Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
My mind is restless, and my chest is fluttery as we continue to drive farther out of town. This is actually happening. I’m moving in with Lenox. I know I’ll have my own room, and hopefully it won’t be for too long, and I won’t have to interact with him too much. But… I’m moving in with Lenox.
There isn’t much out here. It’s a two-lane road and a whole lotta trees, and that’s it.
“I ordered clothes,” I say, hearing the breathlessness in my own voice and wishing my nerves weren’t so obvious. “I used your shop address for everything since I didn’t know where your house was.”
Lenox doesn’t respond, but he does shift in his seat, which tells me he heard me.
“I thought about packing up my LA townhouse, but then realized I still need it for when I have to be there for board meetings and Monroe things. Plus, I had nothing there that would fit winters in Maine. I didn’t think bikinis, T-shirts, shorts, or scrubs would cut it here. ”
“I have a hot tub.”
I belt out a laugh. It’s awkward as fuck, but mercifully he doesn’t comment on it. “Does L.L. Bean make flannel bikinis?”
“You didn’t order clothes from L.L. Bean.”
I continue to stare straight ahead, especially as we turn onto a random, unmarked dirt road that leads straight into the fucking woods. It’s like The Blair Witch Project . All I need is a camera and a runny nose, and I’ll fit right in.
“No. I didn’t. I ordered a lot of sweaters and fleece-lined leggings and cool warm boots and things like that. And a coat. A few coats, actually. As well as gloves, hats, scarfs, earmuffs?—”
He reaches over and places his hand over mine for a brief second before returning both to the wheel. “Do you feel comfortable driving a truck?”
“I’ve never tried,” I admit.
He’s so calm. How is he so calm when I’m freaking out? I shouldn’t be surprised. Freaking out isn’t part of his emotional repertoire.
“I have a Jeep too. That might be better for you.”
I’m about to ask why I can’t get a normal car when the dirt road turns into no road at all, and now we’re essentially driving along little more than a grass-covered path cut between the trees.
I could never do this at night without hitting one.
I’m positive of it. How he can tell where he’s going is a mystery to me.
There are no markings. We’re legit driving through the forest, turning here and there.
We continue like this for another half a mile or so and then creep along to a tall, thin, metal gate with signage randomly placed along it that says, Danger, High-Voltage, and others that say, No Trespassing.
“You have an electric fence?”
He clears his throat, and a few minutes later, we crawl to a stop, facing the fence. Lenox presses a button on his phone, and the gate opens, though I’d never be able to tell how he knew where the opening was.
“Lenox.” I gulp out his name.
“It’s okay,” he promises, though there is something new to his voice. A hesitancy almost. “I’ll explain everything. It’ll make sense when I do.”
I shake my head because I highly doubt that.
This isn’t normal. Normal people don’t live like this, and I’m not even speaking about weird normal people like myself.
People with too much money or who live like a Kardashian or even people who live totally off the grid and farm all their food and survive on rainwater and solar power.
All joking about his character and personality aside, this is actually Batman-caliber shit.
Like… how does this even exist in real life?
We pull through the gate that immediately closes behind us and continue on through the woods, with nothing visible past the dense foliage.
We amble slowly along, the truck jostling us about as it navigates through branches and the soft earth of the forest floor.
Then, after a few more tense, far too silent minutes, we hit a clearing and…
I gasp. “Holy fuck!”
This is not what I expected. Not at all. My hand covers my mouth, and I start to shake.
“Lenox.”
“I didn’t want to tell you.” He audibly swallows, and for the first time ever, I can see he’s nervous as he grips the wheel.
I shake my head. “How did you…”
“You showed it to me. Remember? You told me all about it.”
That’s because I was so excited about it. Only I didn’t know he was paying this close of attention. “And you built it?”
“I liked it.”
I can’t move. I’m hardly able to breathe. My trembling hand stays locked over my mouth as emotions I can hardly get a grip on spiral through me. “I can’t believe you built it.”
My sophomore year of college, I took an architecture elective.
Our semester assignment was to design and build on the computer our dream home.
Mine was a massive farm-style white house with a huge front porch, and that’s exactly what I’m staring at.
It’s as if Lenox took the schematics I designed and used them exactly.
Then something occurs to me .
“Did you hack my college computer for this?”
He pulls up in front and presses another button on his phone, and some of the interior lights turn on, but then he’s pulling around the side of the house and straight into the four-bay garage with an attached barn.
Just beyond the house, a little more than a hundred yards off, I catch a glimpse of what I assume is Lake Lavender.
Lenox shuts off the truck, immediately closes the garage door behind us, and hops out.
He never answered me, but as I climb down and then follow him inside, trailing behind Alice, who seems overjoyed to be home, I can’t seem to catch my breath.
It’s caught high in my chest, only to tumble out in a whoosh when I step inside.
Dark wide plank hardwood floors sweep throughout the entire space.
The kitchen, great room, and dining room are open to each other, and the family room is two-level with matching dark pillars above and a towering stone fireplace.
The kitchen is, well, my dream kitchen since it’s exactly as I designed it.
Huge center island, all top-of-the-line professional-grade appliances, beautiful marble counters, and a white farm sink. Even the lighting is what I picked out.
I can see there are other rooms off the great room, including one with a slightly different door and a touchpad above the handle.
The furnishings are all beautiful and expensive-looking but also cozy and inviting. A lot of soft leather and gray and cream fabrics. Five chairs surround his dining room table, and I don’t have to ask why there aren’t six. There are five Central Square boys and no Suzie.
Lenox is making himself busy, bringing in the bags from the back of his truck and getting Alice food and water. “I pictured all black. More like your shop. I didn’t ever imagine… this.”
Silence.
I turn, ready to challenge him, only to find his eyes on me from across the room, standing over by the stairs. “Do you want to see your room? I obviously didn’t have time to set anything up for you, but we can do that. We can make it anything you like.”
No. I’m not sure I can take it. “How many bedrooms are here?”
“Five,” he says, but I knew that answer before he even said it.
I cross the room to him and stare up into his cautious blue eyes. He’s so closed off. Shuttered up tight. “Did you hack my computer in college?”
“Yes,” he says simply, and fury strikes a path through me.
“When?”
“After.”
My fury morphs, taking on a new form. An anger so sharp and pervasive it infuses itself into my every cell. I want to pound on his chest and shake him, but I hold myself steady, holding firm to the few feet of distance I placed between us. “Why?”
“I can’t tell you. Not yet.”
Now I start to lose it. “Fuck you, Lenox! You hacked my computer and built my dream home. I’m entitled to know why.”
He runs a hand through his hair and closes his eyes. “I hacked it for this. I wanted to build this.”
Again, I go with, “Why?”
His eyes flash open. “What good is the answer, Georgia, when you’re not yet ready to hear it?”
I shake my head and cut the distance between us by half. “Tell me,” I demand. “You brought me here. You had to know I’d remember the house. You had to know I’d question you.”
His blue eyes darken. “I already told you I liked it.”
I shake my head. “Not good enough. Did you go through my laptop? Read anything else on there?”
“No. I may have morally gray ethics, but I never invaded your privacy. Not once. I never hacked your phone, and I never searched for your location, and I never went through your computer. This was the only thing I took when I left you.”
“ Why ?” I grit through my teeth, and I don’t even know if I’m asking why he left me or why he built the house or why I wasn’t important enough to him to snoop around.
“Georgia,” he says my name like a warning I have no intention of heeding. Only he has no intention of breaking. I see it in his eyes. The most frustrating part of this man is that I never know what he’s thinking unless he directly tells me and wants me to know.
“You left me. Why take this piece of me with you?” I don’t get it. As far as I knew, he cut all ties with me. He told me straight up the night he left that he’d never see me again. He meant it. Only the ghost of him was left to haunt me, and haunt me it did.
He straightens his spine and hovers over me, the heat from his body a sweltering furnace of acrimony.
“I let you go,” I snap. “I didn’t try to chase you, and I never planned to change your mind because I knew I’d never be someone you’d miss.
So why’d you do this?” Everything about us was tragic from the start.
I thought my love would be strong enough to help, to cure, and to fix.
But it wasn’t, and when I told him I loved him and saw his reaction, I knew no matter how much I loved him, it would never be enough to make him love me back or get him to stay.
But this? I didn’t expect this.
And maybe I’m making too big of a deal about it.
Maybe it is simply that he liked the design and nothing more.
Only it’s everything, down to the smallest detail.
He could have designed a house similar to what I showed him, but he didn’t.
He built my dream house, and if I don’t know why…
if he doesn’t tell me that I at least meant something to him back then, I might go insane.
I growl out in frustration when he still doesn’t tell me, and I decide maybe he’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t know his answers or dig into his mind. What difference will it make? The outcome will remain the same. Only I’m still about to go insane over this, and I need distance. Now.
I plow past him, jabbing my shoulder into his arm as I do.
“Do you need me to show you which room is yours?”
“I designed the fucking house, Lenox. I know my way around.” I start to storm up the stairs, only to stop when I reach the top, needing to say this now because I never got the chance, and if I don’t tell him, I’ll burst with it.
“I didn’t need you to love me back. I just needed to know I was more than a warm body to you, and when you left, you made me feel disposable.
That’s what hurt the most. It wasn’t even that you didn’t love me back.
It was that I was nothing to you. Two years, and I was nothing. ”
“You weren’t nothing, and you weren’t disposable to me.”
I laugh bitterly, tears stinging my eyes, and I hate him for them. I hate that even after six years apart, he can still make me cry .
“No? You sure fooled me.” I flip around and stare down at him from above. “If I wasn’t, then what was I to you? Just tell me that. Even if you tell me nothing else and we go back to hating each other or simply co-existing like two strangers in this house, just tell me that.”
Woodenly, he stares up at me, and I watch the inner debate unfold across his face. “I wanted to build you your dream house. Even if I didn’t think you’d ever get to see it.”
With that, he walks off toward that room with the touchpad door, and for a few minutes, I just stand here, his words ruminating around my brain like they’re trying to set up a permanent residence.
I wanted to build you your dream house. Even if I didn’t think you’d ever get to see it .
Fucker was right. What good did that answer do me?
All it did was poke at the scars he left behind, and I won’t allow those wounds to be reopened.
Shaking that off, I look around the second floor.
God, this place is massive. Far, far too big for one man.
Especially a man like Lenox, who strikes me as the keeps-to-small-places type.
I designed it so that the master sat in the largest room, taking up the entire space over the garage, and so I go in the opposite direction, tracking all the way down the hall to the last bedroom.
There are a lot of windows in here. The one straight ahead of me has a view into the woods, and the ones on my right comprises a wall of glass overlooking the lake.
The room itself is minimal, with a king-sized bed, two nightstands, and a long cobalt blue settee in front of the bank of windows that overlooks the lake.
It’s absolutely stunning, and I feel a pinch in my heart that I wish would just up and die already.
I try not to think about what he just said, and I certainly don’t allow myself to analyze it.
Instead, I go into the massive marble bathroom and take a very long shower.
By the time I come out, my things are in my room, my laptop bag on the bed, and my suitcase in the walk-in closet.
He waited till he heard the shower to do all that for me.
So avoiding each other is going to be the name of our game, and it’s finally one I’m down for playing with him.
I set myself up as best as I can in here, and eventually when my stomach starts to grumble, I go downstairs to find the door to what I presume to be his office shut.
Perfect.
Alice comes trotting up to me as I start to explore my way through the fridge, pantry, and cabinets and find not a whole lot.
“Ugh. Men. They never have the necessary staples, do they? If we’re going to be friends, you have to alert me when your master comes out of his Batcave.
I realize that might be childish, and I know he’s your people, but I don’t care. Deal?”
She gives me a sniff and a nudge at my leg that I take as a blood oath.
“Good stuff. We can chill then.” I rub the top of her head, and she nuzzles into me.
I make myself an omelet for lunch and eat it at the counter by myself, scrolling through my phone. I have a feeling this is going to be my life for the foreseeable future, and I realize I’m okay with that. I don’t need company. I can do this new life and find my own path on my own.
Even without the man who says he built this house for me, all the while thinking I’d never see it.