"Speak for yourself," I said. "I'm the good looking one."
"We're twins, asshole."
"Don't mean I'm not the better looking of the two of us." I turned to leave. He had a point about River, though. What the hell was she thinking? We'd been hanging out in the house, like we were goddamned honeymooners or something. Someone like her wasn't going to stay in West Bend indefinitely.
I'd been treating this like it was going somewhere, hanging around and talking to her like she was my girlfriend or something.
Shit, I'd found myself wanting it to go somewhere. I found myself wanting her to stay indefinitely.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ELIAS
"River," I called. Her rental car wasn't in the driveway, and the place was empty. I slid open the screen on the cell phone and dialed, but it just rang.
She'd probably gone into town for something, I thought. Maybe picking up something for dinner or something.
That's what I thought until I walked upstairs, into the bedroom, and looked around at her pile of clothes stacked neatly on top of the bureau, a note to June resting on the surface. All of my things were untouched, tossed haphazardly around the room where they'd been discarded when we'd stripped, too consumed with lust to give a shit about everything being neat.
I stood there in disbelief. She hadn't just left.
She didn't.
She wouldn't have.
She didn't even leave a note. Just one for June.
Then I saw the piece of paper on the bed, folded in half, my name written on one side. I opened it, feeling numb.
Elias,
It was fun while it lasted, but a fling is just a fling, right?
Everything has an expiration date.
Take care of yourself.
Xoxo,
River
I crumpled the note into a ball, tight in my fist, and threw it across the room.
What the hell?
A fling is just a fling?
Everything has an expiration date?
It was like the note had been written by someone else.
"Fuck!" I yelled in the empty room. "Goddamn shit fuck motherfucker."
It took some fucking balls to just walk out like that.
"Hello?" I heard June's voice downstairs. "Elias, is that you?"
I stomped down the stairs, still so pissed off I could barely see straight.
June stood downstairs in the entry to the house, her hand wrapped tightly around little Stan's.
"Hey, Elias," she said. "Is River here? I wanted to see if she wouldn't mind doing me a favor."
I let out my breath. "No, I guess she didn't tell you either," I said, my voice bitter.
"Tell me what?"
"She's fu-" I stopped, aware of little Stan beside June. "She's gone."
"What do you mean, gone?"
"Gone, gone," I said. "Packed up and got out of here."
"Oh, crap," June said, her hand over her mouth. "Oh no. It's my fault."
"What do you mean?"
"Mama," Stan said, gesturing toward his mouth.
"Here, sweetie." June handed him a sippy cup.
"Oh God," she said. "I shouldn't have shown her the article online."
"What article?"
"It's all over the news," she said. "I thought she would want to know, so she wasn't just blindsided by it."
"What article, June?"
"Her fiancé. Ex-fiancé, I mean. He's engaged to her sister."
I felt sick.
"I don't understand," I said. "She wouldn't care about what happened to Viper. Or I thought she wouldn't. Why would she just up and leave?"
June shook her head, her forehead scrunched up. "It doesn't make sense," she said. "She was upset, though. She sent me away, said she had to make a call. Oh my God, she probably wanted to book a flight or something, right?"
"I...guess." I was still reeling. The River I knew wouldn't have just up and left, walked out of this like it was nothing.
Did I really know her?
It was nothing.
A fling.
With a larger than life actress. Someone famous.
There was no way River Andrews was falling for you. A has been EOD guy. A fucking freak show. Yeah, River Andrews and an amputee.
Forget about her.
"Did she leave a note?" June asked.
"Not one that mattered," I said.
June was silent.
"What favor did you need?" I asked.
She shook her head. "It's Cade," she said. "He has to leave for a while. I wanted to see if River would help me out with Stan while I went to my doctor's appointment tomorrow."
"Is everything okay?" I asked, mentally preoccupied with River, until I saw the tears gathering in June's eyes. She didn't seem like the type to be a crier.
"It has to do with his club," she said.
"His club?"
"He used to be a member of a bike club in LA," she said. "Someone - one of his brothers - Crunch. He's...had a rough time." Her voice cracked. "He - some bad stuff happened when he was out here. Crunch is in trouble now. Cade would do anything for him, especially after everything that went down. It was horrific. He's headed out to LA tonight." She paused, blinking. "I'm sorry. I'm not a crying kind of girl. The pregnancy, it's making me emotional. He'll be all right."
"Cade seems like the kind of guy who can take care of himself," I said.
"He can," she said. "But the last time he was involved in club business, it nearly destroyed him."
"Well, I don't know about biker clubs," I said. "But I do know a bit about brotherhood. And loyalty."
"You're close to your brothers," June said.
I laughed, the sound bitter. "I was talking about my unit," I said. "EOD. Explosive -"
"I know what it is," she said. "Explosive Ordnance Disposal. You were in the Navy."
"Yep."
"I was too, once upon a time," she said. "Cade was in the Marines." She paused. "Funny how the people who aren't even your blood become family, huh?"
And how the people who should be the closest in the world to you were the furthest away, I thought.
"Are you going to go after her?" June asked. It took me a minute to switch gears, to even register she was talking about River.
"Why should I?" I asked. "She made it clear what she thought of me in her note."
"Thought you said the note was nothing important," June said.
"Nothing that matters," I said. "She said what she thought. Said there was an expiration date on us."
June looked thoughtful. "Huh," she said. "She seemed so sincere."
"Guess she's a really good actress," I said.
***
RIVER
"Champagne?" The flight attendant paused at my seat.
"Please," I croaked, my voice hoarse. When she returned, I took the glass, my hand trembling, and downed it in one gulp.
The flight attendant paused. "Another?" she asked, and I nodded. "Ms. Andrews?"
"Yes?" I whispered. I looked at her from underneath my sunglasses. I knew I looked pretentious, but I was beyond caring now. My head was pounding.
"Let me know if there's anything else you need," she said. "My daughter is just your biggest fan. She'll be thrilled to know that you were on my flight."
I forced a smile. "Would she like an autograph?"
The flight attendant beamed. "That would be wonderful," she said. "I'll get a pen."
I drifted through the rest of the flight, thinking about Elias. I felt like someone punched me in the stomach, my guts tied up in knots at the thought of going back to my old life.
It was cruel the way life worked sometimes, showing you how things could be, giving you a momentary glimpse of happiness...and then yanking it away once you'd tasted it.
I didn't know how I could go back to my old life.
I didn't know that I wanted to go back to it.
***
PART THREE
“Da
re to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ELIAS
"You've been moping around here for the past two weeks now," Silas said. "Showing up at the bar and shit. You don't even drink anything, just scare people off with your motherfucking depression."
"Fuck you," I said. "You're a bouncer. Scaring people off is a good thing."
"You even going to tell me what she said?" he asked. "You're so goddamn cryptic about it. You don't say anything about it. I have to find out on one of those gossip sites that she even dumped your ass."
"Nothing to tell," I said. "It happened like you said it would."
"Well, fuck that bitch, then," Silas said. "I mean, I wouldn't want to look at your ugly mug, but still, fuck her."
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," I said. "You gone out to mom's lately? Got anymore conspiracy theories about what's going on in this town?"
"I still maintain that shit wasn't an accident," Silas said. "But I'm leaving it alone. If mom whacked the asshole over the head with a rock, more power to her. He deserved it."
"Glad to hear you're finally being reasonable," I said. "Now if you can just convince mom to be reasonable."
"About what?"
"I don't know," I said. "She's got some kind of offer on the land. Wouldn't show me the paperwork. I told her she needed to show it to a lawyer, see if it's a fair deal."
"This is what I'm talking about," Silas said. "He dies, and she gets an offer on the property?"
I sighed. "They're not related, you moron," I said. "That developer is trying to buy up lots of property around here, some mining company or shit. Don't you read the shit they put out- the notices?"
"Fuck, no."
"You want to go by mom's this weekend?" I asked. "See if maybe you can talk some sense into her, get her to at least consider whatever they're offering her for the property. I'm worried she's going to miss the opportunity to cash that hellhole in for what she can get, and then she'll have nothing. I'm sure she's got nothing."
A dark look crossed Silas' face. "Can't this weekend," he said.
"What, you got something better going on?" I asked. "Don't even try to bullshit me, I already asked Roger and he said you're not bouncing this weekend."
"I just can't," Silas said. "Mind your own goddamn business, all right?"
"Fine," I said, standing up to leave. "But see if you can talk some fucking sense into her too. I'm going to go see her this afternoon. You're her favorite. I'm bad cop. You go play good cop."
"I'll talk to her when I get back," Silas said.
"Good."
I didn't know what the hell Silas had going on, but whatever it was, it couldn't be good. He looked like he was burning the candle at both ends, more so the past two weeks. The skin under his eyes was dark, and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
It better not be his conspiracy theories keeping him awake, I thought.
Of course, I doubted I looked much better either. Looking at him was like looking in the mirror.
Instead of sleeping, I found myself keeping tabs on River like some kind of celebrity stalker. At first, I'd tried to ignore everything that went between us, pretend like it never happened. But then I went home to my new house, the place I was renting, and all the damn silence got to me.
I should have gone to stay with my mom, but the thought of going back to that hellhole was too depressing, so I'd rented a place. And then, with too much time on my hands, I couldn't get my mind off of River, thinking about what she was doing now, what she was wearing, how she smelled...how she tasted when I put my mouth between her legs.
I couldn't get her out of my head. She'd taken up residence there, and wouldn't let me go.
She was on a movie set, some romantic comedy about a small-town girl and a famous guy. Ironic, that. Small Town Love was the name of it. Her movie studio had issued a statement - she was here in West Bend doing in-depth research for her film.
Real fucking in-depth.
I wondered if that's really all it was, between her and me. Research.
The gossip sites said she'd gotten a new place, cut her mom off financially. I was pissed as hell at her for leaving like she did,