CHAPTER 18 ALEXIS
Well, if it had to happen, if we had to get caught, I guess it was perfect timing since we were leaving town anyway.
We’ll only be four short hours from Carmel, though.
It doesn’t feel far enough. We should’ve left the state.
We should’ve kept driving. We should’ve found some remote location where we couldn’t be traced.
But we didn’t, and now we’re here, on the run from my father again.
I’m sure he’s thinking this is just some game to me, but it isn’t. It’s my life.
It’s giving Danny and me this time together that we’ve never had before. It’s bonding us closer as we start our life together.
It’s allowing me to breathe when I feel like I haven’t been able to for my entire adult life.
It’s freeing, and it’s magical, and it’s…
It’s starting to make me question my priorities. My goals. My dreams.
How important is a Grammy and an Academy Award in the same year, really?
It’s a nice goal. A nice aspiration. But is it even my goal and aspiration? Or was it coded into me by my father…like everything else?
What do I really want out of life?
Because the more time I sit beside this man, the more I think…it’s him. It’s what we have. It’s what we share. That is what I want out of life. More time with him. More sex. More restaurants. More showers. More kisses. More laughing. More sunsets. And maybe even…kids?
But filming, recording, touring…those are the things that will drag me away from him.
And I don’t want to be away from him ever again.
I realize that’s neither logical nor feasible, but this has been the best few days of my life. I’m not ready to see it come to an end.
But time barrels down on us.
We spend the night at the hotel, scared to go out in public. Scared of getting caught. Scared that somehow we’ll be tracked.
Maybe by his phone. Maybe we should ditch it, but it’s our one link to the outside world now.
It’s our way to order food, and his location is off unless we need to turn it on for any reason.
And even in that case, it would take time for my father to figure out our location based on that—he’d need a warrant, or subpoenas for phone records, and all that takes time.
I’m sure the winery just up the road is beautiful. I’m sure I’d love to sample the selections in the tasting room and head out to the fields to enjoy a tour.
But fear rules me here. We just need to stay off my dad’s radar for a couple more days so we can get to San Diego and get married.
I think about telling him we should move up the wedding date, but we’ve already got too many pieces in motion to change train tracks now.
So we put on a movie that neither of us pays attention to, and we make love, and we fall asleep early. In the morning, we head out.
We stop at some hole in the wall diner for breakfast, where we have greasy bacon and eggs, and it’s fantastic. I go without make-up and a hat pulled down low, and we’re able to eat undetected.
It’s amazing how easy it is to blend in when I’m trying to blend in.
Nobody in here knows that Alexis Bodega is sitting in the booth by the door. Nobody in here knows that the man sitting across from me won the World Series just a few months ago. Nobody here is looking for us.
Nobody in here knows that we’re on the run from my dad, and we’re heading toward our secret destination wedding, and then we’ll return to our lives and…
And then what?
I’ll go back to filming after the new year.
He’ll need to start training soon.
His season will get underway in February with Spring Training.
I’ll have another album to record and then the tour to promote it and the press junket for the movie.
We’ll be apart again.
I’ll be stuck with my dad and Brooks again.
It’s not what I want.
I let out a heavy sigh as the waitress clears away our plates.
“You okay?” Danny asks from across the table.
I lift a shoulder. “Not really.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m not, either.”
I purse my lips. “Why not?”
“Let’s talk in the car,” he says, and I nod.
We get up to leave, and once we’re in the car, I ask again. “Why aren’t you okay?”
“Same reason you aren’t. We have five days left together, and then…it’s unknown.”
I nod, and I reach over and touch his forearm. “I don’t want it to end, Danny. I don’t want to face whatever comes on Christmas Eve and after.”
“I don’t, either. But we’ll do it together. That much I know. How do you think your dad will take the news?” he asks.
“I have no idea,” I admit, and a sudden thought occurs to me.
“I can’t help but wonder why he wanted this so badly.
He never mentioned it before, and then all of a sudden, it was his only focus.
Forcing me to marry Brooks? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
He never wanted to sell the company or merge or whatever.
He built Bodega Talent from the ground up.
” I wrinkle my nose as I think through it all.
Something isn’t adding up, and I was too caught up in the shock of it all to question it before.
“Do you think…” he begins, but he pauses. “Nah, never mind.”
My brows dip. “What?”
He seems to weigh whether or not to go ahead, and then he does—another sign to me of how much trust lies between us. “Do you think something underhanded is going on?”
I don’t answer right away as I think through my answer. “Like what?” I finally ask.
“I don’t know. But you think it’s weird he’d want to merge. Do you think maybe Brooks is up to something?”
I think about Brooks for a minute. I’ve known him for a long time now, but I’m not sure I really know him, which was part of my reservation in marrying him in the first place.
“He seems so…I don’t know. Clean cut or something.
I can’t imagine him lurking in the background tapping his fingertips together as he plots our demise. ”
Danny chuckles at the image. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Have you heard anything further on your dad?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It’s only been a few days. Chloe said she’d call me as soon as she had something, and maybe she just…doesn’t have anything yet.”
“Don’t you feel like the walls are closing in on us?”
He shrugs. “We’re pressed, for sure. But at least we’re pressed together now. I don’t see my father doing anything with that tape. I think he’ll come calling for more money before he does anything, and he’s been quiet the last few days.”
“Doesn’t that scare you?”
“Nah,” he says. “Spiders scare me. My father?” He sticks out his bottom lip and shakes his head. “He’s already done his worst to me. Anything else…we just deal with it.”
“I guess you’re right,” I murmur, not as convinced as he is.
But the truth of the matter is, I can no longer act like I’m scared it’ll hurt my brand.
Not when I’m doing the exact thing he has evidence of. Not when I ran out on my wedding.
Not when I’m about to marry the man I love.
Not when nobody knows where we are—something I’m shocked hasn’t hit the news already, which tells me my father is keeping all sorts of lies alive to protect me even though I’m certain he’s furious with me.
The public will find all that out soon enough, and then that tape will be as good as garbage anyway.
We just have to get through the next forty-eight hours, and then we’ll be married.
But then what?