Chapter 32 Demi
Demi
The elevator dings, signaling we’ve made it to her floor of the hotel and we do that thing where you think the other person is letting you go first and then you pinball into each other, then proceed to repeat the cycle three more times until someone finally takes a step back and insists the other person exit first.
Yeah. Awkward.
And it’s been this way since she devoured me in the Gravity bar mid-day. I’m guessing it’s as confusing for me as it is for her.
We found Roxie and gave her Hayes’ car key, then bumped into a big ass, fully tatted bouncer that happened to come out of fucking nowhere before we left.
Now we’re here.
I don’t want it to be so awkward, and I know she doesn’t want me to leave, but I told her before we got in the car that it changes nothing. I’m going home. Now she’s the one acting like a petulant child.
We stop at her door and she frustratingly swipes her key card until the box eventually turns green and it clicks open. She turns the handle, pushing the door open just a little before looking over her shoulder and asking, “Will you come in for a minute?”
I inhale a slow breath, deep and steady. “Raegan, I–”
I’m interrupted with her hand over my mouth. “I just want to talk to you for another minute before you go. I promise I won’t keep you.”
My brows knit slightly as I exhale and nod. “Sure.”
We make our way inside and I’m surprised to see that she really doesn’t have much here.
“Where is all your stuff?” I ask.
“I didn’t bring much because I wasn’t supposed to be here this long. I’ve just been recycling clothes. I have my sister sending me some things, though.”
I want to be confused, but I’m just not. This, combined with the way she’s been talking and begging me to stay, only confirms what I’ve been suspecting. “You don’t want to go home.”
“Excuse me?” she scoffs, attempting to sound insulted, but her face and the way it’s twisting–like she’s hiding something–gives her away.
“You keep saying you want me to stay.” I cross my arms over my chest and cock a very accusatory brow. “But you don’t actually live here, Raegan. You live in Kansas City. The same place I’m going back home to. And now you’re having more stuff shipped here?”
She shuffles around the room, kicking her shoes off and shuffling random papers on the tiny desk, obviously avoiding my gaze at all cost.
“Why don’t you just go home?”
Slamming a pile of papers down, she turns to face me and yells, “I can’t go home until I sign the divorce papers. Every time I try to sign them, something happens and it gets forgotten or Hayes forgets them. I won’t go home until they’re signed.”
“Uh-huh.” We both know she’s full of shit. “So… why didn’t you sign the papers twenty years ago?”
Her eyes close and she purses her lips as she works to steady her breaths. When her eyes finally open, they’re swimming in unshed tears. I take a cautious step toward her, but she raises a hand that halts me in my tracks.
“When he left, I was so fucking angry with him. Angry and confused. I spent my days and nights trying to figure out why, after all the love we’d professed, he would do such a thing without a word.
” Lowering herself onto one of the queen-sized beds, she continues.
“My family spent months trying to help me out of that funk, but I’d lost the love of my life and he took a part of my heart with him when he left me.
Then I got those fucking divorce papers…
again, without a word. I don’t know why I didn’t sign them.
Instead, I threw them away. My best guess?
There was a tiny piece of me that was still holding out hope. ”
Fuck. “Cue the next twenty years,” I mutter.
“Yeah. I was doing good. I’d met you and we were doing well. My practice was amazing.”
“And then?”
“Then one night, I got a call from the Chicago deeds office, requesting my signature on a land purchase for my husband.”
“Let me guess… it brought up all the old baggage you’d locked away in a dusty old closet in your brain.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Tears are flowing freely down her cheeks now, as she tells me how she repeatedly ignored the deeds office calls, then eventually relented but refused to sign, therefore stalling Hayes’ land purchase.
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Raegan, he’s been working so hard to buy that land for Gravity.”
Her body stills for a moment, before she straightens her spine and swipes the tears from her eyes.
Her energy has shifted into something considerably less easy.
“So. What?” She punctuates each word, pausing to drive her point home.
“I spent years missing him. Wondering if he’d ever come back for me.
You know what? He never fucking did. Twenty painful, messy years, Demetria.
I lived the last twenty years without him.
So please… tell me why I should fucking care about some land he wants to buy behind his precious kink club.
Maybe it was petty, but if you ask me… he fucking earned it. ”
Jesus. I knew she struggled, but I don’t think I knew how deep her pain runs.
Unfortunately, I know why Hayes ran away from her. If she knew… I know it would change everything between them. Okay, maybe not everything. But I know it would change how she sees him. If nothing else, at least she’d know it wasn’t her fault.
“Did Hayes ever tell you why he left that night?” I don’t know why I ask. I know damn well he hasn’t told her shit. Stubborn bastard.
“All he’s said is ‘it’s complicated’.”
My face twists as I work hard to conceal my knowledge of the truth. Unfortunately–for me–I have a terrible poker face and she clocks it.
“Why? What do you know?”
Grabbing my phone, I glance at that blank screen and let out a fake chuckle. “Wow. Would you look at the time? I should get going. Thanks for… earlier.” Jesus, Demi. Could you be any less weird?
I move to stand but am met with a strong hand draped over my shoulder, pressing me back on my ass.
“Words. Now.” she tells me, her voice stern and unyielding.
“Raegan, it’s not my story to tell.”
“Respectfully, fuck that,” she spits. “What if he never tells me? Don’t you think I deserve to know why my husband left me in the middle of the night without a word?”
Fuck. Why does she have to say it like that? She’s not wrong. She definitely deserves to know why Hayes did what he did. It literally turns my stomach knowing the damage his father inflicted on him.
I squint and drop my face into my palms, pressing my fingers into my eyes to halt the tears that are now threatening to make this one big cry fest. All we’d be missing is a quart of superman ice cream.
When I finally lift my head, I stop thinking and just speak.