“It’s not a big deal, Liam,” she says, her smile brittle and forced as she interrupts me. “You’re the guy who lives in a crazy fancy house in LA. You’re the guy who owns every new piece of technology that comes out. And you’re the guy who forgets he has a girlfriend when he almost dies until she returns home to call the girl you’ve been going down on adorable.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear. Then she lifts her other bag and tosses it over her shoulder as well.
“I’m way out of my depth here. I’m the girl who lives in the backwoods of nowhere. Wifi is spotty on a good day on my side of the lake. Our fanciest attribute in the home I grew up in is indoor plumbing. And for fun, we entertain ourselves in some rather disconcerting ways.”
“Kylie, I—”
“I’m always going to live in Tomahawk,” she says, interrupting me again. “I may travel on occasion, but at the end of the day, I’m always going to go back. Because my family is everything to me. My mother walked out. She left it all. Thought she was better than the place I call my home.” She gives me a dry look. “Then she forgot we even existed.”
I wince, knowing that was a jab. She doesn’t understand though.
“I’ll never do that to the ones who love me. And you and I are on completely different paths,” she adds.
She starts to move toward the door, but I’m blocking her exit. So she stops, staring down at the ground.
“What’s the worst that could happen if you stay one more week?” I ask her.
She looks up, and a grim smile tugs at her lips.
“Something terrible,” she says quietly.
I smile, cupping her chin, bending so that my lips are brushing hers. She goes stiff against me, so I don’t press her for more contact.
“What’s that?” I ask on a whisper.
She sighs heavily. “I could end up forgetting how easily you forget you have a girlfriend. And I’m not the kind of girl who shares or likes to be forgotten.”
My smile evaporates as my hand falls away, and she gets up on her tiptoes and kisses the side of my cheek, lingering for no longer than a second. I close my eyes, trying to tell myself I’ve only known her for three weeks.
Doesn’t change the fact this girl, who had no reason to give a damn, was simply the only person who did care when it mattered most. The only person who looked me in the eye when she spoke, instead of distracted by someone else. The only person who smiled like the world makes her happy.
The only person I’ve ever known like her.
“Take care, Liam. No more skydiving until you know how to work a chute.”
With that, she leaves, the sound of a car’s horn reminding me that I’ll likely never see her again.
I don’t turn around until I hear her rush to say, “By the way, I broke a bathroom window upstairs. I nailed it up with some wood, but you’ll need to get it fixed. At least now I don’t feel guilty about it anymore.”
Before I can get my head snapped around, she’s slamming the door, punctuating her departure, and I hobble back over to my room, where Felicia is lying on the bed, smiling at the screen of her phone.
“I just fixed your itinerary for next week so you can work or network from home, and made sure that party at the vineyard you had on your calendar was handicap accessible. You’re welcome,” Felicia says, acting as though this is just any other day.
I haven’t looked at my calendar in weeks, since I don’t actually work for a living. I just do a lot of networking and let people kiss my ass while I look down on them and judge them and sometimes give them money if I think they can make me more money.
Obviously that hasn’t been my life goal these past few weeks.
Gee, I wonder why I didn’t attract anyone real.
I’ve been just as fucking fake.
Felicia tells me about my Monday and what’s set up. She moves on to Tuesday, and lets me know I may can pencil in a movie night with her. She tells me about Wednesday, and asks me how good my French is.
I can’t speak French.
She moves on to asking me if I’ll be able to get out by Thursday because of a polo match, but I’ve started tuning her out, as I drop to the chair in the corner of my room.
This doesn’t even feel like my life anymore.
It feels like my life shattered on the surface of that lake with my leg, and something new happened. Everything else sank to the bottom of that lake that day.
“Jason and Jenny are in town next weekend. They want to know if you can get them back into Pierre’s restaurant. They loved the mousse,” Felicia states, cutting through my thoughts as she grins at her phone.