Los Angeles
“You sure you don’t need help with these, miss?” the driver asked as he handed me my suitcase.
I handed him twenty dollars in return, the feel of American money almost foreign in my hand. “I’ve got it. Thank you for bringing me home.”
A minute later I walked up the landscaped steps to my front door. The lawn was still manicured, but something was off about it, same as the drooping flowers. Wait…where was the Christmas wreath?
I fumbled with my keys but got them into the lock, turned, and opened the door. “Hey, guys! I’m home!” I called as I hauled my suitcase into the foyer.
“Rachel?” Mom called out before she came skidding around the corner in her socks. “You’re home!” She engulfed me in a hug and her chocolate-chip-cookie scent. “I’m so glad you’re here! How are you? How was your flight?”
I laughed and hugged her back. As amazing as the trip was, I’d really missed her. “I’m glad, too. I’m fantastic, even better than that, and it was good.”
She pulled back, examining me like she was going to find a pod person under my skin. “You’re smiling. Everything is good with the boy?”
“Landon, Mom, and yeah, he’s…” I sighed. “He’s absolutely wonderful.”
Her lips pursed, but she didn’t dig in. “Okay. Well, your dad isn’t home yet.”
I blinked. “It’s eleven p.m.”
She forced a smile. “You know how things are at work right before the X Games, and since they’re sponsoring again this year…”
I nodded. “It gets nuts. Right.” Ever since Landon and I had split, they’d kept any reference to the sport in general under wraps. It was nice to be able to discuss it in the open again, freeing. “Okay, well, I really want to wait up for him, but I’m exhausted. It’s only seven p.m. my time, but it’s tomorrow, or some craziness.”
Jet lag was a bitch.
She nodded, petting my hair. “You must be exhausted. I baked for you, but of course those can wait for tomorrow.”
“Chocolate chip cookies?” I guessed.
She nodded, the hopeful look in her eyes giving me a renewed energy.
“We can’t let them go to waste,” I said, dropping my backpack next to my suitcase. “How about we have a couple and I tell you about Nepal?”
Her eyes went wide. “I’d love to hear all about it.”
An hour later, she was filled in on that aspect of the trip—the good and the bad, and though she cringed, she stayed with me. It had to be hard for her, overpowering her nearly insane overprotectiveness, but she did it for me, and I loved her all the more for it.
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a key in the lock.
“Rachel, baby?” Dad called.
“Daddy!” I squealed, running into his arms like I was five years old. He caught me up easily, swinging me around.
“You’ve lost weight. Have they been feeding you?” he questioned in an overly serious tone.
“Just lots of exercise,” I told him. “Don’t worry, Mom’s already stuffed me full of cookies. I’ll be round again in no time.”
He glanced up at Mom and nodded. “I’m glad to see you home, sweetheart. You must be exhausted.”
I swallowed back a perfectly timed yawn. “I am. But I’m glad to see you, too. I’ve missed you guys.”
He forced a smile. “Why don’t you get some sleep? We should talk about some stuff tomorrow.”
I leaned up and kissed his cheek, breathing in the comforting scent of the same aftershave he’d used the last twenty years. “I love you, Daddy. And I know where this is going, but Landon isn’t up for discussion. I love him. He loves me.”
“Rachel…”
“We can talk tomorrow, but you both need to know that there’s nothing you can say about him that’s going to change my mind.” Before they could start in on me tonight about my inability to steer clear of reckless boys, I waved. “Good night!” Hoisting my backpack onto my shoulder, I wheeled my suitcase to the back bedroom of our ranch-style house.
I didn’t bother unpacking, just grabbed a set of pajamas out of my dresser and got into bed, dragging my iPad with me. Ah, sweet wifi.
I wanted to text Landon, but my parents had put my number on hold while I was gone, and it wasn’t like I had Landon’s number anymore, anyway. But I knew exactly where I could find him. I logged into Facebook for the first time since I left and smiled like a loon as I clicked on settings. It felt symbolic, unblocking him. His entire life unfolded to me on the computer—pictures, updates, statuses he’d been tagged in.
I stayed off the pics—I didn’t need to see the parade of women he’d been with in the last couple of years. Instead I sent him a quick PM.
Rachel: Look who I found.
A couple minutes and flashing dots later, he responded.
Landon: Holy shit. She exists online.
Rachel: Ha-ha. Miss me yet?
Landon: You have no idea. My bed is cold and lonely.
I smiled, loving the rush of sweet emotion even his typed voice brought to me.
Rachel: Maybe I can see it tomorrow night?
Landon: Hell yes.
I mean, if that’s your wish.
Rachel: I think we can work something out.
Landon: I miss you already.
Rachel: I miss you, too.
Oddly enough, it was true. We’d only been apart a couple of hours, and I already hated the twenty minutes of distance between us. I liked that he was a few suites away back on the boat, that I had nearly instant access to him twenty-four hours a day. I’d been spoiled.
We typed out our good nights, but before I fell asleep, I heard my notifications ring. I accepted his request with a giant, goofy grin on my face.
He’d just changed his relationship status.
He was mine in the eyes of the world.
I turned off my light and rolled over, trying to settle into bed, but although everything was perfect, something nagged at me that I couldn’t put my finger on.
I woke up from a dead sleep three hours later, realizing what it was.
There was no Christmas tree in our living room.
Something was up.
…
The smell of bacon greeted me with the morning, and I donned my proverbial armor as I made the short walk to the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Mom said with a smile as she flipped bacon in the pan.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Dad said from the other side of the kitchen where he worked with the mixer.
I slid onto the bar stool at the counter that separated our living room from the kitchen and watched my parents carefully. At first glance, everything seemed fine. But there were little things, like the way they hadn’t immediately grilled me about Landon or the safety of what we’d been doing in Nepal.
There was no Christmas tree, no lights, no wreath, and the holiday was only a week away.
“So, I’m thinking about going to Aspen for the last few days of break,” I said casually, watching for any reaction. “Landon and Wilder will be up there practicing for the X Games before we head back, and I’d love to get some time on the slopes.”
Mom tensed. She hated when I went snowboarding or did anything that didn’t come with a seat belt and air bags. “Oh?” she asked, flipping the bacon again.
My eyes narrowed.
“Well, I mean, if that’s something you’re interested in, I could definitely see if we could open up the company’s house there,” Dad offered. “I mean, we’ll be up there all of January for the Games, so why not?”
My mouth hit the floor. Dad hated me anywhere near extreme sports—or Landon, for that matter.
What the hell?
“And I was thinking maybe I’d get a tattoo in the next couple of days, too.”
Mom’s grip tightened on the spatula, and Dad turned around, swallowing with force. “Okay…well, you’re a grown woman and whatever you choose—”
“Cut the crap!” I snapped. “What the hell is going on? You two are acting weird and there’s no Christmas tree, or any of the usual overkill that Mom likes to deck the halls with—sorry, Mom, but you do. Are we doing something insane like going to Disney for Christmas or something? Are you pulling a John Grisham and Kranking me? Because I love you guys, but I’ve seriously been traveling the last two months and all I want to do is hang here at home.”
Dad switched off the mixer and came to stand next to Mom.
They locked eyes, and she moved a few feet away toward the sink.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. “What’s going on?” I asked in a voice I barely recognized as my own.
“Rachel, there’s something your mother and I need to tell you.”
“Is someone dead? Did something happen while I was gone and you didn’t tell me?”
Mom came around the island bar and took my hand. “Nothing like that, baby. It’s just that your dad and I…well…” She looked up at my dad, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“We’re getting a divorce,” Dad said.
The ground shifted beneath my feet, and even though I sat on the stool, immobile, it felt like I was falling, like they’d just demagnetized the poles and now my compass spun without direction. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh, honey. We didn’t want to tell you while you were gone. That’s so much stress on you, and we figured it was best to let you be happy,” Mom said softly.
“How long?” I asked Dad, who still wouldn’t look up. He took the bacon off the stove, like that was going to help us in any way.
“We’ve known since before you left,” she whispered. “Your dad moved out the week after you called from Dubai.”
I shook my head, trying to make it all fit. “You’ve known for months? But you were here when Mom called me,” I said to Dad.
“She asked if I would come over, and of course I wanted to talk to you,” he said, glancing up.
“But…but you were happy. You loved each other. You… I just don’t understand! You guys are like the poster children for marriage. Hell, you’re like the inspiration for perfect people. It doesn’t make sense. I know you used to be unhappy, but that was like twenty years ago…”
You adopted me. I fixed everything. You said I glued you back together.
“Rachel, just because people fall in love when they’re twenty doesn’t mean that it lasts. Sometimes people grow apart,” Mom told me.
“Or sometimes people simply decide that you’re not what they want anymore and forget to tell you,” Dad said quietly, looking over at Mom.
Her eyes dropped to her hands.
That sick feeling spread from my stomach to my heart. “What happened, Mom?”
She gave me a pained smile but only met my eyes for a flash. “It’s not important.”
Not only had my parents’ marriage disintegrated while I was gone, but I didn’t even get to know why.
Suddenly the home I was raised in, with so many birthdays, holidays, and family movie nights, felt more foreign than the countries I’d been in the last two months.
“Dad? You don’t live here anymore?”
He shook his head. “No. I bought a place closer to the office. But I have a room set up for you.”
“She’s not going with you,” Mom spat.
“Oh, she’s going to stay here with you? After what you’ve done?”
“This is her home. You can leave it, but she’s not going to.”
“What the hell would you know about home? After you brought him here? In our house? Our bed?” Dad’s accusation echoed in my brain, reverberating until it was all I could hear even though their fight continued around me.
“Never around.”
“Unfaithful!”
“Lonely!”
The words wrapped around me in a cacophony of ugliness. How did this happen so quickly? How could something I’d always seen as unshakable crumble without me noticing?
Was all love doomed to end up here?
Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t they tell me? Why was I enough to bring them back as a baby, but not now?
“She’s not going with you!”
“Well, she’s sure as hell not staying with you!”
The world came back into sharp focus.
“Enough!” I shouted as I stood. The bar stool crashed to the hardwood floor behind me.
They stared at me in startled silence as I tried to force the words out. “I’m not a child anymore. Maybe that’s why this is all happening. I don’t know. But I do know that I’m capable of making my own decisions, and right now, I don’t want to be around either of you.”
I turned and made it to the living room before they spoke.
“Rachel, we’re sorry. We wanted to do this better. Gentler,” Mom said.
“Did you cheat on him?” I asked her quietly, needing to know.
She looked down at her hands.
“And you just moved out? Gave up? Just like that? You couldn’t even tell me?” I asked Dad.
“I couldn’t stay here. There’s a lot you don’t know,” he replied quietly.
“Yeah. I see that now.” I sucked in a breath. “I think I’m going to leave. You two figure out your stuff, because you’re acting more childish than I ever could. If you want to dissolve our family, that’s your choice. I don’t get a say. But I also don’t have to sit here while you hurl poison at each other.”
Twenty minutes later I pulled out of the driveway in my car, everything I brought home in my backseat. I’d never even unpacked.
It had taken less than twelve hours to upend everything I thought I knew.
I wasn’t sure how long it took to get there, mostly because I didn’t really remember most of the drive. I only hoped I hadn’t run any red lights, and I wished for the millionth time that my cell phone had been turned on. But once my parents informed me that true love doesn’t last forever, there was only one person I wanted to see.
I needed his arms around me, his voice in my ear promising that we’d make it. I needed Landon.
The giant gate at the front of his house never failed to intimidate me.
My parents were comfortable. Hell, my dad had a high-level job at Gremlin. It wasn’t like we were struggling, but this place was insane.
The dressed-in-all-black guard came up to my car and knocked on my window.
“Hi?” I said as rolled it down.
“Is that a question or a statement?” he asked with a smile.
“Both, I guess. I’m looking for Landon?”
The guard raised his eyebrows at me.
“That was a statement,” I clarified, tapping my steering wheel.
“Name?” he asked.
“Rachel Dawson.” For the love of God, I wanted my cell phone. God, what if he wasn’t home? What if he was just generally busy? Was I intruding? It was shades of John Hughes over here with the lack of communication.
The guard pressed the radio at his shoulder. “I have Rachel Dawson here to see Landon?”
The response was garbled, but the guard smiled at me patiently while we sat in the most awkward silence known to man. The radio sounded again, and the guard nodded. “You’re clear. Head on up to the front door.”
“Thank you,” I said and followed his instructions once the gate separated to let me through.
After making my way up the winding drive, I put the car in park just in time to see Landon jump the bottom steps to get to me.
I threw the emergency brake and killed the ignition but didn’t bother to pull the keys out.
“Hey, Rach, what’s going—umpf.” He grunted as I hit him nearly head-on, diving into his arms. They instantly closed around me, cradling my head to his chest in his safe, secure embrace.
I sagged, all the adrenaline and energy that got me here suddenly gone. For a moment, I simply stood there and breathed him in, pretending we were back in Fiji, or even Nepal. Anything but where we were, and he let me, not questioning my need or pushing me.
“I’m sorry I barged in,” I finally said, looking up at him.
“You’re never barging in. You’re always welcome,” he promised, kissing my forehead. “But maybe you’ll tell me what’s got you upset?”
“My dad moved out. They’re getting a divorce.” Saying it aloud made it feel so real.
“Oh, baby.” He brushed my hair back from my face, stroking my skin. “I’m so sorry.”
“I never caught on that they were unhappy. I was home all summer, and the months up until I left for Madagascar. It all happened right under my nose. How did I miss it?”
“Because they didn’t want you to know. Parents do their best to protect their kids, and they probably thought they were doing what was best for you. I’m not saying it was right, but you can’t blame yourself for not knowing.”
“How does that happen? You choose your person, and then one day decide that they’re not your person anymore? I don’t understand how that happens.” Or why I couldn’t stop it—why I couldn’t see it.
“I wish I could tell you,” he said. “I don’t have all the answers.”
“Just tell me that won’t happen with us,” I begged. “Tell me that it doesn’t always end like that.”
He sucked in his breath and gazed at me intensely, like he could see into my soul. “I promise you that I will never cheat on you. I will never lie to you again—I learned my lesson when I lost you. I will be yours for as long as you want me, Rachel Dawson, because you’re the only woman I will ever love. Do you understand me?”
I nodded, and he clutched me to him, tucking my head under his chin as he rubbed circles on my back. “Remember, we are what we decide to be—you and me.”
“You and me,” I repeated, closing my eyes.
“Do you want to come in?” he asked.
I’d already started to nod when a guard leaned over the stone fence that separated the driveway from the house. “Sir, her father is here.”
Landon tensed. “Do you want to see him? The beauty of having security is that I can say no.”
“It’s okay. I was a little harsh on him.”
Landon waved him in, and a minute later, my dad parked on the other side of me. He climbed out of his immaculate convertible and ran his hand over his silvered hair. “Rachel.”
“Dad,” I said, keeping Landon’s hand firmly in mine as I turned to face him.
He looked back at Landon and grimaced. “Can we talk alone?”
“I’m just going to tell him what we say anyway.”
He sighed and walked toward us, a manila envelope in his hands. “I’m sorry about what happened this morning,” he said.
“Me, too. And I’m sorry for what Mom did. You don’t deserve that.”
He swallowed, pain flashing across his eyes. “Yeah, well, sometimes it’s the people we love most who hurt us the deepest.” His gaze flickered to Landon, and I knew he was thinking about what had happened years ago. “You need to know that I tried. I won’t say anything more, and I don’t want you to take this out on your mother, but…I tried to make it work, Rachel. We just can’t. I can’t. I had to go.”
I dropped Landon’s hand and went to my dad, hugging him tight. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have been such a wreck. I was just in shock. It’s always been the three of us, and now…now I don’t know.”
“I know. And we both love you very much. That’s not something you should ever doubt, okay?”
“I don’t,” I told him, giving a tighter squeeze before pulling back.
“And I know this is important to you,” he said, fidgeting with the envelope. “The other papers, I’m not sure where they are. Once your birth certificate was in after your adoption, nothing else ever mattered. We shut the door on how you came to us and concentrated on being the family you were always meant to have. There’s not a lot of information in here, but maybe it will help you feel like you’ve found whatever it is you’re missing.”
I took the envelope from him with a slightly shaky hand. “Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded and looked back at Landon. “I’d really like you to come home with me, Rachel. If not me, then your mother. Anything but here…with him.”
My stomach sank. “Dad, not today. I know you and Landon have some harsh feelings between you, but I seriously don’t think I can take anything else today.”
“He’s not good for you, Rachel.”
“He loves me,” I countered. With everything else that had gone to shit today, it was the one thing I was certain of.
“Not enough,” he said softly, sadly.
“What do you mean?” That sick, nauseating feeling was back in my belly.
“Today has been hard enough on you. Why don’t you just come home with me and we’ll have a good, long talk about it?” he offered.
After this morning, I’d had quite enough of being managed.
“No. You tell me now.”
“Rachel,” Landon said, coming up behind me.
I turned toward him. “What is he talking about?”
Landon looked straight over me to my father. “You really want to hurt her like this?”
“You were the one who didn’t stay away,” Dad snapped. “Someone that willing to walk away in the first place isn’t deserving of my daughter. She’s worth a hundred of you.”
“On that, we agree,” Landon said.
“Dad, Landon and I talked about what happened, and if I can forgive him, then I need you to try.” I got it, he was on overprotective mode, especially with what was going on with him and Mom, but he couldn’t take out his insecurities on Landon.
“So he told you why he left?” Dad challenged, his blue eyes going hard.
“Please don’t,” Landon pleaded quietly. “For both our sakes.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? The difference between us, Nova, is that I’m firmly ready for my daughter to hate me, if it’s what keeps her out of harm’s way and away from you. Can you say the same?”
My grip tightened on the envelope. “Dad?”
“What did he tell you, sweetheart?”
I didn’t look at Landon. I wasn’t sure I could. “That he had to rejoin the team or they couldn’t put on the competition. It was an all-or-nothing deal.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Rachel,” Landon whispered.
“Because he left.”
“You’re just going to hurt her more,” Landon said, his voice breaking.
Dad looked over my head at him. “I’d rather hurt her now than her think she can spend her life with someone who can be bought from her side.”
“Bought?” I asked, finally looking up at Landon.
There was so much pain in his eyes, and my first thought was to take it away. How ridiculous was that? “How were you bought?”
He reached for me, but I stepped backward.
“Gremlin pulled the sponsorship of the event, but it wasn’t because I’d left. It was because I was with you.”
I spun and then backed away from them both, moving toward my car. Pieces clicked in my head, the puzzle anything but pretty. “You pulled their funding,” I said to Dad.
He nodded. “I did.”
“And you dumped me to get it back?” I asked Landon, hoping there was another answer, any other way this had gone down.
“Yes.”
“That and more,” Dad added. “Gremlin signed the Renegades for thirty months as a team once Landon returned. With a sizable advance to get them going.”
“You’ve been his paycheck.”
“Yes, and his is a great deal bigger than the others’. That was the deal when he gave you up.”
My heart shattered, the pieces sharp enough to cut through my soul. I shook my head and backed up, but Landon followed. How stupid could I be? I knew Gremlin sponsored their events—I should have logically realized they’d sponsor the individual athletes as well. Or maybe I’d just assumed that Dad hated Landon so much he wouldn’t do business with him. But he’d paid Landon even more to dump me, and Landon had taken it.
How could I have been so wrong about Dad? About them both?
“You have to let me explain. My parents were pissed about what had happened between me and Pax. They didn’t support my career choice, and you were that final straw. They cut off my money.”
My head snapped up. “Money. Are you fucking kidding me? Leaving me for friendship, I forgave. Pax and Penna are basically family to you, and even though you destroyed me, there was still this honor about your choice. But money? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
Panic was etched across his features. “I didn’t have a job. Without the competition, I couldn’t even afford to rent that apartment with you. What the hell kind of life did that leave us?”
“One that we made together! You could have come to me. We could have figured it out together.”
“With everything you’d already given up for me? Your dad showed up and told me that if I walked away from you, he’d have Gremlin restore the funding and sponsor us individually. The competition would go on, and he’d pull every string he had to get you back into Dartmouth, even though you’d just turned them down for me. All I had to do was walk away from you and you’d have the life you were meant to have without me fucking it up for you.”
“You took money for me?” I shouted, uncaring about the rest. “I didn’t care about Dartmouth! I would have lived anywhere with you. I would have left L.A. I didn’t need the money, the fame, the sport—you did. How much was our love worth to you, Landon? Six figures? Seven?”
“It wasn’t like that. Yeah, it was more than the other Renegades, but I’d gotten us in way over our heads, and it was the only way to put it all back to the way it was—to fix the mistakes we’d made.”
“I’m not a goddamned mistake!” I screamed. Jesus, didn’t anyone want me for what I was? Just me. Only me.
“No, you’re the best choice I’ve ever made,” Landon swore fervently. “But I wasn’t your best choice.”
“Don’t believe him, Rachel,” Dad added.
My head snapped toward him. “Oh, no. I’m done listening to you. You bought me—” A self-deprecating laugh took hold, racking my shoulders. “Twice, I guess.”
“If you want to accuse someone of that, look at your boyfriend,” Dad snapped.
For fuck’s sake, I had whiplash.
“What are you talking about?” Landon asked.
“Oh, come on. You didn’t think I’d realize what you’d done? Wormed your way back in with my daughter while we’ve been in negotiations for our sponsorship of the Renegades for the X Games? Now that your thirty months are ending? How much is it going to cost me this time, Nova?”
“What?” Landon balked.
I laughed. “Of course.” I shrugged. “Of course this is what happens.” I looked at Dad. “You needed me to fix your marriage, and apparently I didn’t do that well enough.” Then I turned to Landon. “You needed me to secure your funding. When were you going to dump me, Landon? Tonight? Closer to the X Games? I’m so damned stupid.”
At that moment, I had the strangest longing for my broken wrist—for the pain that had semidistracted me from this heartbreak the first time. But this was a hundred times worse. This time I didn’t only feel like I’d been rejected, I felt like an utter fool who’d been played.
And everyone knew Nova was the ultimate player.
“Rachel—”
“Sweetheart—”
I threw out my hand and warded them both off.
“Fuck you both.”
