6. Reed
A knock comes at the door.
It’s the second morning in the hotel. I’m hoping we might get news on our passports today. Yesterday was long and exhausting. It had felt as though the questions would never end. The interviews had taken all day, with breaks only to eat, and we’d all crashed not long after dinner.
I get up from where I’ve been lying on my back on the bed, arms folded behind my head, still reveling in the softness of a good mattress, and go to answer the door.
On the other side stands the woman representing the airline, Amanda Greer, a fake smile plastered across her heavily made-up face.
“Good morning. I hope you slept well.”
“Like a log,” I lie.
I actually slept like shit. I’m not used to having Laney and the boys sleeping in separate rooms from me. Every time I’d dropped off, I’d jerked awake again, my heart pounding against my ribs, the feeling that something was very wrong lodged deep inside me.
I wonder if they’d had the same disturbed sleep, and for the same reasons. We’re all grown adults, and it would have looked strange for us to have insisted on staying in the same room, but being apart feels wrong, too.
“That’s wonderful,” she replies, that same saccharine smile not budging. “We actually have a treat arranged for you all this morning.”
“What kind of treat?”
I’m automatically suspicious.
“We’ve organized for the four of you to have use of the hotel’s hair salon and spa facilities for the day, and we’ve also arranged for several local boutiques to bring in their personal shoppers and a range of clothes for you all to try on.
Whatever you like is yours—all on the airline, of course.
It occurred to us that you don’t have…anything. ”
She’s right; we don’t. The hotel has provided all the toiletries we need, plus towels and robes, but other than that, we have the clothes we’re standing in, which are the same items the loggers donated to us.
A new wardrobe sounds great, and I’m sure a decent shave and haircut will make me more human again.
I scrub my fingers through the length of my beard.
I’ve never allowed it to grow so long before.
I’ve almost forgotten what my face looks like beneath it.
“When is all this happening?” I ask.
“Whenever you’re ready. The whole team is waiting for you.”
“Have you told the others yet?”
“Not yet,” she says.
“Leave them to me. I’ll gather everyone together, and we’ll meet you down there.”
She clasps her hands together. “Wonderful.”
I close the door again, if only to give her time to leave, and then go to Laney’s room.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Of course,” she replies, but her expression is pinched, and there are dark shadows beneath her eyes.
I have to keep reminding myself that just because we’re out of the wilderness doesn’t mean everything is automatically all right again.
Laney—and most likely the rest of us too, but mainly Laney—have been traumatized, and that’s going to take time, and an expensive therapist, to get over.
“Did you sleep?”
She shrugs. “A little. The room felt weird. Everything was too loud—the traffic outside and other people moving around the hotel.”
“I know what you mean. It’s going to take some getting used to.” I fill her in on what Amanda told me.
She holds out both arms, displaying the way her t-shirt hangs off her like a cloak.
“I could definitely do with some clothes.” Her hands go to her hair, lifting a clump and letting it fall again. “And this is in desperate need of attention.”
“You always look beautiful to me,” I tell her.
I mean it, too. Every time I look at her, my heart seems to stop. Her beauty doesn’t come from fashionable clothes or a good hairstyle. It’s purely natural and comes from her heart.
I gather the others together.
Darius and Cade aren’t quite so impressed by the idea of a day at the salon, or spa.
“No one’s touching my hair,” Darius grumbles.
Cade scrubs his chin. “And I’m keeping the beard.”
“Do what you want,” I tell them both, “but you both definitely need clothes.”
They can’t argue with that.
Together, we make our way down to the first floor, where we discover a whole team of people waiting for us. We’re taken to the salon located on the same floor. The entire place has been dedicated to us. Staff stand around, waiting to get started.
The women and men who work at the salon are all dressed in identical whites, an emblem of the hotel on the breast of their shirts. We’re each handed over to a different hairdresser.
Laney shoots me a worried look.
“I’ll be right here,” I reassure her.
Within minutes, I find myself at a sink, in a chair that gives a massage, as my hair is washed several times and then given a conditioning treatment. The hairdresser massages my scalp like it’s the place he thinks I’m carrying most of my tension, and I have to admit, it feels good.
Before I know it, I’m whisked in front of a mirror, a fresh gown placed around me, and then the hairdresser is snipping away at my hair. Strands fall to the floor.
The whole time, I’m conscious of where Laney is.
She has a female hairdresser who seems to be chatting to her easily.
I watch for every smile, each flit of her gaze toward me that signals she might be uneasy.
All I want to do is protect her. It’s as though I have no other reason to exist on this Earth now.
When my hair is cut and styled, I’m moved to a different part of the salon.
Now a Turkish barber soaps my face, and the chair is reclined while he takes a razor blade to my throat.
It’s unnerving to think he could kill me right now, if he chose to, and I have to question my own mind.
Only a matter of a couple of months ago, I’d never have entertained such a thought, but now it feels more than possible.
I find myself clenching the arms of the chair, my knuckles white, until he’s done, and a hot flannel is placed across my newly bare skin.
I feel half naked without my beard. The skin beneath it is paler than the rest of my face, after being hidden from the sun from all that hair. I do feel more like my old self, though, more in control.
Automatically, I look for Laney again. She’s had a cut and a blow out, and her hair is now a silky soft sheet. The sight of her catches my breath, and I know I’m staring, but I can’t help it. Cade and Dax equally have their mouths open.
She spots me watching and touches the ends of her hair self-consciously. “Do you like it?”
“You look…incredible.” I have to remember that I’m playing the role of her stepfather when others are around. It’s not easy when all I want to do is drag my fingers through her newly cut locks and crush my mouth and body to hers.
Cade’s jaw hangs. “Well, fuck,” is all he can manage.
“Can I touch it?” Darius asks.
“Sure,” she replies.
Perversely, I’m almost jealous of my son as he gets to run his hands over her hair, pausing to twirl the ends around his fingers.
“I don’t think I’ve ever touched anything so soft,” he says.
She smiles, and I can tell how hard it is for them not to kiss. Everything that’s come so naturally between us over the past few weeks now needs to be curtailed, and we’re all struggling.
She leaves Darius to come over to me.
“You shaved,” she says.
“Technically, I wasn’t the one who did it.”
Laney places her fingers to my jaw. “I’d forgotten what you looked like without a beard.”
I angle my head. “Better or worse?”
“I like both.”
We hold each other’s gaze. “That’s good, then.”
Amanda Greer clears her throat, getting our attention. “The boutiques are ready for you now.”
The clothes have been brought to us, rather than us trying to fight our way through the reporters and general public and their cell phone cameras.
“Whatever you want is yours,” she tells us.
We’ll be traveling soon—I hope—so there’s no point in selecting more than we can pack to take with us.
My style is smarter than either of the boys, and I’m aware that I might need to make a public statement to the press at some point soon.
Darius tends to keep his clothes simple, and all in plain colors—it means he won’t accidentally choose something to wear that clashes—whereas Cade is purely casual, all t-shirts and jeans.
I check out what Laney is going for. She’s kept it casual, too—jeans, tank tops, sneakers. They’ve also been subtle about providing her with underwear, and even a swimsuit.
I wonder what the boutiques will get out of this.
Will they use it as a promotional opportunity?
The stores that dressed Darius Riviera and his family after being rescued from a plane crash?
There must be something in it for them, aside from the payment of the clothes, to make them go to all this extra effort.
Laney emerges from the dressing room. Her arms are spread wide, and she does a little twirl. “What do you think?”
She’s only in jeans and a top, but she looks beautiful.
More like her old self—not that I ever really got the chance to know her before the crash.
I remember sending a personal dresser to her room the night we saw Darius perform, all the dresses and heels I’d insisted she wear.
Why had I done that? She’d been grieving for her mother, and I’d made her dress up?
What the fuck had I been thinking? Now, looking back, I wonder how I could have been so coldhearted.
All I’d thought about was the impression others would have of her, how I’d wanted her to fit in.
I hadn’t wanted others to judge her outfit.
I could kick myself for it now. What a selfish prick I’d been.
I don’t think I’d even asked her what she wanted to do.
“You’re perfect,” I tell her.
I can tell the boys think the same.
Amanda approaches. “We’ll have everything wrapped and sent up to your rooms,” she says.
“Thank you. How’s it looking as far as us getting home?” I ask. “The hotel is a luxury, but we just want to get on with our lives now.”