that. I’m here!” she said, laughing. As much as they were working hard at it, sometimes he still sensed her reluctance. Not that she didn’t want to be there, but that she was still hanging on to the notion that they had taken too big of a step. She still seemed scared for some reason. It was strange to see her this way, when she was a woman who could so easily swing her leg over that death trap of a bike.
Lana insisted on taking the first part of the drive to Las Vegas, but when they stopped at Target an hour and a half into it, he demanded that she scoot over to the passenger seat, enticing her with the proposition that he wanted to hear her read from a few of the books she’d brought.
“Jesus, Wes! Will you stop debating this part under your breath?” Lana said, chuckling as she shut Atonement. She pressed her coffee cup to her lips after she swung her feet off his lap; she’d been sitting very precariously that way for several miles, but the road was pretty sparse of cars at this hour, and he liked being able to just reach down and stroke her leg.
“No! It’s so incredibly stupid what happens here!” Wes said, squeezing the steering wheel. “I hate Briony with a passion, Lan. I can read most books and be detached from what’s happening and still enjoy it, but I literally tossed my copy off a bridge. The little brat makes me so angry, and she feeds my irrational book rage so hard. She’s the reason I fuckin’ hate kids. I can’t even focus on anything else right now. Turn on the radio, even though I don’t think we’ll be able to catch very many stations out here.” They were on the I-15 driving through the Mojave Desert, and a little less than two hours outside of Vegas, passing thinly populated towns under a beautifully starlit sky.
Lana rubbed the back of his neck as she burst out laughing. “She was just doing what she thought was right, babe. I don’t think it’s unusual that people develop their own reasons and justifications for why they do the things they do, outside of what others would like them to do or think is right. Now, will you let me read without getting mad?”
“No. In fact, I’m tempted to toss your copy out the window. Fuckin’ k
ids.”
“You’ll say that until there’s a Wes Junior running around.”
“I’d chop my dick off before I let that happen.”
She laughed then said, “You really don’t think you’ll want kids down the line?”
“I don’t know. With my luck, they’ll be exactly like Abel and me. Oh, man…and twins run in my family. My maternal grandmother is a twin, too. Holy shit. I want to toss my dick out now with that book.” Wes dropped his hand on her knee and winced. “Oh, fuck. Here I am badmouthing kids and—”
Lana touched his face. “It’s okay! A lot of them are pretty bratty. Sadie has serious tantrums sometimes, and I just walk away because it’s so grating. And then I think to myself, ‘I’m so not cut out for this shit. I totally did the right thing.’ But I think I want them someday.”
Wes laughed. “Whoa. So, Lana Langston actually thinks about the future!”
“Sometimes. Or maybe my body is overriding my birth control, and I’m ovulating or something. Honestly, I just worry that if I have kids, one day Sadie might question why I would keep the others and give her up. That’s why I want her to know now she’s loved; she just came at the wrong time.”
“How have you been doing with that, babe, the whole them moving away thing? I don’t like to push it with you because I know you don’t like to talk about it.” Part of this new role as boyfriend, this new crop of emotions, was wanting to make everything perfect for her, and it killed him that he couldn’t, especially with this. He had mulled over paying for her to go stay in Moscow for a few weeks once the Olins were settled there. Lana would strangle him, but her long-term happiness outweighed her short-term annoyance.
She shrugged. “Dealing.” She was quiet for a moment and she fiddled with the radio dials then she unbuckled her seatbelt to lean over and kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Wes.”
“For?”
“Putting up with me…”
“I’m not putting up with you. You’re no chore, baby girl. I mean, I honestly didn’t think you and me would become this when I met you—because I never think that—but I have no regrets. Wait, are you putting up with me?”
“No. Of course not. We’ve just come a long way since the Target parking lot…and the Vices bathroom.”
“We should recreate that moment, definitely,” Wes said, turning his head just slightly to look at her.
“A precious moment, indeed. Oh, and someday it’ll be something to tell everyone at the—” Lana snapped her mouth shut and looked away. She was going to say wedding. Funny, he thought. This was the most in-depth they had ever talked about the future, their future. It was still early in the relationship—too early for this discussion—but he thought about it sometimes, and he found it interesting that two people who lived for the next big moment were looking at the long-term.
To ease the sudden awkwardness, he chuckled and said, “You really want to read that book to me, huh?”
“Kinda. Well, yes.” Her finger was trapped between the pages of Atonement.
“Okay, I do really abhor Briony, but I needed to delay your reading a little while until we were where I wanted us to be.”
“What are you up to, Wes Elliott?” she asked, but he only smiled as he veered onto CA-190 West. “Death Valley National Park…?” she said in confused apprehension as she stared at a sign. “Yeah, Wes, I’m down for most things, but camping is not one of them. We don’t even have gear or real food or anything…”
“So prissy. Who knew?” Wes said after he paid the entrance fee and drove forward. “We’re not staying, you dork. You think I’d pass up Caesar’s for this? But a guy can’t want to read with his girl under some actual stars? Sheesh!”
She gasped. “Really? Is this why you insisted on buying all that water and junk food at Target? And put the blankets in the back?”
Wes squeezed her thigh as he followed the signs on the road for a while, but he pulled onto an unpaved road and they drove for a few very bumpy minutes. It was a well-worn path, but his poor SUV, even if designed for off-roading, was taking quite the beating. Wes soon pulled off the dirt road and eased onto the gravel for an even bumpier drive. Damn, the things you did when you were more in love with a girl than your car.
Around them, it was a beautiful night, pure, like the way nature was meant to be enjoyed: bounded by far off mountains, flat lands stretching for miles in all directions, and under a cover of stars; It was an abyss out here, except for the occasional set of ghostly headlights flashing by in the distance.
“Serial killer territory. Damn, my baby knows what I like!” Lana said, when he turned the engine off and walked to the back of the car to get the blankets. It was eighty-five degrees tonight, but they were going to be sitting on the roof, which was probably dirty. “I pity those girls who are settling for dinner and a movie tonight.”
“I do what I can. Plus, I watched you hand those girls their asses in Tahiti. What’s an axe-wielding, desert-dwelling murderer, really?” he said when he reached her on the passenger side and she got out.
“You’ve got that right,” she teased with a hair flip.
“Okay. I’m going to give you a boost now. Step in the window and then just hoist yourself up.” He handed her the blankets, the book, water, his iPhone, a wireless Bluetooth speaker and snacks once she was up there. Wes climbed up after her and found her sitting on the blanket, hugging her knees to her chest and staring out into the vast nothingness.
He selected one of his playlists on his iPhone and turned the speaker up. “Ready?” he asked when he got settled, stretching out beside her. “Ready to make me suffer through Atonement? I promise I’ll keep my comments to myself.” He turned inspective eyes on her. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind! I was already working through my anger!” Lana smiled when she focused on him, tears rimming her eyes, and Wes’ heart paddled through several beats very quickly. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “It’s…it’s just…this is it….”
Wes sat up, his face scrunching in concern, as he wrapped his arms around her. “What’s up? What’s it?”
Lana tucked her head beneath his chin. “The moment that makes me glad I hit you.”
*
Wes had Lana caged in the corner of the elevator, kissing her, even as the doors periodically opened. The people behind him were gasping and giggling, but he didn’t care; sometimes, you just wanted to make out with your girlfriend in public. And with the hotel hosting the weekend’s Surfing Expo in San Diego, it was going to be a long way down to the ground floor and a lot of making out. Just because he was respecting Lana’s wishes to not verbally stake a claim on her didn’t mean he didn’t want everyone to know she was his girl.
“You okay?” he whispered. She’d been quiet all morning.
“Yeah…just got a lot on my mind,” she said without smiling. Wes freakin’ hated it when she didn’t smile, so he kissed her until she did.
“Like?”
Her smile fell quickly. “Charlotte. Have you talked to her since the night we went to Vegas?”
Wes nodded. “She replied to my text telling me that once school settles down. She’ll come over to move her stuff out, and the three of us—me, her and Abel—can go out to lunch or something.”
“Is she upset with me still?”
“Probably, but I’ve been going through that night over and over in my mind…and I don’t think you were off base.”
“Hey, excuse me, you’re Wes Elliott, right?” a woman behind him said, just as he leaned in to kiss Lana again. Wes turned and nodded.
“Kelly. We met, like, three years ago here,” she said, and Wes looked her over, vaguely remembering. He extended his hand and shook hers.
“Oh, yeah. You work for…Pac Sun, right?” Wes said.
“Yeah! I’ve moved up in the company since then, but I’m still there. The board shorts Abel designed for Silk Board Ride is still one of our bestsellers. How is he?”
“Good! He’s around her
e somewhere…”
She smiled politely at Lana as her gaze coursed over her. “He’s still single, right?” she asked and Wes nodded.
“Tell him I said hi,” she replied right before she got off.
“Did you hit that, Wes Elliott?” Lana asked, amused, leaning in to kiss his cheek.
“Sure did.” He pulled her in front of him, locking his arms around her torso.
“Is this how it’s going to be all day?”
“Yup. Does that bother you?”
“Of course not! You’re with me now, and you have a past. I have a past. Although, your past is probably going to be making quite the appearance today and tonight.” One of the things he loved most about their relationship was that they were still friends, so they never shied away from conversations like this, and they joked a lot to each other about people they had been with. Their relationship had started out open, both literally and figuratively, and in a lot of ways it continued to be one of candidness, which he appreciated.
“Good, because the Silk Board Ride rep is going to be giving you dirty looks all afternoon. And you’re definitely allowed to be as territorial as you want. You can pull my hair at any time today, okay?”
“Oooh, I like that. Hey, do you think Dylan would want to rent a car and drive to Arizona with me sometime? I want to ask.”
“Whoa. Are you becoming friends with my best friend’s girl?”
“Trying to.” When the elevator doors separated this time, Brody and his boisterous entourage stepped into it. And you thought my past was the one we had to worry about, Wes joked to himself. Lana flinched for a moment, and soon she was rubbing her palms down the sides of Wes’ jeans, and he wasn’t sure if she was doing that to calm him or send a signal to Brody. The elevator didn’t get quiet, but it did get awkward. Tension rapidly heightened in Wes’ body, but he dipped his head down to Lana’s shoulder and kissed it.
“Hi, guys,” Lana said.
“Hey, Lany…” Brody replied. Wes clenched his fists as the sound of the nickname for her grated his eardrum. If he calls her that again, I’m putting my fist through his face.