My feet, though, were dead-set on another direction. Down the stairs. Toward my purse. Into the garage. Then toward my car. Into the driver’s side.
My hands joined in, clicking the button clipped to my visor that Lincoln had given me so I didn’t have to keep climbing out to plug in the code, grabbing the wheel, putting it into reverse, and getting myself the hell out of there.
In my barely-there pajamas at midnight, I decided against my apartment.
For two reasons.
David.
And now Lincoln.
I would face him when I could find some control, when I could put on a brave mask.
By my count, I had about eleven hours to master that.
And it would be something I would have to accomplish in the rooms at the closest hotel–an unsuspecting stucco place off the highway where the front desk attendant spared my outfit the briefest of glances before handing me a key, rattling off instructions on how to get to my room.
Once inside, I turned off my phone, threw myself onto the bed, and proceeded to spend the next several hours trying to find the right words to say to him when I saw him at the party.
After catching a scant forty-minutes of sleep, I showered, dressed in the spare outfit I had in my trunk, then spent a half an hour before the party standing in front of the mirror trying to force a convincing smile, one that masked the purple smudges that spoke of sleeplessness and the deep well of uncertainty buried within.
I failed.
But figured it would have to do.
I would have to face the music.
I would have to face him.
While surrounded by people who weren’t supposed to know that we were even in contact, let alone enough of it to have issues.
What could possibly go wrong?
FIVE
Lincoln
She refused to answer her fucking phone.
While the logical part of me understood that she was likely hurt, embarrassed, completely disinterested in speaking to me at all, the other part was irrational and freaked.
She’d left on her own, of course.
I’d heard the garage door opening, had booked it down the stairs, but by the time I got down there, she was nothing but taillights at the end of the cul-de-sac.
I’d run back inside, throwing on a shirt, grabbing keys, then taking off to try to track her down.
I had nothing planned, no right words.
Generally speaking, I never struggled with how to communicate with a woman. I’d spent enough time with them–both at work and in my personal life–to be able to figure out what to say to deescalate a difficult situation.
But I had nothing here.
What could I say?
I’d rejected her.
Without a reason.
And I hadn’t even been nice about it.
In my defense, it was hard to think properly when all your blood was located somewhere other than your head.
All I managed to think clearly was that it couldn’t happen. That I needed to stop it. That she needed to go back to her room.
So that was what I told her to do.
In retrospect, it was a bad move.
That was what I needed to tell her. That I was sorry for how I reacted, that I hadn’t been thinking clearly, that I should have found a kinder way of ending the situation.
And that she needed to come back with me, that the whole thing was not worth risking her safety over.
When I checked out her place, finding neither her car in the lot nor her lights on, that was when I started freaking out. Getting desperate.
I drove past Kai and Jules’ place. Which also happened to be across the street from Jules and Gemma’s parents.
She wasn’t there either.
I knew she had once had a pretty extensive friend network. No surprise there, given how easily she got along with everyone. But she’d told me herself a few nights ago that college had scattered everyone around the country, even around the world, and that no one really seemed inclined to maintain connections anymore anyway.
She still had friends, but they weren’t as tight-knit of a bunch as they once had been. Adulthood had unloaded a lot of responsibilities on them that sapped all their extra energy, their extra time.
So while she said they saw each other regularly enough, I didn’t figure any were the kinds of friendships where she would randomly show up on their doorsteps after midnight.
The last place I had to look was the office.
Even as I parked and headed inside, I knew I wouldn’t find her there, that she clearly wanted to get lost. To lose me.
She’d accomplished it, too.
Defeated, I had no choice but to head back home.
I didn’t give up, of course. I blew up her phone like the mother of a teenager three hours late for curfew as I drank bottomless pots of coffee and paced my fucking house until well after sunup.
I knew Gemma well enough to know there wasn’t a damn thing–least of all a somewhat uncomfortable interaction with a man she knew–that could keep her away from her niece and nephew. Especially on a birthday.