Chapter 2
It’s like there’s a screaming gorilla in my chest, pounding at my ribcage, desperate to escape.
I manage to maintain a relatively normal pace down the hall, but as soon as I hit the stairs and am out of Tom’s view, I race down them like I’m running away from a ghost—the ghost of the person who shattered my heart into a thousand pieces, mashed it into the ground, then threw it into the trash.
Seventeen years, and not a peep out of him.
When I took this job, I’d just left a shitty relationship and was staying with Jude, helping her out in the shop while I wait for my friend Rachel’s new house in LA to be finished. Rachel and her husband are building a huge place with a guesthouse where I can set up home for a bit. There are good reasons to go to LA—not least, as Rachel said, that it would be a way to leave the past behind.
And yet my past is right here, smacking me in the face, while naked and clutching its balls.
At the bottom of the stairs, I don’t turn left to the kitchen where I can hear Maggie puttering about. I head straight for the front door.
Along with the job, Maggie offered me their guest suite that’s attached to the side of the house. Staying in Jude’s tiny apartment had been a tight squeeze, so being able to move here was perfect.
Perfect because Tom was three thousand miles away.
Maggie had mentioned he’d be over briefly just before Christmas for their eldest son Max’s wedding, but reassured me he’d be staying at Max’s place in upstate New York. So I knew there was no danger of me seeing him then. And since she’d already mentioned that he rarely visits the US, the chance of him returning before I’m long gone was almost zero.
And yet here he is, just three weeks later.
And not just here, but here and naked.
Holy shit, he’s grown into one fine figure of a man. Not that I haven’t seen pictures of him online—of course I read about how he started a music label in the garage of his other aunt and uncle’s house in London and turned it into a billion-dollar international empire.
And of course I’d looked at photos of him with famous bands—the images of a smiling, sexy global music mogul were lightyears away from the high-schooler I knew.
And he’s definitely not a gangly teenager anymore. His shoulders were always broad and square, but now they’re filled out with curves of solid muscle. His chest was always wide, but now his pecs dip into a valley dusted with the fine fair hairs that glinted in the morning sunlight on the landing. And his legs were always long, but now they have power and strength to them.
And God only knows how all the business he was holding in his hands has changed. I didn’t manage to get a good look before he grabbed the whole package as if he feared I was carrying a sharp knife.
I fold my arms across my chest, bracing against the cold air that instantly makes my eyes water, and trot across the gravel to my temporary home.
I’ve often run through what I’d do if I saw Tom again, what I’d say. These fantasies usually involved me being in a band he was desperate to sign and me defiantly refusing, or swishing away from him in a fancy dress at an awards show where I’d picked up half a dozen trophies and he’d won none.
What they did not involve was me yelling at his fully exposed form in the hallway of his aunt and uncle’s house about ghosting me. Nor him—weirdly, given the circumstances—sharing his apparently strong feelings about LA.
And they definitely didn’t involve me running away, angry gorilla in my chest, throat and eyes burning, to pack up everything and get as far away from him as possible.
But I guess seventeen years of carrying around a heavy heartbreak takes its toll.
I can’t be around Tom. I can’t. I can’t be around the reminder of how much he hurt me. I can’t be forced to look at him and know I can’t have him. Not that I want him. I mean, who in their right mind would want someone who treated them that badly?
I have to get away.
I hurtle through the door to the beautiful little guest suite I’d felt so lucky to have, but now can’t wait to leave, pulling my phone from my back pocket.
It takes my trembling hands a couple tries, but I squeeze out a text to Jude.
ME (09:23 AM)
Hey, sorry, last minute favor. Any chance your pullout couch is feeling lonely?
I drag two suitcases, one large, one small, from under the bed, slam them onto the mattress, and fling them open.
JUDE (09:25 AM)
Everything ok? Something happened? Sorry, Mom’s staying. Her place flooded. No way we could all squish in here.
My stomach plummets like an elevator with its cables cut. Shit.
She’s right, though. Her place is tiny. It was a relief for her when Maggie offered me this job with room and board.
Not that I believe the Dashwoods actually need me. The whole of this huge three-story house was spotlessly clean when I got here, so they obviously manage perfectly fine on their own. I’m sure Maggie made up the job on the spot because she could see things hadn’t been great for me lately and, being the lovely, kind, generous woman that she is, wanted to help me out.
And perhaps because she remembers mopping up more than her fair share of my tears when I kept visiting her after Tom left. I couldn’t stop myself from dropping by—being near her made me feel still connected to him somehow.
ME (9:26 AM)
No worries. All good. Will tell you everything later.
Fleeing three thousand miles to the other side of the country is now my only option. And even that doesn’t feel quite far enough. Hopefully Rachel can take me sooner than planned. I scroll to her name and call.
“Hey, sweetie,” she answers, puffing and panting. “I’m on the spin bike. Don’t mind the heavy breathing.”
I hadn’t even stopped to consider what time it is in LA. Thank goodness she’s an early riser. And early worker-outer.
“Hey, Rach.” I try to control my own heavy breathing—except mine’s from dread, fear, and possibly minor hysteria, not physical exertion. “Just wondering how things are going. With the house build and everything.”
I open a drawer, grab two stacks of T-shirts, and drop them into the bigger case.
“Oh, Christ,” she huffs. “Nightmare. They’re so behind.”
Fuck.
The dread inside me morphs into a rising panic. “With all of it?”
Maybe they’ll finish the guesthouse first. With it being smaller. That’s what construction people would do, right?
I open the next drawer and scoop out the underwear. Into the case it goes.
“Yup. Dev and I were there yesterday. The place is swarming with contractors. Not even all the drywall is up yet.” She puffs a heavy breath. “Shit. I’m never selecting this ride through French wine country again. There’s a surprise hill after the vineyards.”
I move to the closet and pull four pairs of jeans off a hanger. “Well, it is a ginormous project. I guess it makes sense the main house will take a long time.”
Please say they’re doing the guesthouse first. Please say that.
The jeans go into the case next to the shirts.
Rachel sent me the architect’s plans when she and Dev first had the house designed a year or so ago. It’s about ten thousand square feet, with a giant pool and a huge yard that has the guesthouse at the far end. The whole thing is on the side of a hill looking over the city toward the ocean. Stunning.
Rachel, Tom, and I all went to high school together, and she’s been my best friend ever since. She went to medical school and became a pediatric heart surgeon. Her husband’s a cosmetic surgeon to the stars, which pays way more than her noble work. Hence LA and the new giant spread.
She’s never lost touch with reality though, and she’s never lost touch with me. When I told her I had to leave my ex, she said that as soon as the house is finished, the guesthouse is mine till I get on my feet. And she talked me into making a fresh start on the West Coast. I wasn’t sure at first. But it turns out there’s more than one important reason to be in LA.
“So…” I hesitate a little. She’s already doing so much for me—I don’t want to appear greedy or ungrateful. “Any timeline?”
I can’t be stuck here with him. I can’t.
“Ha. You itching to book your flights?” She blows out a loud breath. “I hope so. Because I am itching to have you here.”
“Kind of…” Even I can hear the crack in my voice.
“That doesn’t sound good. What’s up?”
I clutch the jeans to my chest and slump against the wall. “You won’t believe who I just bumped into.”
“Surprise me.” She pants like a woman in labor. “I’m almost at the top of this fucking hill.”
“Tom.”
Her breathing stops. “You’re shitting me? Where?”
“Here. At the house.”
“I thought you said he hardly ever visits.”
“He doesn’t. And he was just over for Max’s wedding.”
“That’s weird then, right?” Rachel is ever the analyzer. “I mean, if he doesn’t come back much, why would he visit twice in quick succession?”
She’s right. The weirdness factor hadn’t occurred to me amid the shock. And the sweating. And the clenched gut. And the need to get the holy fucking hell out of here.
“Did you see his wife?” Rachel asks.
My stomach does one giant somersault. Shit. “No.”
My brain’s so addled by Naked Tom it hadn’t even occurred to me she might have been behind the bedroom door.
Heart racing, blood turning the temperature of an Arctic explorer’s extremities, I hold the phone against my ear with my shoulder and use both hands to resume yanking as many items of clothing off hangers as I can.
“I have to get out of here, Rach.” The words only just make it out of my tightening throat. I toss the clothes into the case without folding them, spin around and open another drawer, then another, my whirling brain unable to focus on what to grab next.
Seeing Tom has sent the bottom crashing out of my world. And now I feel like I’m tumbling down the rabbit hole like Alice, with no clue where I’m going to land.
“Hey, you’ll be fine,” Rachel says in the voice I imagine she uses when she tells parents terrible news about their kids’ health.
A male voice near her shouts, “Hey. You finished with that bike, or what?”
“Christ, are you at the gym?” Socks, underwear, I gather it all up. “God, sorry. I thought you were on your bike at home.” And drop it in the smaller case.
“Nope. The sale went through on the old place. Dev and I are in a hotel till the new house is ready.”
Shit. I can’t even ask to set up camp in their spare room. My heart drops to my belly, and both organs take a nosedive to my feet.
“You’ll be fine, Han.”
A sadistic creature is jabbing needles into the backs of my eyes while trying to inflate a beach ball in my throat.
I drop onto the bed between the two suitcases. “I don’t know how.” I sound pathetic. Like I’m sixteen and crying about him leaving all over again.
“You’re both adults now. Different people. Just be nice to him. Don’t yell.”
“Too late.”
“You already yelled at him? Told him he was an ass for vanishing to London?”
“Yup.”
She erupts in a hearty belly laugh. “You kill me.” Her tone changes as she turns away from the phone slightly. “All right. All right. I’m getting off.”
Then she’s back to me. “I got to go shower before work. Just relax. Make it easy. And everything will be fine. Be nice.”
“Nice? Easy?” My voice is weaker. The adrenaline rush of panic is starting to fade, leaving behind a crumpled version of myself.
“Try,” she says, as if it’s as simple as that. “It’s just two months, three tops, before our house is ready.”
Threenow? It might as well be three years.
“Then you can get on a plane, and this time you leave him behind,” she says with a note of triumph.
I drop my head into my hand and close my eyes. “I’ll try.” But I definitely don’t promise to succeed.
“Great! Love you, Han.” She blows a kiss down the phone and hangs up.
I’m stuck.
Fucking stuck.
Stuck here with Tom and his absurdly hot face. Stupid hot hair. Stupid hot shoulders and chest. Stupid hot legs. And whatever the hell the hotness was behind his hands. He certainly seemed to be fighting to contain a whole lot more than was there the one and only time I saw it. And it was hardly a bad show back then.
I look at the carnage in the cases on either side of me.
Suppose I’d better unpack.