85. Chapter 85
Lindsey whizzed through traffic as if her life depended on it, not Graham’s. He couldn’t help staring. Who was this woman, and why was she so eager to help him after all the grief he had caused her?
She caught him watching her and asked, “What?”
“Nothing.” Graham chuffed a laugh. “The last time I went racing to an airport, it was on Jase’s bike. This doesn’t feel any less dangerous.”
There. The crack of a smile, and it was something.
Something how she pulled him off his bedroom floor, how she figured out what he’d been too stupid and too high to figure out himself.
Something how she found a flight he would just make if she kept her foot on the gas pedal and he sprinted to the gate.
Beyond the clothes he was wearing, phone and charger tucked in a pocket of his cargo shorts, and his wallet, Graham brought nothing with him.
The only thing he needed—the only thing he’d ever needed—was already in Austin.
Austin. Again. The irony was not lost on him that the last time he went to Austin he’d unceremoniously (okay, dickishly) ended things with Lindsey to be with Helen, and now Linds was the one bringing him back to the love of his life.
She was going to make some asshole a very lucky man one day. If his brother had any fucking sense, it would be Jase.
Graham rubbed the remaining crust from his eyes. They were always gummy after he smoked too much, and he’d burned through most of his stash today. It was no wonder he hadn’t realized it was his phone that cut off, not Helen’s.
“She really said she’d do anything?” Graham asked.
“She can’t live without you,” Lindsey confirmed for the tenth time. “Wants to have your babies, all that stuff.”
“She—” he choked. “She said babies?”
“No.” Almost a full smile as she goaded him. “You know this is it, don’t you? If she finds a flight and somehow makes it back, you’ll be stuck in Austin. If you do this, there is no money.”
“She can’t make it back,” Graham said. He’d had the day to resolve himself to the financial loss. “The money’s already gone.”
“And you really don’t care?”
“I don’t. I mean, I do. Of course I do. It’s millions of dollars, but…it doesn’t really matter without her.”
“Then we’re doing this.”
He studied her face, steely with resolve. “Why are you helping me?” he asked.
She flexed her white knuckles on the steering wheel. “It’s not supposed to end this way. At least one of us should make it.”
Signs for Dayton International were springing up. Graham tapped his fingers on his knee. He’d have hours of tapping, of nervous energy that thankfully wasn’t binding up in his chest—Luke might’ve known what he was talking about with the breathing—before he got to Helen.
“I texted Jase to call me,” Graham said. It shouldn’t fall to Lindsey to deliver the official bad news. “He hasn’t responded.”
The speedometer climbed above eighty. Eighty-five.
“Linds, when he finds out, he might not—”
“I know,” she said.
Stay hung in the car between them. Because Jase was the man who didn’t.
“You’re worth more than either of us could give you.”
Finally, a real smile. The speedometer slowly crept back down. “You’re not so bad. This version of you, anyway.”
He wished he could’ve been this for her. He really did.
“Hey, what was before?” she asked.
“What?”
“When we made your dad’s bed, we were talking about Jase having baggage, and you said, ‘that was before.’ What did you mean?”
Shit. He forgot about that. Graham rubbed his chest more from habit than pain, and said, “I told him he should cool it down with you, so you didn’t get hurt.” She glared at him, and he added, “He said it was too late for that.”
“Too late for that? What does that mean?”
“Watch the road.” He motioned to the slowing airport traffic she didn’t seem to notice.
“What does it mean, Graham?”
“I’ve never seen Jase with a…girlfriend…or anything,” he said, his chest beginning to constrict. “But he called you an anomaly. For Jase, that’s a pretty big deal.”
He counted through a few rounds of mindful breathing while stomping on an imaginary brake pedal. At the gate, Lindsey grabbed his seatbelt before he unbuckled it.
“Don’t mess this up, okay?” she told him. “Make sure she knows she’s worth more than the money and you forgive her.”
“I will,” he said, and she let go of the strap.
“He called me an anomaly, huh?” she asked.
Graham nodded and hoped it was enough for his brother not to break her heart. He reached across the Jeep and put his arm around her neck.
“I love you, you know,” he said. It was the first and only time he’d ever said it to her, and he meant it.
Her laugh was surprised and a little teary. “I love you too, you jerk. Now go get your finale.”
Finale. There wasn’t time to ask her what she meant. Graham kissed her and bolted out the door. He’d just make his flight, and in roughly six hours he’d be in Austin with Helen, exactly where he needed to be.