I didn’t deserve him; I never did. I wasted his time. If I had stayed away, none of this would have happened. In fact, I’m positive he would be going off to this trip today and leaving a pretty brunette girl behind, the actual love of his life—the only one who’s deserving of his pure, unadulterated love. She’d be the type to dress her curly hair with flowers and give him soft, sweet kisses.
It pains me to think of him with someone else, but it’d be selfish of me to not want him happy with another girl. Someone, anyone, other than me.
“God.” A nasty grunt left my lips, and I would have thought I just got my period if I hadn’t gotten it last week. No, this pain was similar but worse in every way. A sharp pain rips through my stomach, and I have to swing my car in the first parking spot to avoid crashing into another.
I grab my phone and shoulder bag before scrambling out of the car. I lean against the door and take deep breaths, rubbing my aching chest. Tears dance along my closed eyelids, and it takes everything inside to not burst into tears in the middle of this fairly busy airport parking lot. I can’t react to the thought of Noah with someone else like this. It isn’t fair and—goddamn it!—he deserves whoever truly deserves him.
I’m in the way, and I need to go before I hurt him or myself any more than I already have.
I almost get back in my car and drive far from here, leave the boys to travel by themselves, but my phone vibrates. I stare at the screen and groan.
“Harley,” I spit in my phone, marching to my trunk. I unlock it and drag my heavy-ass carry-on luggage out. “What did you do now? Get in another fight? Get caught smoking?”
My trouble-making sister scoffs. “I wouldn’t call you to tell you about it if I did,” she says in a duh tone.
I roll my eyes as I stride toward the airport entrance. “So why are you calling me now?” I ask as I enter the massive airport. I hope I don’t get lost in here. I briefly listen to her as I follow the signs to where I check in.
“Because I need money, duh. Why else would I call you?” she says harshly, and my heart splits open but quickly glues together as I join a short line to get a tag for my carry-on.
I shouldn’t be this heartbroken, though. She’s been angry with me since she was fourteen for some unknown reason. The sweet girl who’d been eager to play cards and literally dragged me to the theater to watch horror movies was no longer staring in my face on her fourteenth birthday. Her blue eyes were hard and coated in black eyeliner, she stole my leather jackets, and she’d never voluntarily speak to me.
It was like a switch had flipped within her and she was dark and had a burning hatred for me.
And I just couldn’t—and still can’t—figure out what made her like this.
“Hello? Did you hear me?” she snaps, annoyed.
“Don’t snap at me!” I snap at her, and a TSA employee glares at me. “What?”
He stands back with raised eyebrows then waves his wand-thing to the machine beside me. “Phone, keys, and everything else goes through that. Now,” he says with sass.
I roll my eyes and nearly flash him my finger, but I don’t want to end up in airport jail…again. “Hold on, I’m going through security.” I briefly hear her complain as I put my phone in a gray bucket, along with my keys and wallet and leather jacket. I’m about to go through the machine that scans my body when the sassy employee tells me I have to take off my shoes. Giving him a sweet smile, I hide my rage and pluck off my sneakers and drop them in the bucket. I pass by, but he waves his magic wand over my white tee and ripped jeans.
“You may go.” He gives me the same faux-sweet smile, head tilted, and I do the same before grabbing my stuff and scowling as I stand to the side and put my shit back on.
“What were you saying?” I tuck my phone between my shoulder and cheek, dragging my luggage behind me.
“I was asking for money,” she says in a sickly sweet, annoyed voice.
“I gave you a hundred two weeks ago,” I complain.
“And I need twenty now,” she says slowly like I’m a dumbass.
I snarl, “You’re not getting shit.”
“Fuck you, why not?” She drops her sweet act. Pfft, as if she’s ever been sweet to me. The only time she’s relatively nice to me is when she wants something.
“Because that money was supposed to last you a while; you get free school lunch, so you don’t have to actually buy food. And the last time I was in your dorm, you had everything you needed. Unless you’ve been bullshitting more each day for the past two weeks, I’m pretty sure you still have toilet paper.”
“Come on, Red, I need more,” she whines, and I just know she’s making a fist, doing that little eye twitch thing she does when things don’t go her way.
“And I need to win the lottery so I can buy the freaking moon. But I guess we both can’t get what we want, huh?” I look at the signs above me. I pull out my printed ticket and frown. There’s no assigned gate. Fuck me—I have to stop for help.
“I spent the money on school supplies,” she argues as I search for an info station.
I scoff, finding a help desk. “More like laced weed and rock-salts.”
“You fucking owe me!” Her voice rattles my phone, and I pull it away, stopping in my tracks. There’s not just the usual vexation in her voice, but a sense of blame, and I don’t understand why. I’ve been trying to for years, but with no luck.
The bass and tears I hear her sniffling through the phone drag a thin shiver down my spine, and I find a memory I have behind a brick wall in my mind slither toward me. Thankfully, I blink rapidly and shake it off. I take deep breaths and keep my voice low, apologetic, sorry for whatever the hell it is I did to her.
“I’m sorry, Harls, but I can’t do it right now; money is tight,” I tell her.
“No, it isn’t. Why are you lying?”
“I am not lying.”
“Yes, you are!” she screams, and I thread my fingers through my hair, huffing a sigh. “You have that fancy job over there. I heard Grandpa talking about it. And I know that you paid—”
“Stop, Harley!” I bark. The employee behind the counter stares at me with raised brows, and I turn from her and duck my head, keeping my voice a bare whisper. “I’ll send some money over, but—fuck. Don’t buy any drugs with it, okay? Get McDonald’s or whatever shitty fast food you want. Go see a movie. I don’t care. Just. No. Drugs. Understand me?”
I don’t want you to be like how I was when I was your age. I don’t say it but keep it on a loop in the back of my head.
There’s nothing but the sound of her rough breathing and the overweight man complaining about me not moving up, and I think she’s going to hang up and do something unforgiving like I would do when I was told no at her age until she sighs heavily and says a short, “Okay.”
I hold in my breath of relief and nod to myself. “I’ll send it over soon. Promise.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever…” she mumbles, and I move up slowly, but before I can address the worker, I can’t help but whisper, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
She scoffs and replies with, “What a short list,” before hanging up.
I laugh at how similar she is to me and tuck my phone in my back pocket then step up. “Sorry ’bout that. I was just checking my ticket and noticed I’m not assigned to a gate.” I hand her the ticket from my pocket and watch her read it over then type whatever into the computer.
Now that I think about it, I really should have looked over the ticket last night when I printed it out, but I fell asleep watching Shameless, one of the many shows I binge-watch daily. Sometimes I stop when I think my life is shitty, then I think of that dysfunctional family going through more shit than me, and I instantly feel a lot better.
I love ’em, but they have issues…most of which I can relate to, but none of them are currently dealing with secretly loving a dashing, sweet college boy who’s loaded. If they were, Frank would pull some shit and Noah’s father would definitely be in jail and
his bank account would be drained, used for hot tubs…
“Miss, you’re flying in a private jet,” the lady behind the desk tells me, handing me the paper. I don’t take it.
“No way,” I say, just ’cause I don’t believe her. Noah’s family may be loaded, but they aren’t that loaded, holy fucking shit.
“But you are,” she says, frowning.
I begin to ask her when I hear my name being called. I turn around and frown. The guy who I’ve seen hanging with Noah in the office and assigned to this trip is jogging toward me. He’s dressed in a crisp black suit that brings out his blue-blue eyes and dark hair. His strong facial features and soft smile appears closer as he reaches me, and I’m pretty sure the lady behind me tries to cover up a moan with a cough.
Seriously? This guy? He’s not even that attractive, not like…
“What’s up? Is your ticket fucked up too? We can sue, you know, for messing up our shit,” I tell him, and he chuckles.
“No, no,” he says. “I just saw you and thought we could walk over together.”
“Walk where? Do you know which terminal we’re supposed to be at?” I ask, and he bends down and picks up my bag. I raise my pierced brow—he notices and laughs again. This guy laughs a lot…it’s weird, but the lady behind me won’t freaking stop moaning. God. Women can be odd sometimes.
“It’s not a terminal exactly.” He makes this weirdly kind of cute face and begins walking backwards.
“Where are you going?” I walk over to him, and he turns and winks at me.
“You’ll see soon,” he says ominously.
“What? Are you a phantom or somethin’?” I ask, grabbing my bag from him, rolling it beside me. Before he can answer, I look him over and add, “And why the hell are you wearing a suit? It’s gonna be, like, summer weather where we’re going.” Unless he enjoys sweating between his ass-crack…
“We have some work to do before we can relax,” he says as we’re exiting the airport.
Where the hell are we going?
“Me too? ’Cause I kinda don’t feel like putting on heels and a skirt,” I tell him honestly, and he chuckles shortly. But I’m being serious, I despise my work outfit, but it’s necessary, so I deal with it. But as soon as I’m in my small, shitty apartment, it’s tits out and sweats on.
“No, no—it’ll just be Noah and me,” he says, and I’m too busy looking around as we’re walking to some building a few yards from the airport to I notice he has his hand out to be shaken.
I shake it when I notice and give him a barely there smile and tell him, “Red.”
“I know,” he says, smoothly tucking his large hand back in his pants.
I lift a brow. “How?”
He shrugs. “Odd name.”
“Fuck you,” I spit without hesitation. Who does he think he is…seriously? Who the hell is he, again?
“Ellis,” he informs me, reading my mind. “And I didn’t mean ‘odd’ in a bad way. It’s just…not a name you hear every day.”
I don’t know what else to say but murmur a “thank you” and look away from his smiley gaze. My skin feels heated, my breathing shit, and I briefly wonder if it’s because of him looking at me, but quickly look around and notice we’re in some building with one plane and one boy leaning sitting on one of many tall stairs leading to said enormous plane that has the words: WELLS ENTERPRISE written in gold letters. And I’m pretty sure literal gold.
Oh. My. God. These people can buy several small countries, including the island we’re going to right now.
But that’s not even what makes my blood run cold, hot, explode, dance—lose its freaking mind. It’s the man who is intimidatingly towering over Ellis and me as we walk over to the stairs. He stares down at me, one hand tucked in his ivory dress pants, the other on the white railing. His hair is trimmed, and a strand curls between his vibrant green eyes.
My heart stops as his jaw clenches, and he turns and enters the plane without uttering a single word to either of us.
Chapter Eleven
Noah
The eight-hour ride to the island was long and torturous, for me at least. The only other two passengers on board seemed to have a better time than me. When he wasn’t casually talking with me about what we’d be doing when we touched down, Ellis was typing away on his expensive MacBook across from me.
Red was down the row but sat on the outside seat, so that I could see her bobbing her head to a loud song I could hear from feet away. But a few hours in, her phone must have died, because she cursed so loud, it caught the attention of Ellis and a passing attendant.
My fingers twitched, and I contemplated but quickly shot down the idea of lending her my phone that has most, if not all, of her favorite artists. When she ranted about them a few times, I thought it’d be nice to have them to listen to, to see why she loved them so much.
And I understood; they were unique and not just noise like I first thought. I saw her love for them, heard it in the way that they sang, in how much passion they put into their voices.
Every time I wanted to think of her when I was busy studying or had football practice, I popped in my headphone buds and listened to them and thought of her. And now…now I just have a bunch of rock artists stored on my phone with too much meaning behind every raspy syllable, that I can’t bear to listen to any of them for even a second.
As for her phone running out of juice, I stayed quiet and listened to some music of my own. I closed my eyes, shut the world out, intent on blocking her out…but caved and sent her the music files to her laptop. I didn’t open my eyes for the rest of the flight after I’d reclined in my seat, but I could feel her eyes boring through me.
“Welcome to Saint Martin, guys,” Ellis says as he props open the airplane door.
We all carefully step down and make our way to the town car waiting for us. The drive to the hotel is thankfully short, but I can’t help but stare at Red a few times, more than I should. More than what is considered healthy.
I mean…seeing her in front of me after a four-month drought makes an emotional storm churn in my stomach. I was wrecked when she left me, and now—now she’s sitting a few feet away from me.
I watch the tip of her pink tongue poke through the hoop of her lip ring. I cock my head when her fingers twist around the eyebrow piercing. And my eyes linger on her colorful tattoo sleeve. Sometimes I dreamed of just her arm, of the art literally stitched into her creamy fair skin.
But then she catches my inquisitive, longing stare, and I quickly flick it elsewhere.
***
Red
Goddamn it, why does he keep looking at me? Why does he have to make this so hard? If I could just get it through his head that there is no resurrecting what we had, maybe then…maybe he’d understand and just move on. In the meantime, each secret glance cuts me just a little bit deeper.
Often, it’s hard to breathe when I’m around him. Like right now. With him in that suit. With his hair freshly cut. With his suit against his lean body. With his soft, pink lips. With his large hand on his knee. With his…with his…oh fuck, did I just make myself wet? Goddamn it!
Sighing and turning up the volume of my phone—this car has a charging port, and I’ve never been more upset at the money put into this feature and relieved because I can use my phone instead of computer to listen to music—and close my eyes for the rest of the drive.
My heart thumps as I remember finding those songs on my computer. I was confused for a while but instantly knew it was him. He’d had those songs with him, the artists that I’ve gushed about to him, and he’d emailed them to me.
Wait.
That means he saw that I was frustrated when my phone died. He was paying attention and saved my life from silence for the remainder of the flight. My heart swells and bursts in my chest. He is such a sweet guy, it makes the hate toward myself grow even more, to the point that I just wanna stab a freaking spork in my eye.
But on a serious note, he is officially the be
st person on this planet.
With a smile, I listen to Kurt croon the lyrics of “Heart-Shaped Box” for the rest of the drive.
Twenty minutes later, we’re walking through the doors of the Armstrong Hotel, the people the company might be doing business with. I gotta admit, I don’t totally hate the massive marble fountain centered in the middle of the hotel decked out in industrial furniture and classy crystal chandeliers. There’s soft music playing overhead, and the floors shine with our reflections.
I feel his eyes on me, but I keep my own on the fountain. I have to quit him, cold turkey.
It’s for the better. It’s for the better…maybe if I chant it in my head enough, it’ll lessen the heartache. I highly doubt that, but there’s no harm in hoping, right?
“Hi, checking in for Mr. and…Wells, Sylvetti, and Kavanagh?” Noah clears his throat and seems to wish I hadn’t heard him correct himself, but I heard loud and clear. He was about to say Mr. and Mrs. Wells, like he did in the hotel after our second date, before the worst that could have possibly happened did.
My tongue feels heavy, and it’s suddenly hard to breathe. A memory I fought away earlier before I boarded the plane creeps around my throat, and I breathe heavily, willing it away. I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts and the sour memory that I almost don’t feel Ellis touching my shoulder.
“What?” I groan, cheeks flushed when I look behind me to find an impatient couple. What the hell are they mad about? I’m about to cuss their rich asses up when I realize I’m still standing at the front desk and Noah is a few feet away, seemingly trying his best not to look at me. I step closer to Ellis and focus on his words.
“You okay? You’re looking a bit pale, and you were still as a statue.”
“Hopefully not like that one. Fucking ugly,” I murmur and pinch my eyes closed, nodding to a bronze statue of some weird-shaped person, cow, blob—fucking something, just not pretty to look at, at all.
I move my hand to the side and watch the quick, agreeing uplift of Noah’s mouth before he turns and heads for the elevator, us trailing behind him. I smile and almost get sucked back into one of the stupid trances I’ve been held hostage in today until Ellis annoyingly yanks me out. And damn was this one gonna be good and filled with warmth instead of the constant ice-cold temperature that charged through my veins.
Red: Fiery Finale (Spectrum Series Book 8) Page 7