“Open the gift.” His blue eyes are stern, and I can feel his shoulders tense beneath my hands. He pulls the hand closest to the table out from underneath my ass and grabs the box, handing it to me.
I hold onto it for a long time looking between him and it before I slowly tear the foil paper away. It’s a black velvet box, the kind that cushions jewelry, and I can’t bring myself to open it.
“Just open it.”
I stare at him for a few moments and then slowly open the black velvet box, its hinges creaking as I lift the lid. My mouth drops, and I stare like an imbecile at the key fob lying in the cushioned box. A key fob? A key fob only goes to one thing I know of. I close the lid and jump at the noise it makes when it snaps shut. “I can’t accept this.” I set the box on the table at the same time I climb off of his lap with an unladylike shot of my womanhood.
I don’t know where to go or where to place the anxiety that is rising in my body. I leave Vance sitting beside the table and stalk down the steps of the raised platform just so I can walk aimlessly in a circle by myself.
I feel Vance’s hands on my arms before I know he’s even moved. He stills me before wrapping me in his arms, my back against his chest. “What’s the matter?”
I stiffen and jerk out of his hold, turning to face him. “Who gives someone a car as a gift?”
He tries to close the space between us, but I put up my hand to halt him and take a few steps back, deepening the separation further. He concedes and remains where he is, though a heavy exhale contradicts his outward calm. “Someone who wants to see you more than once a fucking year. It’s not like I can’t afford it.”
“Vance, this is a gift.” I gesture around the room indicating the room but meaning the entire getaway. “Victoria’s Secret panties are a gift. A DVD is a gift. Cars are not gifts.”
“If you want gifts like that, date Cum Bag Carl.” He stalks up the steps to the platform, grabs the velvet box off the table, and retrieves the key fob, tossing the empty box back down with a hard thwack that adds heat to the tension. “Get dressed!” The barked command offsets the funny in his butchering of Toolbag’s name.
I stomp to my pants lying beside our love pallet and shove my legs inside them, curious as to why I’m obeying him. I button them with the dexterity of sausage fingers and practically rip my nail off.
Vance is shirtless and standing in the open doorway with his hand on the edge of the door when I find him a few minutes later. “It’s about damn time. For someone who only has boxers in her bag, you sure took long enough.”
“I don’t think I want to go.”
“I’m tired of hearing about what you don’t want. Let’s go.” He opens the door and waits for me to proceed into the hallway ahead of him.
Reluctantly, I proceed through, talking as I wait on him to shut the door. “Where are we going?”
“To show you what you’re turning down.”
“It’s here?” I screech, surprised. He just turns and walks down the hallway. In silence, we head down to the lobby, his expression stern, his body tight.
Arctic air blasts my face, and my bare toes curl the instant they hit the concrete. Vance either doesn’t care or hasn’t yet noticed we aren’t dressed for Northern California’s coastal winter weather and treks right on over to my so-called present.
With the press of a button, he unlocks a beautiful white BMW that probably cost more than I will make in ten years. He jerks the door open exposing the soft, gray leather interior. He turns a hardened gaze toward me, and I match it with a stubborn one of my own. “The least you can do is sit in it.”
“I don’t need to. I still can’t accept it.” I don’t move, my feet, toes curled under, remain planted on the walkway fronting the hotel.
“That’s it? You’re still going to refuse it?”
I nod, eyes locked on my feet, wondering silently if my refusal is about more than just the price tag. I’m still horribly insecure about being left. Vance trying to bind our relationship with something tangible spikes my fears, and I realize I still struggle to have faith in the staying power of any relationship other than the one I share with Bristol.
“Un-fucking-believable.” He slams the car door, stalks toward me until he’s within a foot of me. “Why, Brenna?”
“It’s too much. People already think I’m dating you for your money; I don’t need a car to confirm it. My whole life I’ve been categorized as something I’m not. I don’t need to add gold-digger to that list.” I didn’t even know I feared that until it slips out unfiltered. I have thicker skin than that, but suddenly I realize my thick skin also has scars.
I’ve never seen his eyebrows higher. “Who cares what people think? I know better. You know better. Your family knows better. Who else fucking matters?” He shoves his hand through his hair, turns away from me to take an angry breath, and then faces me again, agitated. “I want to see you, Brenna. I love you. This long-distance shit is killing me, and if a car of your own will make that easier for us, why wouldn’t you take it? Unless we’re a temporary thing. Is that it?”
My issues run deeper than I knew, and this car has shined a huge, glaring spotlight on all of them. I love him. It’s about the only thing I’m certain of these days, and I don’t want him thinking anything else. “Nothing about you is temporary. I love you. I just can’t accept the car. Please don’t read more into it than that.”
Vance turns away from me, hands laced behind his head as he draws in a heavy breath. I’ve ruined everything, and he’s still trying not to lose his patience with me. I reach out to him, touching his bare back, his skin cool to the touch even beneath my cool fingertips.
“Don’t go!” Vance fills in the silence as I’m contemplating how to salvage this.
“Excuse me?”
“If you won’t take the car, don’t go,” he says, and then turns to face me. “Don’t go back to L.A. If anything is going to come between us, it’s the distance and Bristol’s influence, not your concern about gold-digging rumors. Don’t go.” His voice is low, drawing my attention, not for what was said, but for its ache. He can’t be serious.
I’m stunned. I can’t move or speak or do anything more than snap my jaw shut to prevent the escape of whatever unintelligible thing might come out of my mouth. A few deep breaths later, I feel confident enough to speak.
“I have to,” I say, feeling the sadness clear to my soul.
“Why?”
“Because, Vance, I can’t live off of ten dollars an hour for the rest of my life.”
“Go to school in San Jose. I’ll help you.”
“I can’t let you do that.” I have no doubt he would, but it’s not something I can rely on. “I love you for that, but what happens if you get traded to the Yankees or Mariners? Where do I go, then? I can’t follow you around. Or, God forbid, what if you get tired of having me around all the time? We’re dating, and dating people break up. What happens to me then?” Tears burn like acid in my throat and eyes.
He cups my face in his hands and his fingers lace in my hair. “I’ve told you I want you, only you. I need you, Brenna. What more do I have to do or say to prove that to you? I’m not going anywhere. I’m not Joe. I’m not your dad. I’m not the dude in the Volvo.”
I touch his chest, my heart bleeding from our circumstances and what this night has turned into. “I have to go back, Vance,” I whisper to thwart the crack in my voice. “It’s always been the plan.”
“Plans change.”
“Not for me.”
He backs away, separating us, then looks up into my eyes. “Marry me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Marry him?
Everything on my face widens, and my heart pitter-patters to an obnoxious hammering we both can hear. Shocked doesn’t begin to cover what I am. I’m not even certain if I’ve heard him correctly, and my flapping mouth without words isn’t helping me find out.
“Marry me, Brenna.”
He’s fucking serious. Well as se
rious as someone who hadn’t planned on proposing could be.
“Vance?” Losing my breath, I shake my head several times, doing next to nothing to get my jammed-up words out.
“You don’t have to decide now—”
I cut him off, stopping him before he backs himself into a corner he can’t walk out of. “You don’t want to marry me,” I say with resigned sadness.
“How do you know what I want?”
A pitiful smile forms. “It’s only been six months. It’s not what you want.”
“I love you, Brenna. It doesn’t take a lifetime to know that. I’m serious. If security is what you need, let’s get married.”
I take a step back, and he stares at me as I try and process. “If you really want to marry me, why aren’t you on your knee with a ring?”
“I didn’t come prepared, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. It means I wasn’t expecting to propose this very second.”
“You weren’t expecting to propose at all.” I lower my eyes and then bring them back to his, which haven’t faltered. “It’s okay. I don’t think I’d want to tell our ten kids that proposal story anyway.”
“Ten kids?”
“See? You didn’t know that about me. That’s something dating couples should know about each other before they get engaged.”
To his credit, he doesn’t skip a beat after my outlandish lie. “Alright, I’m good with ten.”
I laugh softly, the amusement not there but the action natural. “Stop. I’m not going to marry you.” I want to touch him, but I keep the necessary distance I think we both need. “Marriage isn’t the answer.”
“Then what is?”
“I don’t know, Vance, but marriage still won’t ease the separation when you’re on the road and I’m in class. And if you think Bristol is a problem now…”
“I don’t stand a chance with Bristol if I’m in your life three times a month. And I want you close, Brenna. Not because I can’t go two days without sex, but because I genuinely look forward to seeing you. If a goddamned ring is what you need to prove that, then I’ll go get one now and do it right.”
“You’re such a bastard.” I skirt past him, running to the front doors once I’m clear of him. I run through the lobby ever mindful that I’m drawing unwanted attention, so I toss a sham smile at the desk clerk and drop a fake excuse. “It’s freezing out there.” She nods in agreement, and fearing the elevator will take its dear sweet time, I run up the stairs.
“Stop!” Vance grabs hold of my shirt, tugging on the bottom. “Stop! I’m sorry. I’m frustrated. That came out wrong.”
Three stairs into my climb, I turn, harden my eyes, and look down at him, bound and determined not to let those soul-crushing blue eyes trap me into compliance. It’s hard to dig in with conviction when every fiber in me is begging to be held by him.
“You didn’t deserve that.” He takes hold of my hand. “My desperation shouldn’t cheat you out of a memorable proposal.”
Tugging my hand out of his, I bring it to my face, wiping the tears that have fallen in the absence of my self-control. “You are truly fucking dense.” I finish my climb, running up the stairs until I get to a room I don’t have the key for and now have to wait until Vance arrives to let me in. It’s embarrassing, but he doesn’t say anything until we’re inside and the door closes behind us.
He keeps his distance, his gaze the only thing connecting us. “If I’m so dense, explain it to me, because you’re right, I don’t get any of it.”
I deepen the space between us. “This went all wrong.” I cover my face with my hands and lower my head, feeling suddenly very vulnerable. “The car is too much. It really doesn’t feel right accepting something that extravagant, and I wouldn’t need a ring if I believed for a second you wanted to marry me, but you don’t, or you would have had one. That’s all I meant.”
Looking defeated, he lifts his arms in a surrender-ish pose, like he’s giving up. “So, tell me what to do here. I don’t want to lose you, Brenna, and I’m going to if you stay in L.A.”
Suddenly the room feels too big, and I can’t get to him fast enough. I wrap my arms around his waist and he slowly reciprocates, stretching his arms around my shoulders and drawing me hard into his chest. He’s cold from the arctic air I forced upon him with our argument, yet sparks between us ignite where my bare flesh touches his. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to fight. I love you. That’s all I really know for sure. I’ll handle Bristol. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I have to prepare myself for it all. That means staying in L.A. and finishing what I started before you.”
Drawing in a deep breath, he picks up my hand and places it against his chest. I can feel the pounding of his heart and the thrum that is wild at first, then restrained as it descends to an almost normal tempo.
He looks down at me. “Feel that?” he asks, not waiting for a response, and with his hand covering mine he presses harder, so my fingers are pinned tightly between his chest and his hand. “That’s for you,” he says, eyes pinned to mine. “Don’t ever doubt you’re enough. My heart doesn’t beat like that for anyone else.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Rather than try to salvage what’s left of our time away, we head for home early the next morning. The drive back to Milagro Beach is quiet. Vance hasn’t said a word, but he’s that quiet, introspective type that uses a filter. I, on the other hand, have to ask if he’s mad at me, to which he calmly says, “No.”
“Are we okay?” I ask, grabbing the hand he hasn’t moved from my thigh since hitting the highway.
“We’re fine.” He looks briefly at me before returning his eyes and his thoughts back to the highway.
I swallow back the questions I really have and opt for the other topic putting weight on my shoulders. “I have to Christmas shop with Bristol tomorrow, but when I’m done, do you want to come over?”
His deep breath precedes doom. I can feel it. I can see that little indent by his ear tick like a heartbeat. We’re not fine.
“To save any hassle, I think I’m going to fly home, see my parents for a bit, let you and Bristol have your time.”
“For how long?”
“About a week. I’ll fly back New Year’s Day.”
I let his hand go and turn my face toward the passing scenery, which is mostly cars now that we’re out of the scenic part of the drive. “I don’t have a lot of winter break left, and you want to be gone for a week of it? Nice.” I shouldn’t be pissed. I know that. He probably has those fun family traditions of opening presents in his pajamas while the Christmas quiche is baking in the oven. How can I be this selfish and still love so fiercely? “I thought you hated the distance, and now you’re choosing it?”
“No, actually I thought it would be the easiest on you.”
“Easy, how?” I face him, needing to see the explanation as much as hear it. “This is the only time of year when we don’t have to share each other with school and baseball, and you want to give up a week. How is that easier?”
“I don’t want you to have to choose between me and Bristol for Christmas. I know she doesn’t want me there. I also know that if you come to me, she’ll make you feel guilty about it.”
“I can handle it.”
“You don’t think I see the fucking toll it takes on you, Brenna? You’re stressed right now asking me about it. You’re trying to please us both, and it’s not working anymore. Take the out, just this once, and spend your holidays with your family like you always have. Concede once so that you can have some peace. You say you don’t care about Christmas, but I know better.”
Christmas for me isn’t filled with usual traditions. It is an obligatory celebration with presents and a choked-down meal. It hasn’t held much appeal since we were five and dad brought his girlfriend home to meet his wife. Mom has tried to erase the cruel memory with different tactics over the years, but in the end, the gift of Suzie was too big to forget, and Bristol and I found ourselves in the compa
ny of inattentive babysitters while mom found her own company for the holidays.
Vance is right, though. Those damn traditionless holidays eventually morphed into traditions I didn’t recognize as such until Bristol was faced with them changing. The thought of Bristol upset over Vance’s intrusion into our unconventional celebrations has been weighing on me, but so has the idea of Vance having to spend his holidays dealing with her and her blatantly low opinion of him. I thought I was hiding it well enough that he wouldn’t have to do something drastic. I guess not.
“It’s fine, Brenna, really,” Vance says as I work through his keen observations and wiggle in his blind spot. No matter what he does, I’m going to feel guilt over something, whether it’s his concessions to keep the peace between me and Bristol or mine to keep the peace between Bristol and him. He doesn’t see that though. “I could use the time with my family anyway. It’ll be good.” He grabs my hand and kisses it, then uses them both to wipe a tear from my cheek, easing my guilt with his tenderness. “But when I get back, you’re all mine. No interruptions. None of Bristol’s bullshit. Just you and me. I want one day, that’s it.”
Two days after a tearful goodbye with Vance, I sneak out of The Seam, where I’ve spent the last few hours of our traditionless Christmas hanging out with the regulars and a few new stragglers needing a place to spend their holiday. It’s a bit sad when you think about it, but then again, if you don’t know any better, it’s quite fun, and you learn you really don’t have it as bad as some.
My mom may not have shown for our Christmas dinner of frozen pizza and hard cider with Uncle Rodney, but she showed for our gift exchange and cherry Pop-Tart breakfast without Joe. She’s a lot savvier with her diplomacy than I am and managed to split her time without alienating anyone. If I knew how to do that, I wouldn’t be sneaking out to call Vance while Bristol is distracted with Toolbag Carl.
Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1) Page 27