Goodbye, Orchid (Goodbye Orchid #1)

CHAPTER 1 TEMPORARY GROUND

TEMPORARY GROUND

Phoenix

Phoenix never believed today was goodbye. Even though hellos come with goodbyes. Like black holes and Stephen Hawking. Like doughnuts and doughnut holes.

But today’s goodbye wasn’t the end of something.

Orchid’s kiss, petal-soft, had changed everything.

That was last night. Today, she stood before him, in a leather-edged tunic layered over tights.

“It’s not too late to come with me,” she said, her laugh tinkling like the metal bangles on her arm.

She and Phoenix stood at the mouth of the TSA pre-check line before airport security, parting a stream of passengers.

Lodged like two boulders in a brook. Her flight was boarding in minutes.

“I’m not going to spoil your moment in the spotlight,” he replied.

She reached up for a hug. Her slender frame made Phoenix feel even taller than six feet. Yet, there was tenderness too. Mentor, I’m her mentor, he recalled, slipping from her embrace.

“Spoil my moment? You know I wouldn’t be going to China if it weren’t for you. You always encouraged me.” Her voice rose above the hum of conversations around them. Her lashes were ringed kohl black. Pale skin and ebony hair framed her dark eyes.

“Who, me? You did all the hard work. Stop giving me the credit you deserve. You’re going to be awesome,” Phoenix said.

“Thank you. Thanks for seeing me off.”

“How else was I going to get rid of you?” he asked, his voice oddly gruff.

“Shut up. I have abandonment issues, you know that.” She blinked, then her left cheek dimpled. He knew better than to think that she was joking. He wasn’t going to tell her, but if it came to it he’d protect her from a 787 Dreamliner crashing through the windows of their terminal.

Orchid tiptoed up to kiss his cheek. The edges of their mouths brushed. Crap. He stepped back and her hopeful expression came into focus.

“You better get going or there won’t be any China,” he said and released her elbow. It struck him that their stance mimicked Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, their hands nearly touching, as if heaven was in those millimeters between.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said.

“You have to. You have exactly ten minutes to get through security.”

She held his glance for a beat too long and opened her mouth. “This thing between us—”

He shook his head to stop her words before it was too late. “Don’t go all dramatic on me,” he said. What he really meant was, Don’t screw up our magic, the thing that keeps it real.

So real that she’d comforted him when he confessed it was too late to live up to Dad’s expectations.

Gone one year today. That had led Orchid to trust him with memories of the accident that had killed her parents.

The one thing they shouldn’t talk about was them.

Phoenix’s ex, tough mouthy Tish, had said it best. You break women until there’s nothing left, Tish had said as tears fell down her face. And she never cried.

“You better go,” he said, distancing himself from Orchid’s reach.

She looked at him as he soft-pedaled back, keeping the attraction between them at arm’s length.

Her mouth opened and closed. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

The previous evening validated every feeling Phoenix had suppressed since starting work with Orchid on a pro bono project months earlier.

Standing in the airport he recalled what his brother, Caleb, had said the first time he’d seen them together. “You two are hot for each other.”

“You’re going to miss your flight. We’ll talk when you’re back,” Phoenix said.

She sighed and ran a hand with rings on every finger through her silken hair. “You’re a piece of work, Walker.”

She used his surname when she was pissed.

“And you are a magnificent marketer about to wow the world of beauty. Now go,” he said, and watched as she passed through security to board her overseas flight.

Tish’s accusation rattled his brain. Orchid is not a woman I want to break.

Later that morning, after working out and showering, Phoenix pulled on a white button-down dress shirt and tailored slacks.

He was leaving his apartment to see Mom.

She was in town for some flower show. Or a color seminar.

And most of all, to be with her sons on the anniversary of their dad’s death.

Phoenix held the elevator door for Mrs. V and her dog. They chatted until the lift descended to the lobby.

“How’s Elton feeling today?” he inquired about her panting little terrier.

She told him about the pup’s joint issues. They walked out into the sunshine together. She bent to lift Elton’s paw in a miniature wave. Phoenix waved back, then turned right toward the subway station.

As he strode, he couldn’t stop thinking about Orchid.

What makes her so different? Did something shift when she confessed her secrets?

She had worked so damned hard to raise money for military vets; even when she couldn’t bear to see their injuries, it was like she felt their pain as if it were her own.

At the 86th Street station, he descended the steps two at a time.

Energy buzzed to his fingertips. Down below, the cavernous space echoed empty except for a homeless man seated on the ground.

This guy looked worse off than most. Phoenix fished for a rumpled bill.

The vagabond scowled over his bulbous nose at the lone single.

Phoenix was distracted by a square of paper that tumbled out with the money.

He walked towards the track and unfolded the note.

It read, I’m going to miss you more than you know.

Orchid had pressed a lip-shaped kiss print into the blank spot below the words.

He’d miss her too, until her return in six weeks.

At the edge of the platform, he punched up a song from Orchid’s playlist and plugged in his AirPods.

“Where have you been all my life?” wailed Rihanna. Indeed.

He stood without noticing his physical surroundings, lost in thought about Orchid. Sleek hair; slender; smart; strong. Orchid sparked tenderness and more. Like no one else he’d ever known. On a whim he texted Caleb, both thumbs a blur.

You were right about Orchid.

Eighty thousand pounds of steel mass squealed towards the station. Phoenix stepped forward. Rihanna belted out a ballad over the sound of metal on metal, “Are you hiding from me, yeah? Somewhere in the crowd—”

In his peripheral vision, he noticed a figure swaying towards the gaping hole in the ground. “Hey!” Phoenix shouted, turning as the beggar stumbled right for the open track.

Without thinking, Phoenix dropped his phone and bounded forward.

He grabbed the guy’s coat to pull him away from the blurred train speeding towards them.

The man jerked back. His bearded mouth screamed with fury.

For a moment, they swung with wild centrifugal force.

Suddenly, the guy yanked himself free. Phoenix tripped backwards.

His feet scrambled to find purchase. Until there was just air over the edge of the platform.

With a split-second to grasp at nothing, Phoenix crashed through the empty space to thud onto the track.

He could feel the train’s screech judder.

The sickening crush of steel slicing bone.

Fuck! He could barely breathe. The air filled with screams. He attempted to lift his head.

Except he couldn’t move. Broken until there’s nothing left, he wanted to say.