Before Brent could answer, James’s phone rang. He looked at it quizzically. “New York number. Let me grab it.”
As James talked on the phone, Brent tuned it all out, parking his chin in his hand, and staring at an abstract piece of art that hung on the wall—a series of red, gray and yellow geometric shapes jutted across the canvas at harsh angles. He studied it, as if he could make out the meaning, but he saw nothing. He let his eyes go blurry, let the shapes melt into each other, into one jumble of colors. The one color he could still make out was yellow.
Like those damn sunflowers.
What was up with those sunflowers? That was the part he didn’t get. Why did she have all those pictures of sunflowers? Where they were taken?
“Earth to Brent.”
He looked up.
James pointed to his phone. “That’s Tanner Davies in New York. It’s on mute. He said he’s been calling you all morning, but your phone is just ringing and ringing. He emailed you too, but got no response. He wanted to confirm the time of the picnic in New York,” he said, then rattled off a date the next week. “Can you make that date? He wants to let the association know you’ll be there and are looking forward to it. Said to bring your girlfriend if you want. You got one you want to tell me about?”
“Sure, sounds good,” he said, in a dead voice. He had no clue what he’d just agreed to. He didn’t answer anything else.
James finished his call, then cocked his head to the side, and waved his hand in front of Brent’s face. “Where’s your phone? Did someone drug you last night or something, man? I have never seen you like this.”
His phone was in the dishwasher.
He’d left it there on purpose that morning before he took off for work. If he had it with him, he’d cave. He’d call. He’d text. He’d try to contact her, to make her laugh, make her smile, and turn her on. But those weren’t the things that needed to be said or done right then. He still didn’t know what to say. He barely knew how to operate his mouth.
“Battery ran out,” he mumbled.
“I think we need to get you home. Let me call you a cab, and you should take the rest of the day off. Whatever business you have scheduled I can attend to.”
“Yeah. I should cut out early,” he said, blinking, trying to focus again on the world around him. Then, something James said sparked a wire in his brain. Lit a fuse. Ringing and ringing. Tanner had been ringing and ringing him.
What if Shannon had been ringing too? Just like when he’d moved to Los Angeles. Just like when she’d been in London. Just like when she’d tried to call him on her way to the hospital. Shit. He had to do something and soon. He had to figure out what to say.
He stood up, a blast of necessary energy zipping through him. “But I can’t leave. There’s someplace I need to be.”
He went to the Allegro to find Mindy.
* * *
Colin high-fived her as soon as the glass doors to the network headquarters swung shut. The network had agreed to the terms, and her brother had just booked her a marquee contract for a quick, high-paying, high-profile gig. The best part? She wasn’t madly in love with the head of the network. She hadn’t been involved with him ten years ago. Working together would be a cinch. She should do all her deals with men she wasn’t once engaged to. Made them so much easier.
“You are a rock star,” she told her brother as they headed down the steps to the waiting car that would whisk them back to the airport, then home to Vegas before the clock struck three. Trips to Los Angeles were the best, since the city was so damn close.
“No, you are,” he said.
As soon as they slid into the air-conditioned vehicle, she checked her phone, hoping for something. Surely, he’d have reached out by now.
The screen was empty. No messages from him. Nothing but a low-battery notice as her phone neared the end of its life for the day. A lump rose in her throat, but she shoved it back down. She would not cry over a lack of messages. She would not lament the radio silence.
But she also would not sit and wait for him.
She’d never waited for him before, and she wasn’t going to be that kind of woman now. She was Shay fucking Sloan, and she wasn’t going to let her heart sit on the sidelines. Nor was she going to hide her feelings.
She dropped a hand on Colin’s arm. “Hey, you know when you asked about my man trouble this morning?”
He nodded.
“It’s Brent.”
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I’m with him again,” she said, keeping her voice strong because even if she and Brent were fighting, she was choosing to believe they’d work it out. “And we’re in love, and we’re trying to work things out. You’ve always stood by me, and helped me, and that’s why I want you to know.”
He nodded slowly, as if taking in the news. “Is he making you happy?” he asked carefully.
“Most of the time,” she said. “It’s not perfect, and we have stuff to figure out, but I think we’ll get there.”
“I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”
She rested her head briefly on his shoulder, then opened a new text message, and sent Brent a note.
I am thinking of you. I’m always thinking of you. When you’re ready, I’m here.
That was it. That was all. It was time to stop fighting, and to start behaving like adults who had history and baggage, and who had hurt and pain.
But who were willing to fight their way to the other side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” rang out from a nearby slot machine as coins splashed into the metal bucket. A guy in a Hawaiian shirt working the one-armed bandit shouted a triumphant yes!
Brent and Mindy walked through the slot machines while she made her afternoon rounds through the casino
“I get that you’re pissed—” Mindy began.
Brent held up a finger. “Correction. Was pissed. I was pissed last night.”
Mindy nodded, and pressed the Bluetooth in her ear, listening for a few seconds, then returned to the conversation. They strolled past a machine crooning “Pure Imagination” as a cartoonish Willy Wonka presided over the slots. “Fine. You were pissed last night. And now you’re resentful and kind of catatonic. Am I right?”
He huffed, but nodded.
“Then get ready for some tough love, my friend.” She stopped at an empty Cleopatra machine, parking her hand on the queen’s golden headband. “This is what you need to realize—and none of this is to belittle what you’re feeling. But sweetie, you don’t get to be angry. You don’t get to own this feeling of resentment.”
He narrowed his eyes and shot her a look. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not denying your role in this loss. I’m not saying it isn’t painful, or shocking, or sad. I get that you lost something you didn’t even know you had lost,” she said, speaking in a thoughtful, teacherly tone. “But I’m giving you a couple hours, maybe a day, to feel all those things on your own. And then your job is to be there for her. You don’t get to own this hurt. It is hers. She went through it.”
Mindy’s words were iced water splashed onto him. They were the stark reminder that he couldn’t co-opt Shannon’s grief or pain. His was a fraction of hers.
“So what do I do?”
“Be the man she needed you to be ten years ago. The man who doesn’t walk away when you hear that shit didn’t go in your direction.”
“I didn’t walk away,” he said, trying to defend his actions. “I told her I needed time to deal with it.”
Mindy nodded a few times, acknowledging him. “Fine, you needed time. You needed space. I understand. It was a shock. Well, you had your time and you had your space. Now man up, and be who she needs. That’s all you’ve wanted,” she said, slugging his arm. “You have wanted her to need you. You’ve wanted her to want you back in her life. Now she does, and you walk away at the first bit of bad news?”
“I didn’t—”
&nb
sp; She held up her palm. “Talk to the hand. You can say you didn’t walk away, and maybe you didn’t, but I bet it feels like that to her. Think back to Boston. Rewind to ten years ago. You hated it when she wouldn’t give up her career for you,” she said, her voice rising as she sent him back in time. “And what did you do in response then? You walked away from her. Now, you hear another thing you don’t like, that she lost a baby, and you do the same. You walked away again. You can finesse it all you want, and say you needed space, but the net effect is the same.”
Her words shamed him. They knocked him out of his stupor of self-loathing. He had wanted so badly to be everything she needed, but when push came to shove, he’d let pride, and fear, and a million other things stand in the way last night.
“Shit,” he said, heavily. “I’ve fucked up.”
“No. You haven’t fucked up,” she said, pressing her fingers to his cheeks and turning his frown upside-down. “You just took a step back. Now, take some steps forward. This time, instead of walking away, walk back to her. Be there for her, and for yourself. I know it’s hard and I know you’re feeling this loss too in a new fresh way. But feel it with her, not against her. Talk to her about it. Don’t run away. Don’t hide. Face your fears with her, and tell her how you feel,” she said, squeezing his shoulder. “And move through it together.”
“I need to see her right away.”
“You do.”
Brent cycled back to their last few conversations, trying to figure out where she might be. “I think she’s on her way back from L.A. Should I, you know, do that thing where I show up at the airport with a sign that says ‘I love you?’”
Mindy clutched her belly and laughed deeply. “God no. That only works in the movies. Besides, you know she’s a private person. She wouldn’t like that. All she wants is you. Not a sign. Not a gift. Not some cheesy love song dedicated to her. Strange as it may be, she wants you. So give her you.”
“Can I borrow your phone for a second?”
Mindy dug into her pocket, and handed it to him. He dialed Shannon’s number. It went straight to voice mail.
* * *
Her grandmother slid a mug of tea across the counter. “Have some.”
“I don’t even like tea, and you know that. But you always try to give me tea,” Shannon said, but she said it with a smile. She knew why her grandmother was offering tea. It was Victoria’s comfort beverage.
“It cures all troubles,” she said in an over-the-top wise woman’s voice as she picked up her mug of green tea and knocked some back. Shannon was parked next to her on a stool. She’d stopped by on her way home from the airport, grateful that she was always welcome and didn’t have to call first. Besides, her phone had chirped its last breath in Burbank. She was snagging some juice for it at her grandmother’s in an outlet on the wall.
“Then I better drink some after all,” Shannon said, and took a hearty gulp. “Because I have a lot of trouble.”
“Tell me what brings you here.”
Shannon didn’t mince words. She was straightforward, revealing the key details of her epic argument with Brent, laying it out for the woman who had been her parent for the last eighteen years. “I guess I never thought it would unfold like that. I imagined a million other scenarios but not that one. And I know I should have told him sooner, or tried harder to find him. And I understand why he’d be upset,” she said, running her finger absently along the mug. “I just wish there was something I could do. I left him a message, but I haven’t heard a word from him all day.” She took a beat then asked the hardest question of all. “Is it over?”
“Is he dead?”
Shannon flinched, taken aback by the question. “Grandma!”
“Well? Is he? Answer the question,” she said sternly.
“No. Of course not.”
She shrugged happily. “Then find him. Talk to him. Say you’re sorry for not telling him sooner, say you love him, say you want to be with him. As long as he’s not gone, you can keep making up with each other. We live and we love and we hurt each other. We don’t always say the right thing, or do the right thing at the right moment. Sometimes we need space, and distance, and sometimes words fall from our lips that shouldn’t have been said. Sometimes they seem untenable, and sometimes they are,” she said, then reached across the counter to take Shannon’s hand. “And we always hurt the ones we love most. If we didn’t love so much, it wouldn’t hurt so much. But you keep going. You keep loving. You keep working on that love every day. The only time you won’t have a chance at making up is when one of you is gone. Since he’s still here, it’s not over. Not in the least. So love him. Show him that you love him.”
“I do. I do love him.”
Victoria parked her palms on the counter, and gave Shannon a steely-eyed glare. “Then go get your man back.”
“I will,” she said, and a small grin formed on her face as the words show him echoed in her head. She didn’t have enough time to show him what she’d started working on for him yesterday in San Francisco, but she could line up the pieces. As her phone lit up again, she opened the list she’d made.
Then she saw a notification for a voicemail.
CHAPTER THIRTY
He waited.
For an hour.
Then another.
Outside her building, with a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand, his phone in the other. He’d stopped by his house to grab it from the utensil holder inside his dishwasher, then he made a pit stop at a flower shop on the way. He’d been taught never to show up empty-handed for a woman.
In some ways, flowers were just flowers. They were an ordinary, average gift. But since Shannon had photos upon photos of sunflowers in a personal and private album, they obviously meant something important to her. They were more than flowers to her. He hoped this bouquet was more than just an average I’m sorry gift.
That it said he was trying to understand the woman he loved.
Since he’d arrived and parked his bike at the curb, he’d sat on the steps and answered emails from earlier in the day. He’d called her again, and encountered her voice mail once more. He’d paced back and forth in front of the building. At this point, he probably looked like a stalker, and he hoped her neighbors wouldn’t call the cops or neighborhood watch on him. Nobody seemed to care though that he was hovering around the entrance. A hipster with huge headphones had nodded hello on his way upstairs. A brunette with a yoga mat had walked by on her way into the lobby. Some dude in a Buick parked by the curb had even glanced over at Brent a few times, giving a cursory hey there nod.
Brent paced up and down the block to kill more time, his phone clutched in his hand. He reached the corner, turned around, and headed back. The guy was still in his car, his arm hanging out the passenger window, watching Shannon’s building.
A bit too closely for Brent’s taste.
The guy had been there for twenty, thirty minutes now, looking like he was reading a book, but he kept glancing up, scanning the street as if he didn’t want to miss anything.
It reminded him of a cop on a stakeout, only the guy didn’t reek of cop. Something about the guy rubbed Brent the wrong way. It was hard to say what it was, but as he neared the Buick again, he held up his phone as if he were answering a message. Instead, he snapped a few pictures of the license plate and the car, and then zoomed in on the guy’s arm, covered in ink.
He tucked his phone away as he reached the open window. “How’s it going?” he said casually.
“Good,” the guy grumbled. He had a baby face and looked young enough to be carded if he were at Edge. Brent continued along the block, and turned around again at the corner. As he returned, the Buick was no longer idling at the curb. The guy had pulled out into traffic, and was driving away.
Probably just some neighborhood guy. But Brent didn’t like the idea of anyone hanging out outside Shannon’s building for too long. Except for him. Call him a hypocrite, but he knew his own motives. Trusted his own motives.
> Then he stopped thinking about anyone but Shannon when her number flashed across his screen.
At last.
He answered in a nanosecond.
“Hey, babe. I’m at your building. Hanging out outside. Looking like a stalker, or maybe like a caged lion in a zoo pacing back and forth. You want to put me out of my misery and make me just look like a man who’s waiting for his woman so he can tell her how much he loves her?”
She laughed, and he savored that sound, the sweetness of it, the way it threaded through him. He wanted to bottle it up and keep it close to him forever. “I can definitely make you look that way. And I got your message. My phone died after my flight, so I didn’t pick it up till a few minutes ago. But I’m glad you’re there because I’m on my way to see a stalking lion who I love, too.”
* * *
After she hung up, she listened to his voice message one more time on speakerphone as she drove. “My phone is in the dishwasher, so I’m calling from a friend’s phone,” he’d said. “I just want to say I love you madly. And I’m on my way over to your house because I’m not walking away. I’d never walk away, and I did a bad job saying that last night, so I’m trying again right now, and I want you to know that I’ve meant everything I’ve said to you in the last few weeks. I will do whatever it takes for you.”
Best. Message. Ever.
As she neared her street, she made one more call to a friend of his, the guy who ran the Luxe. He agreed to help with her project, and so she had everyone lined up. She ended the call as she turned onto her street, the kernel of hope expanding inside her, blooming into something bigger, something full of possibilities. She kept her eyes on the road, but peered up ahead, so damn eager to see him. She spotted him, outside her building, his tall strong frame coming into view. He was pacing as promised, aviator shades on, brown hair glinting in the late sun, and that grin she adored flashing at her. Her heart was fighting its way out of her chest, racing to him, knowing they’d somehow fix the mess they’d made.
Because he was waiting for her.
It was that simple.
Sweet Sinful Nights Page 24