Chapter Fifty
Caiden
I’m pretty sure I’ve refreshed the same vacation page no less than six times in the last ten minutes. Nothing has changed, but I find myself pressing that stupid little button repeatedly anyway, because that’s just what I do when I’m stressed. Which is apparently what adulthood is. Stress.
Well, that and expensive groceries.
Sighing as I press the refresh button for the seventh time, my thoughts go straight back to Maddie. Our apartment no longer feels right without her, and it doesn’t feel right sitting here instead of in her apartment. It’s too quiet, and I don’t like it.
Ryan is at the station handling updates with the police report, not trusting the police to notify us of their progress or a possible arrest since they didn’t deem us worthy enough to let us know Toby was released on bail.
Assholes. It would have been great knowing that little tidbit before Maddie went shopping without any of us.
Since Bax kept Maddie at his garage after seeing what happened to her car, and Rayne disappeared sometime after hearing Toby’s name again, I’ve been left to my own devices.
I’ve been trying to take my mind off my worry for my girl, sitting in the sparse living room and aggressively refreshing internet tabs while I try to plan a vacation for Maddie like it’s a military operation.
Because if I stop for even five seconds, I’ll start thinking about Maddie standing in a parking lot staring at her vandalized car.
That will lead to me wanting to commit crimes in the name of justice or vengeance, and I’m too pretty for prison.
So, instead, I hyperfocus on the task I’ve been working on since Maddie won that two-week vacation.
I’m balls-deep in flights, hotels, tours, restaurants, the whole lot.
I still don’t have a location in mind, so I’m opening tabs for all of the above for several countries currently in the running.
I’m pretty sure I have fifty-six tabs open, and roughly twelve of them are food-related.
I know my girl’s priorities, and food always comes before anything else, even photography.
I’m halfway through my list of pros and cons of taking Maddie to Thailand when I hear the shuffle of footsteps moving quietly into the living room behind me. I already know who it is before I check.
Rayne drops onto the couch while I continue typing furiously on my laptop, not saying anything at first. We sit in silence that stretches comfortably between us, which is normal for Rayne.
He doesn’t feel the need to fill silence with noise, more than content to sit blissfully among the peace silence brings, and I respect him for it.
Eventually, I feel him glance over at my laptop right before he asks, “You’re still doing that?”
“Doing what, my dude?” I ask without looking up from the screen.
“Planning a vacation to make sure Maddie doesn’t run off with another man,” he answers, and I snort suddenly, remembering that’s exactly how this whole thing started out. A plot to make sure we got to spend more time with Blue, preventing her from finding love with anyone else who wasn’t us.
Now, though? Now it’s turned into wanting to simply spoil my girl and take her on the vacation of her dreams, watching her with my own two eyes as she absorbs the beauty and culture of another country, as she fills her belly with food she’s never had before.
I’ve been itching to take her on a vacation she’d never forget ever since I told her I liked her in her office at Static.
Nodding in answer, I tell him, “Definitely still planning. Just stuck on the location at the moment. I have a few places in mind, but nothing seems to fit everything she’s looking for.”
Rayne falls silent again, and I leave him to it, knowing he’ll talk to me when he’s ready. When he doesn’t say anything for longer than I would have credited him for, I look over at him and cautiously ask, “You good?”
His expression shifts slightly, a thoughtful look crossing his face seconds before he says, “I’ve changed my mind.”
I frown. “About what?”
It takes a beat before he answers. “Korea.”
My fingers stop moving across my keyboard, pausing as shock renders me completely still.
That single word grabs my attention almost as quickly as Maddie does when she’s wearing short shorts and an oversized shirt with no bra, because I know how big of a deal it is for Rayne to even consider heading back to South Korea after all he went through with his father.
He was adamant we cross Korea off the potential list of places to take Maddie, but now he’s changed his mind, and I’m taking a page out of Maddie’s book.
Curious, I turn to face him, finding the guy already looking down at his hands quietly. I’m pretty sure he can feel me staring, but he doesn’t say anything, happy to sit in his own silence. Eventually, he finally says, “She’d love it there. The food, markets, all the shit she can photograph.”
A faint smile appears on his face, and I blink at the fucker, actually worried I might have walked right into the Twilight Zone or something. Who is this man, and what has he done with the real Rayne?
“She basically described Seoul when she last spoke about where she’d want to go,” he points out.
I can’t help my reaction, breaking out of my shock long enough to click my fingers at him and grin. “I fucking knew it.”
“She’d lose her shit in the night markets alone,” Rayne jokes, lips twitching.
I nod, baffled by this new change in him, but I answer with my own teasing. “How much do you wanna bet she ends up buying enough tiny trinkets to fill a suitcase?”
“I’ll put money on it. Wanna bet she gets emotionally attached to a street food vendor?” Rayne counters, and I actually laugh, knowing damn well our girl will one hundred percent grow an attachment to all kinds of things in South Korea.
Biting my lip as amusement battles with confusion in my head, I lean back into the couch and mutter, “What made you change your mind?”
The corner of his lip lifts a little, a soft look on his face I’ve never seen before as he says, “Maddie.”
There’s a long pause, and I think he’s not going to elaborate until he adds, “I want to show her where I came from. Not the bad shit, but enough for her to understand me a little better. And…”
He hesitates, and I wait patiently, already stunned by the amount I’ve heard Rayne talk in such a short amount of time. I don’t want to ruin it by putting my foot in my mouth and saying the wrong thing, so I button it and wait him out instead.
Sure enough, the silence drags on for a hot minute before he quietly admits, “I want to introduce her to my mom.”
I almost fucking choke on my spit, choosing to inhale at the wrong moment. I cough loudly, clearing my airways as best I can before I fully face Rayne. My chest grows a little warm, weirdly softening for the man, and I ask, “You serious?”
He nods once, and I know then how much it means to him.
“Can’t very well do that unless we go there, right?
If I could have had it my way, Mom would have been buried here.
Guess that’s the kick in the teeth I get for being young when she died, right?
” He snorts, an almost self-deprecating sound I don’t like hearing from him.
“Anyway, if you haven’t already cemented plans yet, I just wanted to let you know you can add Korea back to your potential list.”
I stare at him for maybe half a second before turning toward my laptop with a dramatic flair I know would have made Maddie proud. I tap away on my keyboard, swiping the mouse several times, before turning it toward Rayne with a beaming grin that makes his lips twitch again.
On the screen are several options for hotels, flights, and other shit I’ve looked over but discarded when Korea wasn’t an option. Now that it is, a whole new avenue of research has opened for me, and I’m already itching to get back to planning this shit.
“Brother,” I announce, actually excited now that we have a location in mind. “Looks like we’re heading to Korea.”
Rayne laughs. Like, actually laughs, and I damn near drop my fucking laptop. It’s small, but it’s real, and honestly? I’d book a vacation hop all through South Korea if it meant I got to hear my brother laugh again.
The next three hours go by in pure chaos, my vacation-planning hat planted firmly on my head.
With Rayne’s surprisingly helpful assistance, the guy points me in the right direction in terms of hotels, restaurants, tourist things, and everything in between, his knowledge of his home country serving us both incredibly well.
By the end of those three hours, we’ve booked three different luxury hotels in three different locations throughout South Korea, the flights have been booked and paid for, a private photography tour has been booked, and Rayne and I have compiled an awesome list of places to take Maddie within those two weeks.
We have an entire sheet lined with restaurants and cafés we know she’d like, several popular stores listed for her to visit, and a whole two weeks of sun, relaxation, good food, and a whole lot of fun mapped out.