Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
WHAT MORE COULD HAPPEN?
Adrienne
Idon’t know how long I sat here before the tears came, but come, they did. It was like a torrential downpour; once it started, I couldn’t stop it. I just crumpled. I covered my face with my hands as the first sob bubbled up from my chest.
And then another.
And another. I cried until there was nothing left, no tears and definitely no hope.
All that was left was my shattered heart.
Now, I feel naked and emotionally raw, and it doesn’t help that I’m actually naked. I jump up and race to the bathroom. I snatch my clothes up from the bathroom floor and quickly pull them on. I need to be covered, shrouded in even this useless armor.
I can’t be bare when he gets back. I don’t ever want to be naked again.
An icky feeling is coating my skin and I hate it.
I want to snatch back every time I showed my boobs for a magazine or wore something skimpy.
I hate this feeling that men have seen me like that.
They’ve all taken pieces of me I can’t get back.
Gabe took the last of me and now there’s nothing left.
Oh God, he’s going to come back.
He said we were going to figure out the mess I made when he gets back. I thought there would have been more finality in his parting words, but no. Just that we’d figure out the mess I made because falling in love with him was apparently a mess.
Then again, those are his feelings; he’s the one who feels that way. He clearly didn’t fall for me. How did he so eloquently put it? That I made him addicted to my pussy? He’s just a man on the job who fell prey to my magic vagina.
I guess if his goal was for me to un-fall in love with him, that’ll do it.
I’m angry and sad. And broken.
The one thing I am absolutely certain about, is that I’m not going to be here when he returns.
I race into the bathroom and wash my face.
It’s red, swollen, and puffy from crying.
Who cares though? If no one finds me attractive ever again, I will probably consider it a blessing.
I do not want to feel like this ever again.
I slide my feet into my Chucks and grab my leather hobo bag, and then I realize it might be a bit chilly out still, so I set my bag down and pull on an oversized sweatshirt.
In my rush to get out of this room, I don’t think about where I’m going to go.
Or what I’m going to do. I guess I could go shopping or get a massage.
I wish I could just get on a fucking plane and go home.
I don’t belong here anyway. I never did.
Maybe I should plot out what I want to do with the rest of my life, because racing is going to break my heart all over again if I lose and my dad hands the company over to Bobby.
I know that sounds petty and childish, but I don’t care. I feel like I’m losing everything.
Maybe I’ll rescue cats.
I have enough money, so I don’t need to work.
I could just rescue cats from shelters, or save them from the streets, and give them a nice life until they go on to cross the rainbow bridge.
Maybe I can steal Hugo and we can move to Hawaii, live on the beach, and eat all the fresh seafood until we both weigh two hundred pounds.
Only that doesn’t solve my current predicament. I have to get out of here, because I cannot face Gabe again. He doesn’t love me. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait around and become his crazy ex-girlfriend.
Not to mention it would be humiliating to have him dump me while he’s supposed to be protecting me. I never should have fallen for him, never should have slept with him. I’ll admit to my mistakes, but first I have to get out of here.
I’m actually beginning to panic, when there’s a knock on the hotel room door.
I look through the peephole and see Bobby.
God, I need a friend right now, anyone who can help me get out of here.
It won’t be Eli though, and he won’t let me go off on my own.
And he has a bad habit of reporting my whereabouts to the man I need to get away from.
But Bobby will help me get away. I grab onto that idea with both hands and pull open the door like I was shot out of a cannon.
“Bobby!” I greet him with just a shade too much enthusiasm. “What a nice surprise.”
Eli is standing behind him and giving me a look that asks, Did you start dabbling with pharmaceuticals in the last hour and not tell me? I very subtly shake my head so he will let it go.
“Addie, are you okay?” Bobby asks.
“Of course I am,” I lie. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. You just seem weird,” he says, giving me a strange look.
This man was my best friend for years and he has no idea I’m dying inside.
Has there never been a man who gave a shit about just me?
Just Addie the person? I want to scream.
I want to rail against the injustices of the world and fuck the patriarchy but there’s no one here who’ll listen.
“I’m fine.” I wave off his concerns while Eli openly scowls at me. He’s not happy at all.
“Okay,” Bobby says. “If you say so.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Eli mumbles, but it’s loud enough for me to hear it.
“Anyway,” Bobby says, changing the subject. “I came to see if you want to sneak out and go get an ice cream cone with me like we used to when we were kids.”
Thank God my friend is back. I could kiss him.
Although maybe not. That seems to get me in a lot of trouble with Gabe, and until I’m sure he’s gone for good, I need to take heed and stay away but also avoid scenarios that will get me spanked—in a good way or a bad one.
So no kissing Bobby. Probably ever. Not that I want to.
“That sounds great,” I reply. “Let me just grab my bag, and we can go.”
“Sure,” Bobby agrees.
Eli, on the other hand, follows me into the hotel room and shuts the door behind us, effectively closing Bobby out. We’re both awkwardly slapped in the face with the rumpled sheets on the bed and the smell of sex that lingers in the room.
My face heats instantly. I hate that he knows I do it again and again. That I’m weak and let Gabe walk all over me.
“Do you know what you’re fucking doing with this guy?” Eli snaps.
I want to scream No!
I want to shout, but I don’t.
I fucking can’t, because that’s all anyone ever asks me—if I know what I’m doing with some man in my life and honestly, no. I don’t know what I’m doing. It all just fucks me over in the end and my life is spiraling into something Hugo shat out after counter surfing one too many times.
“Moving on?” I ask sarcastically.
“Don’t be glib,” he retorts. “This is me you’re talking to.”
“And?”
“What the fuck, Addie? What are you doing? Running scared? I never pegged you for a coward.”
“Well, I guess today’s the day we can all be wrong about our instincts,” I snap back.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I’m fucking weak, Eli,” I reply and let it all hang out—my anguish, my heartbreak, my stupidity. “I can’t say no to him. Over and over, I let him come back.”
“Addie—”
“And he does. Oh boy, does he,” I add. “Everyone kept saying he was going to hurt me, and I knew it, too, but they said he’d be worth it. Don’t give up on him. And I hoped. I fucking hoped, when I shouldn’t have, because I knew. I fucking knew!”
“Honey—” he says, and now that I know he knows everything, it fucking guts me and mortifies me all the same. I’m such a fucking loser and now everyone knows it.
“So what did I do?” I ask no one in particular. “I let him in again, and I lost my mind to the orgasms—”
“That might be more than I need to know about my boss—” he starts, but I’m on a roll. He might as well know it all because I’m done, with all of it, and there’s no going back now.
“I lost my head to the orgasms and told him I love him.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Oh fuck is right,” I reply with a nod. “You want to know why?”
“No, but I’m going to ask anyway, because it feels like it’s important here,” he says. “So why do you think it’s an ‘oh fuck’ moment?”
“I know it’s an ‘oh fuck’ moment, because when I accidentally told Gabe that I love him, he told me I made a mess of things and he’d deal with it when he gets back. So he left to clear his head, and I have no intention of being here when he graces me with a return.”
“Maybe that’s not so bad,” he suggests. “If he was going to scrape you off, don’t you think he’d have done it by now?”
“That’s kind of a harsh turn of phrase for the moment, don’t you think?” I snap.
“It’s not wrong either though, is it?” he snaps right back.
“It is, Eli. You know it is,” I tell him. “I have to go.”
“I’ll give you that it’s bad, but I’ll take you out. You don’t need to go with that jackass,” he says, waving his hand in the direction of the door.
“That jackass is my childhood friend,” I remind him gently. “The only friend my life has let me have time for.”
“There is so much there to unpack, but I’ll do my best. He also wants you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen,” Eli reminds me.
“Maybe that’s not so bad,” I repeat his earlier words. “Maybe I’ve wanted too much. Maybe I don’t deserve anything more.”
“Addie—”
“As long as I don’t fall in love, I’ll be fine.”
“Let me take you,” he begs. “I’m your friend.”
“I adore you, Eli. I need you to know that,” I say gently. “You have become so dear to me. I’ve never had a friend like you, and I hope you will still be my friend after today, but right now, I need to not be around anyone or anything that makes me think of Gabe.”
“And I will always remind you of him,” he prompts sadly.
“I think you and I both know that in life, in games of the heart, someone is going to have to be the loser,” I reply. “That loser is me.”
“Addie—”
“But it’s not you, never you,” I tell him. “If I don’t see you again, just know I think you should go get your girl. Don’t take no for an answer.”
“Honey, please—”
“I have to go.” I grab my bag and race out the door, leaving Eli scared shitless and definitely pissed—at Gabe.
“Ready?” Bobby asks.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He leads me down the hall to the elevator and pushes the button. The heavy doors open with a ding, reminding me of my heated night in Texas with Gabe, when everything changed and I truly lost my heart.
He taps the button for the parking garage, and we don’t talk as we ride down to where he has a car but then again, what do we have to say? We’ve kind of let this competition make a mess of our friendship. I’ve let it make a mess out of everything in my life. But that ends today.
The doors open again with a ding, and he leads me out to the parking garage.
This isn’t the main parking garage but a quieter floor above the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas Boulevard.
He beeps the locks on a generic rental, which is so unlike him.
Bobby usually goes for big flash when choosing a car, and if ever there was a place where he could rent a high-end sports car like it’s as common as renting a minivan, it’s Las Vegas.
I climb into the passenger seat and tuck my bag at my feet before buckling my seat belt. Bobby climbs in the driver seat, and we peel out. He’s always been kind of a reckless driver.
“What kind of ice cream do you feel like?” I ask.
I kind of want to mention I’d like mine with a side bottle of bourbon, but a hangover won’t help me win a race tomorrow morning and I don’t think he’d like to be reminded that I want to win.
Do I even want that still? Does it mean anything to me anymore?
“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “Let’s just drive and see what strikes our fancy as we go.”
“Sounds good.”
I feel my phone vibrate in my bag next to my foot, but ignore it.
I don’t care who it is. It’s probably someone in India very concerned about my soon to expire car warranty anyway.
That feels like the only level of human interaction I’m capable of right now.
Although I would appreciate the conversation about my car warranty, I don’t want to talk anyone.
Even this feels like a little too much. I wonder if Bobby would notice if I jumped out of the car at a red light and ran screaming into the night. That’s kind of what I feel like doing right now.
I look up and notice that while I was lost in my dark thoughts, we’ve left the touristy part of Las Vegas, and I actually have no idea where we are now.
The streets are considerably less crowded here.
Before, everyone on the Strip was probably hammered, but if I screamed there, someone would at least notice, right? Here, there is no one.
“Where are we?” I ask, worried. I glance at Bobby. It wasn’t long ago that the guys thought he might be a suspect, but he can’t be, right? He wouldn’t have blown up his own garage, would he?
Then I remember he got one of my dad’s top of the line cars with all of the bells and whistles as a replacement when that happened. Maybe I’m not as safe with Bobby as I thought I’d be.
“Don’t worry about that,” he says flippantly.
That is probably the last thing I need him to say to me right now, because I am worried about it. What if Bobby is the one who wants to hack me to bits?
I need to get to my phone, which thank God is ringing again. I lean down to reach for my bag.
“What are you doing?” he asks when he notices that I’m digging through my bag.
“My phone is ringing,” I answer honestly. “I’m just going to grab it.”
He stops at a light. “No, you’re not.”
And then he moves lightning quick and hits me in the side of the head with something heavy. I think I see a gun, but I don’t know. Pain blossoms out from my temple, and it’s lights out.
Everything goes black.