“I don’t understand,” I finally managed to say.
“Well, that makes two of us.” Sebastian sighed, an exaggerated gesture, and for a moment it seemed he let his guard down, though I wasn’t sure if it was a conscious thing or not. I saw flash across his face his own frustration with the whole situation, the fact that he probably had as many questions as I did.
“I’m not so sure I’m following what brought this up in the first place,” he said. “Why now? Why did you track me down like this?”
“I found a journal my uncle had that belonged to Ashleigh,” Gwen said. “I gave it to Drew.”
“And of course she mentioned you several times in the journal,” I said, “and I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get in touch and see if you remembered anything, or if she had reached out to you after all these years.”
“That would’ve been a nice, tidy ending, wouldn’t it?” Sebastian said. “If you guys just showed up here out of the blue like that, looking for answers, and I had them. I wish.” He had such an anguished expression on his face that I really did believe him, and I knew that he’d told us everything he could.
***
Gwen seemed agitated as we drove back to the hotel. “I have to think,” she said, “that if Ashleigh or Brandon had any inkling of an idea of what sort of shit this would cause people, they wouldn’t have done it like this.”
I wanted to believe that. Because you’d have to be an asshole not to comprehend the sort of shit this would cause for the people you left behind. But I didn’t want to think that these two people in particular were assholes. It was impossible not to, though. Because how could they not have known? They weren’t stupid. “You really think so? They must’ve known. They must’ve had some idea that we weren’t just going to say, Oh, they’re missing? Oh, well, what’s for dinner? I mean, they’re not stupid. They had to know that this would upset people. That this would cause a lot of people serious stress and heartache.”
“Then they must’ve weighed it out against what they were running from and decided that it was worth it. I know Brandon. I know who he is. He is not the sort of person who wants to create drama for others. I mean, he was in a bad spot. Joshua was planning to marry him off. Wasn’t going to give him a choice about it.”
“That’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.”
“You don’t understand what it was like. And Brandon was not a confrontational person. He never wanted to go against Joshua, even when he knew that he was wrong.” She paused. “I would at least like to think that if Brandon had any idea that Joshua was going to tell Skip to mess with my parents’ car, he would’ve said something. He would’ve warned them or told me or done something. Brandon is a good person. And if he’s with your sister, she must be a good person, too.”
One of the problems with a situation like this was the sheer amount of emotions that it was capable of producing. It ran the gamut, and now I felt a flare of anger, toward both of them, despite having never met Brandon. I didn’t care what sort of situation I was in, I would never just disappear without first letting the people close to me know where I was going and why. Even if I had to be vague about it, or didn’t get into all the details, I would at least let them know something. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew I had done something that was causing other people unnecessary anguish.
When we got back to the room, Gwen said she was going to take a shower. I decided I’d step out onto the balcony and give Jason a call.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going? You holding down the fort?”
“It’s been going all right,” Jason said. “Nothing major to report. How’s it going with you? Where are you guys?”
“We’re actually not too far. A little south of Mendocino. Just stopped in and saw Sebastian.”
“Sebastian? Sebastian Farley?”
“Yeah. He’s up in Point Arena. His grandmother died and left him her house and he just decided to stay up there.”
“Huh. I can’t really imagine him living in a tiny town like that.”
“He seems to like it.”
“He tell you anything good?”
I paused, not sure if I should tell him that Sebastian had mentioned some mystery person that Ryan had been going out with. Would that matter to him? Would it change anything? Or was it like what Gwen said—that knowing the past wouldn’t change the outcome?
“Not really,” I said. “We’ve kind of hit a dead end, unfortunately.”
“So are you coming back?”
“I’m not sure. I mean, yes, eventually. Maybe even in the next couple of days. I’m not just going to be driving around the state with no plan. That would be foolish. And I’ve got some people I’ve been trying to reach, but I haven’t heard anything back.”
“Maybe they don’t want to be reached. They might not want to talk about all of this.”
“I know.”
“Should I plan on seeing you soon, then?”
“I’m not sure yet, Jason. I hate being the sort of person who just gives up on things.”
“You haven’t, though. You don’t really think that, do you? You’re driving around the state on this wild goose chase—that’s not giving up. You’ve tried. But the answers that you’re looking for might not exist.”
I took a deep breath. Here he was, the voice of reason. I knew he was probably right, that I had done what I could with the limited new information I had. It had been a spark, and I thought that it might be enough to ignite into something bigger, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this was it.
“You’ve done what you can,” Jason continued. “And you shouldn’t be disappointed. Don’t be hard on yourself; I know how you can get.”
“I know. It was a long shot. I just thought that with the journal and everything... I thought that it was going to turn into something else. I thought that maybe I was going to finally have some answers after all this time.”
“I know you did. And I don’t fault you for wanting to try to find out more. But it’s been so long. I feel like it’s probably better to just leave things how they are. Don’t you think... don’t you think that if Ashleigh was out there, living her life, she’d be in touch with you if she wanted to?”
He had a point—something I’d thought about before. Something I didn’t particularly want to think about. Was I trying to find someone who didn’t want to be found? It was possible. But why wouldn’t she want to see me? I wanted to see her. I really did. And maybe that was why I hadn’t given up after all this time.
“Anyway,” I said. “I hear what you’re saying. And you’re not wrong, Jason. It’s just hard for me to let go of stuff sometimes. You know.”
“Yeah.” I could hear his smile. “I do.”
I sat there for a little while after I got off the phone. I was at the end, I knew this, but I didn’t want to admit it. Still, I couldn’t ignore that feeling, that knowledge inside me, that this was over.
You tried, I thought. You tried and it didn’t really go anywhere, but so what? And you met Gwen out of this whole thing. And that’s been... well, that’s been...
Amazing.
The word seemed to appear without me having consciously thought it. It was true; I did take solace in the fact that I had met this person whom I did have something of a connection with, though I didn’t know where it was going to go. Could a girl and a guy really just be friends? Even when said guy had a serious attraction to the girl in question?
I let the thought of Gwen buoy me for a moment, enjoying the respite from feeling like a complete, abject failure. The thing of it was, I knew I was being unreasonable, like getting upset that you didn’t win a million dollars from a slot machine or something. The likelihood of this whole endeavor had not been promising from the start, so expecting any other outcome had been a bit unrealistic.
Chapter 22
Gwen
I took a long, hot shower, taking my time with everything, letting the hot water run over me, soaping my
hair up not once but twice with the complimentary shampoo that smelled like honeysuckle and lavender. As I stood there and the water rained down on me, I tried to think about everything that had happened since we’d first started out on this trip. I couldn’t say that we’d really gotten any closer to figuring out what we had hoped to—where Ashleigh and Brandon had gone to—but I had certainly learned some information that I hadn’t been expecting.
I got out of the shower, toweled off. I wrapped my hair up with that towel and then got another one and wrapped it around myself. Drew was sitting on the couch, holding his phone but not looking at it.
“Well,” he said, looking dejected. “I guess that’s that. I’m not really sure what else to do at this point.”
“Does this mean we’re heading back?” I, too, couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. I had really let my hopes get up, let myself think that we were going to be able to find something conclusive.
“Sebastian said they liked Cape Cod. I didn’t even know Ashleigh had ever been there before. But after she graduated high school, she went off and did her own thing and wasn’t telling me every detail of her life. So it’s entirely possible that she went out there—though I do think it’s weird she never mentioned it, you know, just like, Hey, I went on vacation to the Cape and it was awesome. That’s the most concrete thing we have to go on, but it’s pretty flimsy. We’re not going to go three thousand miles across the country to a place that my sister may or may not be at without something more. Even I’m not that crazy.”
I had to agree with him. It wouldn’t make sense to go all the way out there, just based on what Sebastian had said. Just because they loved an area didn’t mean they’d relocate there—there were so many other places they could go, too. Hell, they might not even be in this country anymore.
“I knew from the outset that the chances of finding something were slim to none, but there was that part of me that was convinced that, against the odds, we were going to find them. I really thought that. I see how stupid that was.”
I hated seeing the disappointment on his face, even though I probably had a similar expression on my own. I had thought that too. Yes, the chances were slim, but hadn’t the cards sort of fallen in our favor this time? Maybe not. Maybe it was just wishful thinking.
I knew there was something I could do to take his mind off of things, though. Part of me had wanted to do this since the moment I first laid eyes on him. I realized that now, or could admit that now. He was unbearably sexy, and it felt these past days had just been a build-up to this moment. I had slept in a bed with him several times and nothing had happened, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it wasn’t because we didn’t want it to happen. There was a part of me that just felt too afraid to make the first move, even though I knew he wanted me. Especially right now, in this moment. I walked over to him. He looked up at me. Neither of us said anything, just looked at each other. I reached up with one hand and undid the towel from my head, and it fell away, wet strands of hair hitting my shoulder blades. He moved his hand to the side and let his phone drop, eyes still trained on me. He swallowed, audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“Let me make you feel better,” I said, and I let the towel wrapped around me fall away too. I stood there and let him look at me, and then I positioned myself on his lap and kissed him. There was a moment of resistance, I felt him tense up, felt his mouth frozen there against mine, but then the feeling broke, and he returned the kiss, his hands going up to the sides of my face, pulling me closer to him. There was the thrilling feeling of doing something that I thought maybe I shouldn’t, yet it felt so incredibly good I didn’t care. I ran my hands down his sides, felt the smooth tightness of his muscles underneath his soft skin. My body seemed to pulse with this swirling energy that almost tickled, almost felt unbearable, but in a deliciously erotic way. When his hands moved down from my face to my throat, then shoulders, then breasts, I sighed loudly, kissed him harder. It was like I could lose myself in this cyclone of sensation—the most incredible feeling I’d ever experienced.
Chapter 23
Drew
Maybe it was wrong that I had gone for so long without having sex, because now that it was about to happen, I could all but guarantee that it was going to be over a lot sooner than I’d want it to be. But what could I do about that now? Other than stop what we were doing—and that was the last thing I wanted to do. I had all but forgotten what it was like to be with someone like this, particularly someone I felt as attracted to as I did Gwen.
When we finally pulled away from the kiss, I brought my hand up to her face, brushed a few loose strands of hair back from her eyes.
“Listen,” I said, “I feel the need to tell you that it’s been a really long time since I’ve... since I’ve been intimate with anyone.”
She smiled. “Do you have performance anxiety? Because you’re doing just fine.”
“No. Well... maybe a little.”
“I also find it hard to believe that someone as good-looking as yourself hasn’t been able to get laid in what... years?”
“It’s not that I haven’t been able to. I’ve gone out on plenty of first dates. It’s something that I chose to do. And kind of thought that I’d do indefinitely.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yeah. But... obviously I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m just letting you know because it’s been a while. And yes, maybe I do have a bit of performance anxiety.”
That probably wasn’t the most romantic interlude, and for a moment, I was afraid I had just completely killed the mood. She picked up my hand and pressed it to her side, right under her left breast, and I traced my thumb around her nipple. Mood definitely not killed. We started kissing again, these deep, intense kisses that you felt with your whole body, not just your mouth. Eventually, my clothes came off and she lay back on the couch, those leanly muscular legs of hers spread wide. I licked my fingers (not necessary) and slid them between her legs, watching her shiver and pulse depending on the way I moved my hand. I would periodically let my eyes close and really fall into those feelings but I always reopened them because no matter how good the feelings were, I preferred looking at her, seeing how she moved, the expression on her face.
When I finally entered her, I did it slowly. We would have to take things slow if I didn’t want to pop off within the first minute, which I most certainly did not want to do. It seemed I could do this by making a lot of noise, which came out in the form of throat-vibrating growls. I bit my tongue, clenched my jaw, scrunched my face up about as tight as it could go. Real pretty to look at, I’m sure, but I didn’t give a fuck. I could no longer look down at her because that would send me over the edge immediately, so I kept my eyes shut and found a rhythm. All I had to do was focus on that rhythm, stay with it, flow with it. I moved my hips and she ran her hands from my ass all the way to my shoulder blades. The rhythm was still there but it was getting faster now. She moved with me, and it felt better than anything I had ever experienced before. Better than any drug—and I’d done plenty back in the day. The momentum continued to build, a freight train without the brakes—we had reached the point of no return. There was nothing I could do, so I opened my eyes and looked down and she was right there with me, her own face scrunched up, biting down on her lower lip. Sometimes pain and pleasure looked identical.
When it was over, we lay there on the couch, both of us buzzing with the sensation of it all. I kissed the top of her head.
“Thank you,” I said. “Never mind better—you just made me feel the best I’ve ever felt.”
She laughed and I could tell she didn’t quite believe me, but I completely meant every word. That had been like nothing I’d ever felt before.
Chapter 24
Gwen
We started the drive back, neither of us in much of a hurry to get home. We had done all we could and shouldn’t be disappointed, but it was hard not to be. The only thing that made me feel better was t
hinking about yesterday, how amazing it had felt to finally sleep with Drew. How it felt like it’d been something I’d been waiting to do for so long, even though we’d known each other for such a short time.
After we’d been driving for a few hours, Drew looked over at me. “You want to go for a walk?” he asked. “I wouldn’t mind just taking a walk in the woods for a little while, before we get back to the city.”
“Yeah, that’d be great.” It surprised me, in a way, not to be longing for home at least a little bit, but I felt so content being around Drew, especially just the two of us up here like this, the realities of work and our daily life removed from the equation. Just being in his vicinity made my skin tingle, and I couldn’t help but play back scenes from last night, how incredibly wonderful it had felt being with him. How I wanted to do it again. Soon.
He turned off the highway and we drove for a while until we came to a trailhead. We parked and got out, and it felt good to stretch my legs, to be out in the open. The trail went in one direction for a ways, and then came to a point where it split, though there were no markers or signs.
“Let’s go this way,” he said. We walked for a while longer until the trail opened up into a gently sloping field, a shimmering sea of grass waving in the breeze. There were no fences or anything, so we walked out toward the middle, where there was a large boulder that had a bit of a shelf on the side, making a bench of sorts. It was about chest-high on me, but I was able to jump up and sit on the cleft, leaning my back against the slightly rough, sun-warmed rock. A moment later I felt Drew next to me, and he leaned his head back against the rock too, and we sat there beside each other, eyes closed.
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