What a magic trick Lola had pulled, disappearing into thin air, reappearing in the backwoods of Missouri. She couldn’t run forever, though. At some point, she’d have to get a job, pay rent or a mortgage, charge things to her credit card like every other living, breathing American. He could wait in the wings, fading into one of her distant memories. He wouldn’t pounce until she thought she was safe.
He didn’t want to pounce, though, and he didn’t want to be a memory. He could picture her now, sleeping next to him in bed, opening her eyes every few minutes as if to check he was still there. What was real, and what had she faked? Lola in his bed, wearing that piece-of-shit nightgown he passionately hated.
Beau thumped his head back against the leathery cushion. Everything began to spin. He tossed the magazine into the seat next to him and switched off the light, praying he wouldn’t need that barf bag after all.
Face to face with the woman in New Orleans who was paying forward Lola’s favor, Beau’d never felt more like he was standing in ruins he’d caused. Lola didn’t want to be found. It wasn’t that he thought he deserved her anymore. The opposite, in fact. But that’d never stopped him from pursuing anything. He’d negotiated business deals with men even more powerful than him and regularly took on entire boardrooms. Yet the girl in cat ears unraveled him. He would always be weak when it came to her.
This wasn’t business. It wasn’t a game. Lola wanted him out of her life and after the way he’d treated her, she had every right. The way to love her was to respect what she was telling him, not demand that she do things his way. The couple had paid it forward, and now it was his turn. He could sit and think up a million ways to make her happy, but it wouldn’t matter, because she’d only actually left him one option—leave her alone.
The plane’s engines hummed him a lullaby, his consciousness circling the drain. He glided his hand over the smooth surface of the seat’s armrest. He could still appreciate her skin, the way she wore an evening gown, or had one ripped off. Thighs spread, tits pointed to the moon, firm but soft ass—and all this against the midnight hair on her head, between her legs.
Her eyelids would fall just as she’d catch her orgasm, never fully closing. She watched him watching her. Lola in her dresses, black and gold and peach. Turning her head over her shoulder and making eye contact with him. Smiling in the seat next to him at the theater, her polite applause. On the stage at Cat Shoppe, pirouetting around the pole in pink,
arched ballet slippers, legs bowed, arms bent. A female audience member turned to him. “As we begin our descent, please make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened…”
Beau walked out of the strip club into a desert, sand crunching under the soles of his dress shoes as he stepped over fat succulent plants. “Where am I?”
“Local time in Phoenix is 4:05 in the morning. The temperature is sixty degrees.”
“I’m not supposed to be here.”
“She knows that,” said a female voice.
“Who?”
A camera shutter clicked, a light flashed. He squinted across a canyon at a young Lola, four or five years old, as she shielded her eyes from the sun. The horizon rippled.
“How could you not recognize her?” Lola’s voice asked from behind him. “Your own daughter?”
He turned around. Lola stood in Beau’s kitchen. A little girl clutched her leg. They both wore leotards and ballet slippers, fabric bunched at their ankles. The child’s hair was as dark as her mother’s, her cheeks flushed pink.
“My daughter?” he asked.
“Isn’t that why you’re here?” Lola sounded angry. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here. You should leave.”
“But I’ve been looking for you.” She was trying to leave again. He lunged for her.
“Help,” she screamed, backing into a refrigerator. “Somebody help. Hello? Sir?”
Beau woke up to blinding fluorescence. He blinked up at the flight attendant, whose eyebrows were wrinkled with concern. “Sir? Are you feeling okay? We’ve landed in Phoenix. If you have a connection to make, you should go now.”
Beau sat up in his seat. He was sweating through his suit, his hairline damp. Someone had taken his empty glass and raised his tray. He rubbed his face, his stubbly chin. When he blinked, the little girl was there in her bubblegum-colored outfit, a carbon copy of her mother.
He hadn’t just lost Lola when he’d hurt her—he’d given up a life with her. Already, memories he’d never get were tormenting him. Beau stood and took his carryon from the overhead bin. The airport was midnight-quiet, Phoenix’s dry desert air in his chest, his throat. Choking him.
16
Beau straightened his tie and exited the town car. Even through his sunglasses, the California sun seemed excessively bright. Or maybe it was because of the pulsing in his head. Partway up the sidewalk, a car door slammed behind him.
“You can wait here,” Beau called back to Warner. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“I’d like to come with you.”
Beau stopped and turned around, curious. Warner didn’t ‘like’ to do things Beau hadn’t asked him to—or at least, he never expressed it. “Why?”
Warner shifted from one foot to the other. “The same reason you’re here instead of just sending me to pick Brigitte up. For support.”
Beau walked back until he was face to face with Warner. He removed his sunglasses to look him in the eye. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your behavior the past few weeks.”
Warner’s spine straightened as if trying to meet Beau’s height. “Sir?”
“Defending her behavior to me. Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. I should’ve suspected earlier. You’ve always been the only one who can stand to listen to her babble senselessly for hours.”
“If you’re suggesting I’m in love with your sister,” Warner said, hesitating only a moment, “you’d be right.”
“How long?”
“Years.”