Chapter 67
IF YOU CAN’T FIND LOVE BEHIND BARS, WHERE CAN YOU FIND IT?
Oliver
Jail is both exactly what I expected and nothing at all like what I expected.
There are metal bars to this one.
Daph and I are in separate cells, but I can see her.
It’s been hours since her father showed up in the parking lot, and my adrenaline is finally fading. Probably close to sunrise by now, though there aren’t any windows or a clock to judge by.
Daphne’s pacing.
I’m stretched out on the hard bench.
No toilets in the cells. Maybe that’s a prison thing.
The deputy who checked us in—so we could calm down while they investigated our stories about our real identities, he said—told us to tell him if we need to use the facilities.
He’s in a room outside the cells, visible through a large glass window.
I lift my head and glance around, then ask a question I probably should’ve asked when we were first put in here. “They have video cameras in here?”
“Yes.”
We’ve both been pretty quiet so far.
But not talking to Daph is starting to bother me. “So I shouldn’t compliment your form?”
“Oliver.”
I smile. “You promised new experiences, and you definitely delivered.”
She looks at me, and it’s like our roles have been completely reversed.
She is now the adult in our relationship.
She’s the one who knew what to say when the deputies started going through my car and found a suitcase of cash. She’s the one who knew what to say when they realized my ID was fake and she didn’t have any.
And she’s the one trying to keep me from making this situation any worse.
Not that I’m overly concerned.
Money can buy its way out of situations like this. Even when money’s fighting with money.
But I suspect enough people got my fight with Tobias Merriweather-Brown on video—including all of the things Daphne said to him after the deputies restrained me—that he won’t be able to hide from his part in it.
Namely, the parts where he insulted Daphne. Where he tried to cut her to the bone.
The parts where you can see that me punching him was justified.
“Everything will be okay,” I tell her.
“We’ll be all over the internet. Everyone’s going to see.”
Yeah. Thought about that.
Gonna make next week harder. The board won’t be as inclined to listen to a CEO who got arrested for punching a supposed friend while running away.
And that has another thought cementing more firmly in my head.
“Daph?”
“Yeah?”
“I have to go back. To Manhattan.”
Her face drains of color.
“You don’t,” I say quickly. “You shouldn’t go back. You shouldn’t ever go back. Not where I’m going. You should go home. Be where you’re happy. But I—there are things I need to handle myself.”
She grips the bar of her cell, which is across the hall from mine, so I can’t even touch her. “It’s bad for you,” she whispers.
“It is,” I agree. “But I need to leave it the right way. Not running away. I need to take ownership one last time.”
“Oliver—”
“I was going to settle somewhere west of the Mississippi in a flyover state. New name, new identity, pay whatever I had to pay in back-alley channels to get set up in a small town where I could meet my neighbors and get a job mowing grass or popping popcorn behind the ticket counter at a movie theater.”
“You didn’t know where you were going? At all?”
“Everyone would expect me to disappear to a beach in another country.”
She drops her forehead to the bars, a small smile playing on her lips. “I honestly thought you were going to Mexico to pretend to be an Italian banking executive.”
“And you wouldn’t be the only one. Hence, staying in the US, but in some obscure town I’d never heard of before, because if I’d never heard of it, I never would’ve mentioned it, and they wouldn’t have the first clue where to start looking.”
“That’s brilliant.”
“Thank you. I hope it’s the last brilliant thing I ever do.”
She laughs a little. “You would love Simon. He’d say the same thing.”
“Daph?”
“What?”
“I’m looking forward to meeting him. Bea too. And her brothers.”
Her eyes blink open, and she stares at me. Her face puckers under all of that glowing red-orange hair with her new dye job, and her eyes go shiny.
She doesn’t say a word, but she doesn’t have to.
I can feel it.
The hope.
The love.
The desire.
“I don’t need to keep looking for where I want to live. I already know.” My voice is getting thicker.
This isn’t how I should do it.
I shouldn’t tell her I love her while we’re in jail.
But I want her to know—I want her to know I want her in my life.
“My home—it’s kinda close to the city,” she says. “Comparatively speaking.”
“Doesn’t mean we ever have to go there.”
“But they—they can come to us.”
They.
Her family.
My family.
My family that I need to tell, to their faces, that I’m done.
With the company.
With the expectations.
With them, depending on how they take it.
“They’re all stupid billionaires,” I remind her. “They can go wherever they want. And they won’t come to us. They’re too caught up in their own lives to care that we’re happy living ours.”
She sinks into a squat, hands still on the bars, and keeps staring at me. “Falling asleep in your car was the best fuckup of my life.”
I swing to sitting, then cross the small cell so I can squat at her level and be as close to her as I can get. “It wasn’t a fuckup.”
“I don’t want this to be a Hindenburg principle either.”
The way she can make me laugh while we’re in two different jail cells—this is the kind of happiness I’ve been searching for my whole life. “Only one way to find out.”
“What if you hate it?”
“I have my serial—my, ah, hunting lodge in Pennsylvania.”
Her eyes nearly cross, and then she’s laughing. “You are not what I expected.”
“I’m not sure I’m what I expected either, but I like this me. And we’re only getting started.”
“Oliver—changing your entire personality—”
“I’m not changing my personality. I’m letting myself be who I want to be. I’ve always wanted to stick queso in your ear. I’ve just never been brave enough to do it when I knew it wasn’t what a Cumberland is expected to do.”
“What else do you want to do?”
“Sleep.”
She laughs again, then wrinkles her nose at me. “After you sleep.”
“No clue. Whatever sounds fun. New. Different. Normal. I want to change the oil in a car and plant flowers at a house that has no more than seven rooms in it. I want to sleep in a hammock in my backyard. I want to get a dog. Maybe I’ll wash windows.
Maybe I’ll go to school to learn to be a chef.
Maybe I’ll watch all of the movies I missed when I get a job as the popcorn maker at a theater.
Other than continuing to give away most of my fortune, I don’t know what I want to do.
I want to try everything until I find what fits.
In a place I like. With my favorite people. ”
“How many favorite people do you have?”
“One so far. But she’s pretty fucking iconic. It’s like having seven favorite people.”
She blinks rapidly, her smile wobbling, and she sucks in a big breath. “Oliver, I—”
“Good news, Ms. Merriweather-Brown.” The door to the office area slams behind the deputy. “Your attorney and your sister have both assured us you won’t cause any more trouble, and your father is declining to press charges, so you’re free to go.”
He saunters between us and uses a key to open her door.
She stumbles to her feet, glancing between me and the deputy. “Margot called?”
“Your attorney called. Your sister’s here.”
She looks at me again. “What about Oliver?” she asks the deputy.
The guy looks between us, then back at the window. “She said she was only here for you.”
Shit.
Shit.
“I’m not leaving without—”
“Daphne.” I shake my head. “Go home. I’ll be okay. I’ll see you in a week.”
“Oliver—”
“Go home,” I repeat. “Go be where you’re happy with the family you love best. The road trip’s over. We’re made. And I have some things I need to clean up when I get out of here.”
“I don’t want to—”
“Daph. It’s okay. I’m okay. I need to know you’re okay, and here? This isn’t where you deserve to be.”
Her brown eyes blink rapidly while she studies me. “Okay. Okay. You’ve got this. You can survive on your own now.”
“One week. I’ll come find you.”
She glances at the window, and I do too.
Margot’s there.
She has her back to us, and she’s on her phone, but she’s there. That’s her hair. Her posture. One of her pantsuits.
“She loves you,” I remind Daphne. “Trust her.”
“Let’s get a move on, Ms. Merriweather-Brown,” the deputy says.
Daph looks at me once more, her eyes filling with tears that she blinks away with a forced determination that demonstrates how strong she’s had to be and how much her parents always underestimated her.
“A week. I’m holding you to that.” She presses a kiss to her fingertips, then brushes it against my knuckles, and then she leaves the jail without another backward glance.