Good luck with that, man. You’re already screwed, and you know it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Brenna

 

“You’re visiting LA, aren’t you?” the woman in the seat next to me asks.

If you fly enough, eventually you’ll be seated next to a talker who insists on engaging in conversation no matter how deep your nose is buried in an eBook.

I set my e-reader down. The woman next to me appears to be in her early thirties and sports a tan that, short of using chemical sprays, I’ll never hope to achieve.

“How’d you guess?” I ask.

She shrugs, flipping a length of silky blond hair over her shoulder. “You’re all Sex and the City high fashion—love the boots, by the way.” She gives my knee-length floral print boots an appreciative glance. “Whereas if you were from LA, you’d be wearing couture loungewear and sneakers on the plane.”

I can’t help but smile, given that she’s wearing pale pink couture loungewear and pristine Pumas. “I’ll have to go shopping for some good loungewear while I’m there.”

“I have a boutique on Melrose.” She hands me a card that conveniently appears in her hand. “Stop by, and I’ll hook you up.”

So, this is a sale. I tuck the card beneath the protective cover of my e-reader. “Thanks…” I move to read again, but she keeps talking.

“You visiting someone? I’m Valerie, by the way.”

“Brenna. I’m going for business.”

Valerie sighs and takes a sip of a now-watery pink cocktail resting on her seat tray. “I went to New York to visit a guy. Thought he might be the one, you know? The sex was off-the-charts good.”

I nod, not wanting to talk about sex but not knowing how to end this conversation without coming off as totally rude. It never fails to amaze me how some strangers will tell you anything about their lives.

“We’ve been going back and forth, visiting each other for a couple of months. We started talking about maybe picking a coast and making it permanent. But when I got there this time, he was like a totally different person, all distant and cold. He insisted nothing was wrong, it was all good.”

Her eyes go wide as if she’s imploring me to understand. And I do, because I’ve heard some version of this story before. I’m beginning to think almost every woman has lived it at least once.

“Last day, he’s all, ‘hey baby, I’d love to cuddle, but I’m not feeling so good, you think you can run on down to the pharmacy and get me some aspirin?’”

“He told you he had a headache?” I find myself asking in rising outrage.

She nods, her nostrils flaring in remembered annoyance. “And like a sap, I was so sympathetic. Of course, I’d get it for him. Only the fucker insists that I have to go to this one pharmacy twenty blocks away.”

“No.”

“Yes. Oh, and he wanted soup from a specific deli too.”

I turn in my seat, leaning in so Valerie can speak her pain without being overheard. But she doesn’t seem to mind anyone else hearing. In fact, her voice rises. “Took me nearly two hours, and when I got back?” She pauses, lifting her hand as if to say she needs a moment. “That fucking fuckface was kissing some skank goodbye at the door.”

“That was…” I struggle. “Fast. And…wow.”

Valerie sits back with a huff and toys with the toggle on her hoodie. “He wanted to get caught. I swear, they all want to get caught. It’s the easy way out for them.”

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. I’ve seen the wreckage of too many failed relationships, and nothing anyone says seems to take away the pain. This is why I avoid them. Why risk the hurt when the majority of people out there are total assholes?

“I’m sorry I wasted money on these stupid trips,” Valerie mutters then snorts bitterly. “Long-distance never works. Never mind, I keep picking the man version of low-budget cling wrap—the ones who claim they’ll hold on tight but then slip and slide away the second you relax enough to let go.”

I laugh, but a niggle of doubt creeps over my skin. Am I a female version of cheap cellophane? I never try to hold on to a lover. I always find an excuse to let go, get away: they weren’t right for me, fatally flawed in some way, I was too busy, I didn’t need them. Looking back on my various attempts at relationships, I can’t say I missed anyone or regretted ending things. But it still bothers me. Because the fault can’t all have been with them. Part of the problem has to be with me.

Doesn’t it?

Why is it so hard for me to find someone I want to stick to?

Unbidden, Rye’s face rises up in my mind. He’s full-on smirking, one brow quirked like he thinks I’m full of it. Annoyed, I bat the image away. It doesn’t silence his voice in my head, telling me that I can lie to myself all I want, but I’m still running.

I’m not running this time. It’s a legitimate trip. A trip to see if I’ll take a job that moves me out of his life.

Because Valerie is right; long distance never works. If I give up Kill John, I’ll have to give up…God, am I really thinking of quitting my boys? Quitting Rye? I can’t. I cannot.

Crap. What I cannot do is think about this anymore. I won’t be able to function.

“I’m asking for some champagne,” I say to Valerie. “Do you want one?”

She perks up. “Sure. Why not?”

By the time the plane lands, and I’m in the back of the town car I hired, I’m fairly buzzed and overly warm—because champagne is evil that way. My head aches, and I hate all the traffic.

New York has horrible traffic. I’m fairly certain it makes most visitors cry in panic. But LA is a different kind of hell. In New York, you can bail and walk, take the subway. Here, you’re stuck in the car until you get where you need to go.

The sun is too bright and hot. I have no idea how anyone would voluntarily want to walk down the overly exposed sidewalks. When the car begins to snake up Benedict Canyon, the movement making my stomach roil, I’m cursing LA and wishing I were back in New York.

I swallow thickly, breathing through the pounding pain in my temples. My period is knocking on the door, and I am regretting the timing of this trip already. I should have waited.

The car pulls up in front of a gate that must be twenty feet high, and the driver stops. “Is there someone to buzz you in, miss?”

“I got it.” I’m already tapping the code into the app Rye sent me. The gate slides open, and the car makes its way up a long drive that hooks around a sharp bend. Mature olive trees with lacy little silver-green leaves flank the drive and provide both welcome shade and privacy.

The house doesn’t appear until we round the bend. Low-slung and L-shaped, it’s a massive modern structure of steel, expansive windows, and honed wood.

Finally, the car stops, which is a blessing. I’m not going to make it another minute. I grab my bags, wave the driver off, and head toward the house.

The front door is fifteen feet high and made of wood stained a rich, warm brown. It opens with surprising ease, and I find myself inside the soaring space that’s both cool and light filled.