“Yeah, well.I think that wall needed some architectural detailing anyway.”
Dred stood and dusted off his jeans.Shit.His hands hurt like a bitch.Unsure he was going to be able to drive, he called a limo.Jordan threw a hat at him and he tucked his dust-covered hair in it.With one last look at the devastation, he jogged down to the laundry room and changed into some clean clothes.
When he arrived back in his room, Pixie was sitting on the sofa, watching the world go by outside.
“We need to go, Snowflake.”
“Hey, where’d you disappear to?”She walked right up against him, her face tilted perfectly toward him.He should kiss her.Try to get back to where they were before the call.But he couldn’t.He felt confused, and seedy, and stupid.
“We need to go,” he said, coolly, hating the look of abject confusion that overtook her features.He picked up her case.
“Oh my God.What happened to your hands?”She reached for the one holding the case, but he quickly moved it away.“Was it something to do with the banging I heard up stairs?”
Lying didn’t come naturally to him.He’d been lied to most of his life so tried to avoid it.But explainingthis...what the hell was he meant to say?“Yeah, Jordan’s doing some remodelling.Needed some help getting part of the wall down.”
Pixie picked up the hand that wasn’t holding the case and kissed his knuckles gently.
A car horn sounded outside, and he hurried them down the stairs.The driver put her case in the back and they sat in silence the entire ride.His head was filled with noise.Memories of his mom’s idea of caring for a child swarmed him.One summer when he’d been around seven, she’d taken him to a small park around the corner to play.When it went dark, he began to worry.When it got really late, and strangers started to appear, he’d hidden behind the large bushes.He’d finally run home to find the front door unlocked and his mom passed out on the sofa.The clock had told him it was one a.m.
The limo pulled up alongside the curb at her terminal, and the driver got out to open her door.
“Are you getting out?”Pixie asked.He hated the uncertainty in her voice, detested the fact that he’d put it there.
“It’s probably best I don’t.”Was he really going to let her go like this?
“Okay, well ...I’ll see you, I guess.”
This isn’t fair to her.“Bye, Pixie.”
He watched her exit the car and head for the terminal.Look back at me.Please, Snowflake.But she didn’t.With shoulders hunched, and her step missing its usual playful pep, she walked toward the terminal.The doors slid open then shut, and Pixie disappeared.
The driver got back into the car.“Back to the same location, sir?”
Did he go back to the house where his ever-present past existed, while his future boarded the first available flight out of his life?
“Wait,” he said to the driver as he grabbed the door handle, flinging it open wide.Dodging a family with as many cases as children, he sprinted into the terminal.What airline had she been flying?American?Dred scanned the departures screen quickly and found the check-in desk numbers.
Ahead of him, he could see her glorious purple hair.He caught up to her and grabbed her hand.
“Hey.”Pixie snatched it away.He hoped it was because she hadn’t realized it was him.
“It’s me, Pix.Come here.”He led her toward a quiet corner.
“What—”
Dred cupped her face and kissed her.Kissed her the way he should have when she’d looked at him in his room and how she’d deserved before she stepped out of the limo.He ignored the camera flash that went off to his left, put away any thoughts of being a father, and tried to show her exactly how much she was coming to mean to him.When she responded, when her lips finally moved against his, he felt it in his very soul.
“I’m sorry, Pix,” he murmured against her lips.
“I don’t know what I did wrong, Dred.”
“Wrong?You didn’t do anything wrong at all.Have you been worrying about that all this time?Shit.I’m an asshole.I’m sorry.I got a call before we left.I don’t know what I am going to do about it.”
“Can I help at all?”
He couldn’t tell her what it was about.Not yet.“Just don’t give up on me Pixie.”
Chapter Nine
