I walked out of the ballroom and answered the call.
“Hey, is Peanut okay?”
“Yep, she went to bed an hour ago. This is a check-in call, have you seen Totga?”
“You called just to ask that?”
“Yes, she did!” Ryan called out from the background.
“Yes, I did,” she replied unapologetically. “My imagination has been going crazy, and I just needed to know.”
It shouldn’t surprise me. Lizzy was a hopeless romantic. She watched Love Island, The Bachelor, and Love is Blindunironically. She truly believed in soulmates and in happily-ever-after. I guess I couldn’t blame her since that’s what she was living with Ryan.
“What if I was with her and you interrupted something?”
“Then you wouldn’t be answering your phone,” she responded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
I sighed. “No, I haven’t seen her. She was a no-show.”
“Nooo!” Lizzy cried out.
“Why do you sound more upset about it then I am?”
“Because you’re a robot, and I have gone to years of counseling to learn to express my emotions.”
“I thought you went to counseling to learn toprocessyour emotions, I don’t remember you ever having an issue expressing them.”
“Tomayto, tomahto.”
“Anyway, I’m gonna head back to the city tonight.”
“Okay, well, drive safe.”
“I will.”
“And Maddie-locks…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about Totga.”
“We both are. That’s shitty,” Ryan added.
As disappointed as I was that Peyton didn’t show, it did actually make me feel better knowing that I had people that cared. Not just Alex and Nick, but Lizzy and Ryan. They really were my family.
“Thanks, guys.”
I hung up the call and just as I approached the elevator bay, I heard something. Something that stopped me dead in my tracks.
It was a laugh. A laugh that instantly transported me to lying in the grass and looking up at the stars. To walking down by the water and feeling the sand beneath my toes. To riding a tandem bike across Golden Gate Bridge.
The sound hit my eardrums and my body responded before my conscious thought caught up with what I was hearing. The hairs on the back of my neck and arms stood up on end. My chest ached as my pulse began to race and my palms dampened. Slowly, I turned and began walking toward the melodic sound. It was a completely involuntary response. I was being drawn like a sailor at sea to a siren. Just like the sailor, there was a very good chance I was heading straight toward my destruction.
Each step I felt like I was walking thee plank unsure if I was going to reach the end and plummet to my doom. When I entered the hotel bar, even though her back was facing me, I knew that the woman seated at the end of the bar in the red dress was Peyton Russo. After all these years, I instantly recognized the rounded curve of her bare shoulder and the delicate lines of her slender arms, and her long flowing hair. It was her.
This moment was one that I had envisioned, fantasized, and dreamed of thousands if not millions of times. I thought I was prepared for it happening. Turns out, I wasn’t.
Seeing her again hit me like a sucker punch in the gut. It knocked the wind out of me. My fight or flight instinct kicked in and I was leaning toward flight. I could go up to my room, grab my bag, and be back in the city in a couple of hours.
