23
EMERSYN
I sat shivering in the cold water. Tara had thrown her hands into the air and left, leaving me to sit alone in the spa.
I kept telling myself it was for the best that I’d fucked things up. Things were getting too complicated. Lines were blurred. It wasn’t good for me. And it wasn’t good for the story I wanted to write. Every time we hung out, I justified it by telling myself it was research, but the truth was I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even attempted to ask him a question related to the story. I was just fooling myself.
Sometimes I didn’t know why I did the things I did. But I knew I was desperate for him; that’s why I pushed him away. I was scared for Gabe to see me as the mess I truly was.
All this time, I’d made assumptions about the man I thought he was: pretty but arrogant, a shallow rich boy who, at his core, was nothing but a playboy jerk. But it turned out I was the jerk, not him. That was the real me—the real me who slipped out a little more with each sip. Maybe Conrad was right. Maybe no one could love me like he did. Maybe Conrad was what I deserved.
When I’d finally fallen asleep after he’d left the night before, my dreams had been plagued by him. His head had been between my legs, his tongue lapping at me as my fingers twisted in his hair. We were tangled together. I was breathless. Panting. I craved him. Thirsted for him.
I’d woken with my chest heaving, my heart pounding, moisture between my legs, and overwhelming sadness in my chest. Then the shame came. The shame of how I’d behaved the night before. The shame that I’d dreamed of him even after treating him like shit.
Frustrated with myself, I stood, letting the cold water drain off my body, and walked inside, leaving wet footprints in my wake. I was determined to put Gabe Thornton out of my mind.
Throwing a towel around my shoulders, I picked up my laptop and flopped onto my bed. I had a job to do. A purpose for putting myself through all this shit despite the headache thumping between my eyes.
Brandon’s profile was open. I’d opened a message but hadn’t written anything yet. He was online. With a deep breath, I started typing from my business account. I told him what I did. Shared a link to my website. I told him all I’d discovered and asked if he’d be willing to speak to me.
And then I waited.
I looked at my phone. Tara’s voice rang in my head.
Call him. Apologize.
I picked it up, my finger hovering over the call button, then threw it back down on my bed. What would I even say? For a moment, I considered feigning memory loss. I’d had an awful lot to drink. I could say I’d blacked out. I could say everything was a little fuzzy, a little blurry, and I couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. But that wouldn’t explain why I’d been so rude to him earlier. To be honest, I didn’t even know why I’d done it. A part of me had panicked. I just wasn’t sure why.
I picked up the phone again. I stared at the blank screen. But to call him would be crueler than what I’d already done. I needed to put my feelings aside. It wasn’t fair to Gabe to ask for any more from him than he’d already given. He’d poured his heart out to me, not knowing all the things I already knew. All the horrible things I’d already written. The secrets I’d kept. He didn’t know I’d only befriended him to get information on his brother. It was easier for him to think I was fucked in the head. Maybe he was right.
When I finally took my attention back to the laptop, Brandon had messaged back. He agreed to speak to me and had sent his number.
As much as part of me wanted things to change between Gabe and me, I knew it could never happen. I had a job to do. So I picked up the phone again, pressed in Brandon’s digits, and waited as it rang. He answered after the second ring. He was more than happy to tell me his story: the pain he’d suffered, the fear he’d felt, the way he’d been too scared to speak out, and how much he cared for his daughter even though he never got to see her anymore. He blamed Jake for that. He blamed Jake for everything.
According to Brandon, Amelia was already seeing Jake when she first discovered that her parents weren’t her biological ones. She’d been made to believe her parents gave birth to her when, in reality, it was the person she thought was her sister who was her mother. She hunted for Brandon and found him online, much like I did.
Jake had despised him from the start. He was a towering man. Intimidating. But despite that, Brandon agreed to come down and stay with them. He wanted to get to know his daughter. Jake wasn’t happy and made his feelings clear. Brandon wasn’t welcome, regardless of whether Amelia wanted him there or not.
He admitted to a few faults. He hadn’t been a father to her. He hadn’t ever been a father to anyone. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he tried. And for a while, everything was okay.
Then Amelia came into money. It changed Jake and made him even more determined to get Brandon out of their lives. He accused Jake of stealing money from her and followed him to a hotel. Admittedly, he was with a prostitute. (I couldn’t wait to tell Tara he thought that.) He acknowledged it wasn’t his finest moment. But there was no excuse for what he did next. Brandon’s voice trembled when he detailed his injuries.
Lacerations to the face.
Broken fingers.
Fractured nose and jaw.
Broken teeth.
Fractured clavicle.
Broken ribs.
Internal bleeding from a ruptured spleen.
His recovery was long and tedious. Amelia only ever came once to visit him. She told him if he ever told anyone the truth, Jake would visit him again. And she would make sure he didn’t stop like he did last time. She believed Jake when he told her Brandon stole the money.
Brandon tried to prove his innocence, but she wouldn’t believe him. She was too blinded by Jake. He’d fooled her. He was worried about what her life was like with him now.
He said Jake was a monster.
My mind traveled to the fight night. I could now picture Jake doing everything Brandon had accused him of, but it seemed impossible that Amelia, sweet tiny Amelia, could do what she did to her own father.
I quizzed him on it, coming at him from every possible angle I could think of. I questioned whether he really did steal the money, considering Tara had said he was throwing cash around, but he maintained his innocence, claiming it was merely winnings from a scratch-off ticket.
He didn’t want to make Amelia’s life harder, but he was worried about her living with Jake. He was scared of what Jake was capable of.
He said he’d claimed not to remember anything when the police questioned him. He was too scared that Jake would come back and finish the job. And despite his desire to know his daughter, he never contacted her again. He figured she was safer that way.
My mind whirred when we finally hung up. There was something dark about Jake Thornton. Something dark and broken. There was a lot more work to do to verify his story. I needed to go back to the motel manager, back to the barman, get permission to use quotes from them, and get evidence from the bar footage. I needed to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’ before I could publish a word.
“So?” Tara’s appearance startled me.
“So what?” I asked.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her arms folded across her chest as she glared at me. “Did you call him and apologize?”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It can be if you want.”
She didn’t understand, didn’t grasp the full extent of it all. Did she expect me to confess everything to Gabe? Did she really think he’d forgive me once he knew the truth?
“It wouldn’t work,” I said firmly, trying to shut down the conversation before tears threatened again.
Tara took a deep breath. “You’re so stupid at times.” She shook her head. “By the way,” she asked, stopping in the doorway on her way out. “How do we make the spa hot?”
“Plug it in and wait,” I replied.
“Huh.” She tipped her head to the side, then disappeared.
I glanced back at my notes. I needed to get the story down. I needed to get it out of my head while it was still fresh. Maybe then my head would be clearer. Maybe then thoughts of Gabe would stop plaguing me. Opening a new blank page on my laptop, I started to type.