12. Seth
TWELVE
Seth
I carefully prop Mae’s ankle on a pillow, trying not to let my hands linger too long on her soft skin. I can’t help but feel guilty for bringing her all the way here, only to have her get injured. At least we were with Hayden when it happened, and he was able to wrap it up and give her some pain meds. He’s a doctor and said it was just a bad sprain. She needs to stay off of it for a few days, but hopefully that won’t stop us from enjoying our time in New York. We’ll find a wheelchair or something for her later, but for now, she should rest.
“I’m sorry I ruined the trip,” she says sheepishly.
I shake my head. “It’s not your fault. And besides, I can’t believe that asshole ran over your foot.”
I sit next to her, and she nuzzles into me. Flashes of the afternoon fly through my head. This is all my fault. I was the one who called Tristan back because I was annoyed with his stupid flirting, which I knew wasn’t even real. If I had just let go of my anger, none of this would have happened.
But at the same time, I’ve been trying to stay away from Mae. Her father bringing her asshole ex-boyfriend back into the picture made our situation all too real. He’s determined to keep us apart and will do whatever it takes. I can’t risk ruining Dad’s business over a girl, even a girl that I love.
I gently place my hand on Mae’s cheek and turn her face toward mine. Her eyes, still glistening with hints of pain, meet my gaze.
“I’m so sorry. I just wanted Abi and you to have a fun time for a few days because you’ve both been working so hard.”
She leans closer to me, her fingers entwining with mine. It’s unusual for her to be so touchy-feely, but I know it’s just the strong pain meds she’s on. After Hayden bandaged her up, we stopped at a pharmacy, and he got her a prescription.
“I’m not dumb. You did all of this for me, not Abi,” she says.
“Of course I did it for you. I just brought Abi along so Keith wouldn’t get suspicious.”
She turns to face me, her expression serious. “You don’t really know all of me though, do you?”
“What do you mean? I’ve known you your whole life.”
Her hand runs through her hair nervously before she speaks again. “There are many things you don’t know about me.”
I want to tell her all the things I do know about her: Like how she misses her mom even though she never talks about her. Or how pistachio ice cream is her favorite dessert in the whole world, which the rest of the world finds gross. She puts up with riding horses with Abi because Abi loves it. Her favorite color is sky blue, and she’d rather be in the water than lying out in the sun. She loves to read, and she and Abi have a secret book club that they think I don’t know about. But Abi and I share a Kindle account—something I’m positive Abi doesn’t realize. I’m the one who set up my parents’ Amazon account so I could send them things, and I got Abi that Kindle for her birthday the year she turned twelve.
“I know about the book club,” I blurt.
She blinks at me.
“What?”
“I know about the book club and the naughty books you and Abi read.”
Her face flushes. “I won’t even ask how you know that, but Abi and I are adults.”
“You’ve been reading those books since you were fifteen.” I try to keep the disapproval out of my voice. More than once I’ve thought about confronting Abi about it.
“And they’ve served us well.”
“None of that is realistic.” I read a few of the romance novels, just to see what Abi’s reading, but mostly I stick to thrillers and sci-fi.
A grin forms on her face, and she dissolves into giggles. Then she pulls out her phone and shakes her head. “Might as well start with the books.”
She shifts back over so she’s not looking at me, but curls up against me so we can both see her phone. She opens up her Kindle app, and her finger hovers over a folder titled “Education.”
She spins to face me, her face inches from mine. “You have to promise me that what I’m about to tell you remains a secret. With the exception of a few people like me, no one else knows this. Not Abi, not my dad, not anyone.”
I desperately want to kiss those lips, but I have a feeling this is too important. Instead, I settle for kissing her forehead. “I promise.”
She bites her bottom lip. “And you also have to promise not to make fun of me.”
“I can’t promise that.” I raise my brows at her. She’s really got me intrigued now.
“Seth.”
I’ve never noticed before how much I enjoy hearing my name come out of her mouth. “Okay, fine, I promise.”
She spins back around, and her finger hovers over the folder again. “It’s only named this so that if Abi got ahold of my phone, I know she’d never open that folder because she’d think it was for school.”
This has to be big if she hasn’t even told Abi. “You know, the suspense is killing me.”
She finally presses on the folder, and the screen is filled with book covers with blue, green, and purple man chests.
“The colors are a bit unusual.” I take her phone and scroll through the books. The titles all have one thing in common. “They’re all about aliens.”
“Yes,” she squeaks.
“I still don’t see how that’s different from the unicorn romance phase you went through.”
She groans. “Those were awful, but Abi loved them.”
“I did not want to know that.”
She closes the folder and opens another one titled work. The books in this folder are more recognizable. Hard-core sci-fi novels. I’ve read a fair few, but most of these seem to be centered on alien life as well.
“You like aliens?” I ask, still a little confused.
“I’m obsessed with aliens, and I have a very active imagination. That giant satellite dish is visible from my bedroom window. Anyway, when my dad realized Mom wasn’t coming back, he sat me down and had a long talk with me about how she felt stuck in this small town, and she couldn’t take it anymore, and so she left. I always thought she’d keep in touch and have me come visit her and stuff, but to this day, no one knows where she went. So I sat in my window and imagined that she’d been abducted by aliens because no mom would just leave her child like she left me. For a long time that kept me going.”
She takes a couple of deep breaths, and I don’t say anything. I want her to feel safe continuing. I squeeze her hands, and she gives me a small smile. I wish the search I did for her mom had given me more conclusive answers.
“I read everything I could find on alien life forms. When Abi found out about it, she made fun of me. We were only ten. So I buried it. And I’m glad I did too. In sixth grade, during our annual tour of Green Bank, there was a SETI seminar going on, and I snuck into it. There, I met the lead scientist. He and I talked for nearly an hour before my teacher found me and said we had to go back to school. He gave me his card with his email address, and we kept in touch. Dad worked a lot, so I would sometimes ride my bike over to Green Bank and just sit in the room with the SETI scientists while they worked. They’d give me odd jobs to do, and I learned a lot.”
She pauses, and I don’t know what to say. This is a whole side of her that I didn’t know about. I find her brain dead sexy. As if I needed another reason to love her.
“I have no idea why you might think I’d make fun of you for this.”
“Aliens, Seth, aliens .” Her voice is laced with irritation.
“Sounds more like astrophysics to me.”
She sighs. “Therein lies the problem. It is astrophysics. I wanted to major in that at school, but I’ve always been horrible at math and science. Even with tutoring, I barely passed Algebra 2 in high school. After pretty much failing out of a whole semester of college algebra, I realized I had to choose something else. I’m a natural marketer. It comes easy to me, and I’m very good at it, so that’s what I did instead. But I don’t love it the way I love space.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me. Anything else about you I should know?”
She snuggles deep into my side. “Loads,” she says, her voice heavy. The meds must be catching up to her.
I send a quick text to my travel agent and ask for any alien or space-related activities in New York City. Within a few minutes, he sends me a link to an immersive deep space exhibit at a museum and an alien-themed restaurant in the city. I glance at the time. If we leave now, we can do both and still make it to the show with the others. I send another text to the car company I use and request a wheelchair as well.
“What are you doing?” Mae suddenly asks. I thought she’d fallen asleep. “You promised not to tell anyone.”
I plant a soft kiss on the top of her head, my heart fluttering at the touch of her silky hair. “I’m not. We’re gonna get out of here.”
“But my ankle,” she protests weakly, gesturing to her swollen joint.
“I ordered you a wheelchair,” I state, determination fueling my words.
“Seth, it’s not about that. I just want to stay here with you.” Her pleading eyes almost make me cancel the car.
“If we stay here, you know what’ll happen,” I tease, a smirk playing on my lips.
“Oh, I know exactly what will happen.”
“Ah, but we have to keep our relationship platonic.” I remind her with mock seriousness.
She pouts, her bottom lip jutting out in a way that makes me want to nibble on it. “I’m tired of keeping it platonic.”
“We can’t risk it,” I say regretfully. Forty-five years of friendship between Dad and Keith would just disappear overnight.
“It’s so frustrating though.”
“Whisper Springs is a prison,” I blurt, regretting the words as soon as they leave my mouth. I know how much she loves that place.
Mae’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “But what about your plans? I thought you were going to take over your dad’s business.”
“Did you forget about India? You said you wanted to go with me,” I say.
“Yes, but you seemed to be settling in so well. I assumed you canceled the whole India thing.”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, avoiding her gaze. “I came back to fix things, but I can’t stay there forever. I need to get out and see the world.”
“But who will run the business?” Mae asks skeptically. “It’s only you and me right now doing the actual overseeing. There are lots of people doing other things, but this running the show, that’s all you and me.”
Her words hit me hard because she’s right. I haven’t sat down with any of my brothers to show them what we’ve been doing.
“I’ll figure something out,” I mutter, not wanting to think about the weight of my responsibility.
I can’t shake off the feeling that Mae never wanted to leave that small town. I had always assumed she shared my dream of escaping Whisper Springs and starting a new life together. We could always go back for visits, even extended visits, but I don’t want to live there full-time.
My phone buzzes with a message from the hotel concierge. “Car’s here. Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a secret,” I say with a smile as I reach down and sweep her into my arms, careful not to jostle her ankle.
“Are you planning on carrying me all day? Not that I’m complaining, just curious.”
I chuckle. “No, no. The wheelchair is waiting for us downstairs, remember? But for now, let’s enjoy this.”
She rests her head on my shoulder as we walk through the opulent lobby filled with chandeliers and marble floors—a far cry from Whisper Springs. As we exit the hotel, leaving behind the possibility of messing things up, I can’t help but feel a pang of disappointment.