Awake (15 page)

-26-

Rodrigo arrives first. I see him parked down below waiting for the movers. I know why he is here. His presence will make sure the movers are extremely careful with the more valuable pieces of furniture, most of which were purchased by my stepmother.

My moving outfit consists of old shorts, an ancient tee shirt and no makeup. This is how a person should dress when moving boxes. In the previous few days I have noticed many girls moving out of the Ashton all made up in lipstick, mascara and sexy, tight-fitting clothes.

The absurdity of debutantes has more than once driven me to be as grungy as I know how and my last day on campus will be no different.

I fill a travel mug full of coffee and walk it out to Rodrigo.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says. “I was waiting to show the movers up to the unit.”

“Don’t be silly,” I say. “The least I could do for all the small favors over the years.”

He glances up to me knowingly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Rodrigo, I’m not a fool.”

“I know that. You are one of the brightest young people I’ve ever come across,” he says putting his hand to his heart.

“You did not report everything to my stepmother. In fact, I think you backed off many times to give me privacy. I appreciate that.”

He sips the coffee instead of responding.

“There were three things that I absolutely know if you had told Gloria she would have intervened and it would have been bad for me. You didn’t just protect me from the world at large, Rodrigo. You protected me from my parents and even from yourself I suspect.”

“I’ll call the movers,” he says. “They should be here by now.”

I punch his shoulder and he betrays a smile. “If I had to lose all my privacy to a big bodyguard goon, I could have done a lot worse.”

“I was and am always at your service, Miss Cassidy,” he says.

“What’s with this Miss business?”

“You are a graduate. I have mucho respect for that,” he says.

“Well, thank you, but don’t ever call me Miss. It makes me sound like an old spinster. I’m just Erin and you don’t work for me. You work for my father. You can think of me as your friend if you would like.”

He stares at me a long time.

I smile reassuringly because I never want him to feel bad for all those years he secretly followed me. The past is the past and he did an inglorious job with as much dignity as he could. I know that.

“Friends? I like that,” he says.

The moving truck slowly pulls up in front of the Ashton. I squeeze Rodrigo’s brawny shoulder and start to walk away. He opens his door and gets out of the town car.

“Erin, wait,” he says. “I am a simple man but I have learned one thing over the years.”

“Just one?” I tease.

“Love is not a choice,” he says. “In my experience, it always appears without your permission.”

Rodrigo does not think like that, does he? He’s supposed to be like a terminator bodyguard brick wall. I am not sure what he means. It will take some thought. I think it’s sweet he went outside of his comfort zone to tell me this. I begin to understand. He’s trying to protect me. Still.

“Always trying to take the bullet for someone else,” I say softly. “It’s very sweet of you, Rodrigo.” I don’t know why, but tears suddenly glisten in my eyes. Emotions are such pests.

“It’s true, Miss,” he says. “I’m sorry. It’s true, Erin, I meant to say.”

I wave to the movers and then turn back to Rodrigo. “You are a bodyguard until the end, aren’t you? Steadfast and true.”

* * *

The moving truck follows me through the gate and Rodrigo follows the truck in and we drive up the long driveway.

Gloria waits for us outside the open doors with the most endearing smile I have ever seen on her face. Perhaps the big house became boring without me there to undermine her harmony the past four years.

I park and let Rodrigo handle the movers.

My stepmother wraps me in her arms happily. “You’re home. You’re finally home,” she says.

“Really, it’s not a big deal,” I say. “I wasn’t in a Turkish prison.”

She smiles despite my sassiness and I am convinced she is trying out new pills from her Beverly Hills pharmacist. Just when I am thinking something strange must be happening, Kat walks out the front door followed by my father.

“Little Bo Peep has made it home,” Kat says and hugs me again like I am returning from a Turkish prison.

“What’s going on?” I say bending my face at Kat as daddy gives me a bear hug like it’s my birthday. Maybe he doesn’t know the Turkish prison hug.

“Nothing,” Kat says. “I had a few minutes between errands and raced up here to see how your move was going.”

“Okay,” I say not convinced. “It’s going good. We hired dudes.”

“Any hotties?” Kat says.

Gloria rolls her eyes.

“We had a good visit,” my father says. “Kat and I are becoming old friends after all these years.”

Twilight Zone time.

“I am so excited about your trip,” my stepmother says. “Memories of a lifetime.”

“Got to jet, there’s so much to do,” Kat says. “I can’t believe it. Bora Bora! How crazy is that?”

“Pretty crazy,” I say and watch her hurry to a car I don’t recognize. It must be one of Kip’s cars.

“We have Italian sodas on ice inside,” my stepmother says.

That actually sounds really good. It’s good to be home if even for a day before Kat and I fly to French Polynesia.

I hope they have something there for a broken heart.

* * *

We get to the international terminal two and a half hours early. Check-in is a breeze. The security line was not too bad either. Rodrigo tips his cap just as I enter the security check. I watch him walk away.

Kat wants to calm her trip butterflies and we need to kill almost two hours before boarding. We sit down at El Cholo Cantina for some margaritas and chips.

“I broke it off with Kip,” she says the second after her first sip of her lemonade margarita.

“No way. Why? You seemed to have chemistry.”

“He did everything I needed him to do,” she says cheerfully. “I am totally rebounded and at peace and ready to get back out there.”

“And Kip was not the one?”

She laughs. “Erin, come on. I would say he was a boy but he wasn’t even that. He was searching for constant highs. He wasn’t ready to come to terms with himself. They say he plays people, but he’s the only one he’s playing. It’s sad. Someday he’ll come out of it, but I am not about saving anyone or waiting for someone to find themselves.”

She lifts her glass. “Let’s toast. Save yourself is my new motto and find someone who can take care of their own shit too.”

We clink our glasses together to honor her words.

“I can dig it,” I say. “Bora Bora better watch out with you coming to town. It’s about to get a little bit freaky.”

She smiles but in a disconnected way. She takes another sip from her margarita and pushes it to the middle of the table. “I think I’m good with the booze for now.”

“That’s smart,” I say unsure of Kat’s mood. “We have a long flight.”

“The trip of a lifetime,” she says almost reflectively. “You know, ‘Rin, you are the best friend in the world.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Truly and absolutely,” she says. “I want this trip to be about you. This place is going to fix your soul and put a smile back on your face. I can’t see you with that painted on smile anymore. It’s breaking my heart. Let’s go find your joy again.”

Someone spiked her drink. I’m sure of it. “You think they have it in Bora Bora? My joy?”

“I’m betting on it,” she says flashing that big Kat smile followed by a sexy wink. “And I know everything about the place.”

“Ya think? You’re like a Bora Bora stalker.”

“Can you blame me?” Kat says. “That place is so fucking hot.”

“You totally want to do it with Bora Bora,” I tease.

“All night, baby girl,” she says.

“You’re stupid,” I say with childish vigor.

“You’re stupider,” she says.

I convince her to drink a beer so we can sleep on the flight. I am beginning to feel mild enthusiasm for this trip. Maybe Kat is right. Maybe she will help me find my joy in some lost and found in Bora Bora.

When we get to the gate the boarding has begun. Kat slips back into her odd but excited mood. I think the Kip thing is affecting her more than she’ll admit. We have an eleven-hour flight in which I can ply her with alcohol and get it all out of her.

“Erin,” she says with a sudden desperate tone. “Oh my God! I really need to pee.” She steps away from the boarding line.

“What?” I say confused. “You can go on the plane.”

“No, they won’t let me until like twenty minutes after take-off,” she says walking away from our gate toward the distant bathroom. “I’ll be quick. Trust me, Erin. Love you!”

“Okay,” I say waving her off and then glancing with concern back to the quickly disappearing boarding line. I go to the back of the line and devise a plan to delay boarding to buy Kat some time.

Time runs out.

“Ticket, please,” the airline lady says.

I exhale and fumble around the wrong pockets searching for the ticket to stall. “Yes, I had it right here. Where did it go?” I figure I will play dumb a bit and then if Kat’s not back I’ll try honesty to see if the lady can hold the gate open for her.

“Is this it?” he says at the exact moment I feel my ticket being pulled out of my back pocket.

Wade stands behind me holding three tickets in his hands. I am stunned and unable to react. He smiles at me and hands all three tickets to the airline lady. “Our friend was not feeling well,” he says. “She will be unable to fly today.”

“Wade?” I say. “What are you doing?”

“Your father suggested I watch out for you on this trip,” he says awesomely. “There are some nasty insects in Bora Bora.”

“My father?”

He ignores my questions as he takes the tickets back from the lady and she hurries us into the tunnel. “Your father and Kat devised this whole thing at the last minute. Who was I to say, no?”

“Kat?” I say as he takes my hand and we enter the plane. “She had her heart set on this.”

“Yeah,” he says. “She said she expects a rain check and then she said the words
Big Time
like three times in a row.”

We squeeze through the aisles searching for our seats as my heart swells and his sexy scent fills up my lungs again at last.

-27-

I’m awake in an overwater bungalow. The morning is just starting to happen outside the floor-to-ceiling window in our bedroom. The dark sky has been fading away to gray and now the blue is emerging over the impossibly translucent waters of this heavenly destination.

I have been watching this amazing transformation for a while now. When you wake in Bora Bora you need five minutes to convince yourself you are not dreaming.

Looking over at Wade’s smooth naked back as he sleeps does not help convince me this is real. If there is a heaven, my man could make an angel blush. I slide my fingernail softly down the barely-there valley that his spine runs through.

He shifts and makes a quiet, pleasurable sound that only Wade makes. I love the sounds that only he makes. His shoulder blades are such perfect human engineering. I kiss the closest one and now I think I have reached him in his dreams.

He eventually turns over and treats me to his bulging chest, rock-hard torso and sleepy smile. “Am I dreaming?” he whispers with his cracking morning voice.

I slide my hand under the sheet and answer him with his favorite response. I can feel that he missed me because he always responds quickly to my touch.

The bigger he gets the more vulnerable he becomes. It’s so fucking adorable I want to give him everything. Kisses, twists, slaps and tugs. I resist the overwhelming urge to go down and remind him who his master on this Earth is and will always be. I want to talk.

We arrived late in the day to the resort. We were exhausted. We showered and made love in the shower in the most manic and intense way I have ever experienced. For the first time I told him it was okay for him to take me as savagely as he wants.

This is not the safest offer to make to a man with Wade’s extreme physical blessings but I am all his now. He has to be able to reshape me to his hunger and need. Sooner or later I had to let my stallion run.

In the night when we woke, we made love as if dreaming. There were no words between us. Just touch. We wanted it to be a dream after so many heart-wrenching nights apart.

Now its morning and I need to know how we got here.

“Explain this to me,” I say in as plain a voice as I can muster while fighting back my intense physical desire.

“Your hand always makes me like that,” he says.

“Get real or I am taking my hand away,” I say with a serious tone.

“Okay, bully,” he says. “Your dad called me. He asked me if I loved his daughter.”

“What?” I say sitting up mortified.

“Yeah,” he says with a laugh.

I stare at him nervously. “And?”

“And?”

“And what did you say?” I say pinching his thick pride.

“Easy, there. I’m just playing. I told him the truth but not until I feared for my life for a few seconds.”

“What truth?” My heart starts racing. I let go of him and try not to touch him at all. I can feel my chest heaving as my lungs struggle to keep time with my need for air.

“What truth?” he says and stares at me with the innocence of a young boy. “The truth that I love you, that I have loved you ever since you sat down in my car that morning, that I have never known a love like this and I cannot imagine a life in which I don’t have you in my arms every night. I love you, Erin. I never knew what love was before.”

He drops his eyes shyly and I reach out to touch his chin and lift it so I can see his beautiful eyes. “Why so sad?” I say. “Isn’t it a good thing that you love me?”

“It’s the worst thing in the history of the world if you don’t love me too. I feel like tearing my skin away not knowing if you do.”

“You are such a sweetheart,” I whisper and kiss his forehead. “Don’t tear your skin away. It’s one of your best features. I loved you since that morning too, Wade. I love you with every cell in my body and every breath and every thought and every everything. I knew that my life would be forever reduced without you.”

“Why did you send me away?” he asks.

“They didn’t tell you?” I say.

“Yeah, they told me, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Love is scary. I was afraid of all the bad that could happen. I could not let my selfishness take my father down and create a scandal we would have to endure which we may never endure even now.”

“Your father needs nobody’s help,” he says. “He said he loved you very much and his fate is his own not yours.”

“What else would he say?” I point out.

“No one knows we are here.”

“And what about Kat? That amazing girl!”

“You have a really good friend in that one,” Wade says. “She went to your father and told him the whole thing. She knew the risks, but she didn’t care if you never forgave her. Your happiness was all that she cared about.”

Tears well in my eyes. He reaches out to touch my cheek. “Little one,” he says, “don’t be sad ever, okay?”

“I’m not sad,” I say barely. “I don’t know what I am.”

“I like that you are a mystery,” he says.

“I’m not a mystery,” I say. “I think I’m, I don’t know.”

“What?” he asks urgently.

“Happy,” I say. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

He flashes that Wade Donovan grin and I can’t help myself.

I push him onto his back and throw the sheets aside. I climb onto my man and stare deep into his eyes with such intense love that I feel more naked than ever before.

He puts his hands on my hips and causes a rush of pure joy. I feel him rising and needing me, my lovely boy.

“I was sleepwalking before I met you,” he whispers.

“Yes, I think I know what you mean,” I say but I’m already moaning through the words. I need him too much to talk.

Everything aches for him, body and soul, now and forever.