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“If you think Icareabout her being resentful—”
“It’s not about caring. Or what she deserves.” Brielle brought up her messaging app, dinging Gavin to see if he was still free today. Too bad O’Hare was still some distance away from the heart of the city. “She just might… respond better to this if we approach it differently. If we let her vent without you there to hear it.”
“Brielle, Nora ismydaughter…”
I’m free,texted Gavin.What’s up?“I know. You can meet us in the parking lot of the airport—if that’s even where she is.”
“It has to be.”
“Well, I’ll hop in the car and head there first myself. My friend Gavin is closer; Nora always thought he was funny… I’ll ask him to try to head her off first. Unless she’s already past security, but maybe if we explain the situation…”
“I can’t ask your friend to get involved with this—”
“Mom, trust me.” Brielle’s fingers flew over her screen as she explained the situation to Gavin. “This is the way to do this.”
“Okay,” said her mom, her voice unsteady. “I’ll call you back shortly after I hear what the airline has to say.” She hung up without even saying goodbye.
“What was that about?”
A small gasp escaped Brielle’s lips as she spun around to find Archer behind her, his now-wrinkly clothes back on, but his hair still in disarray.
“Family emergency.” Brielle quickly looked back at her screen to finish the conversation with Gavin. He was halfway out the door already, he said, about to head toward O’Hare, but without a car, he was stuck relying on the L trains, and he had to walk a few blocks and make a switch to get to the one that would take him to the airport. Still, she felt better knowing they both would be headed there at once with her mom shortly behind.
“Can I help?” He sounded so sincere, his soothing tone sent a shock down Brielle’s body.Daniel would have just covered his head with a pillow and asked me to bring him some pizza whenever I got back.
“I…” She signed off the messaging with Gavin. ShewantedArcher to help. She really didn’t want to part from him at all. But she was suddenly struck that she had no ideahowhe could help. It was almost 4:30. She didn’t have time to help him get into her car—if he even could get in—or to help him out of it when they got there. She didn’t have room for his wheelchair or the arm strength she was sure she’d need to lift it into her backseat—assuming it’d even fit.
She felt terrible for even thinking those things.
“It’s my sister,” she said. “She’s only seventeen and we think she might have stolen Mom’s debit card and is at O’Hare waiting for a flight to Puerto Rico.”
His eyebrows arched. “That’s a… Wow. Can you pull her off the plane?”
“Mom’s calling right now to even confirm she made a reservation. I told her to play it cool, have them refuse to board her, and Gavin and I will try to meet her and smooth things over between her and Mom.”
“Oh,” said Archer, his voice growing softer. He tapped his wheels with both hands. “I could…” He stopped, as if he suddenly realized there wasn’t a whole lot he could do.
Brielle pulled her purse over her body. “I have to go,” she said. “The flight I suspect she wants to get on takes off at 7, and they usually board those things a half hour early, and it’ll take me over an hour to get there if the traffic is good…” She stopped, suddenly realizing the words were tumbling out of her without rhyme or reason. She closed the distance between them and kissed him on the cheek. “This was fun,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it. Not with this crisis in the making. “Give me a call soon?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said, rolling after her toward the door. “Good luck with your sister… I hope… I hope it all works out okay.”
You and me both, thought Brielle as she sprinted outside, not even bothering to close the door behind her.
Chapter Seventeen
Useless. It was as if the world had to do this every time he experienced a little happiness—send an undeniable reminder that he was utterly useless.
Not that he was certain Brielle considered him someone close enough to rely on in a situation like this—despite the fact that she’d considered him trustworthy enough to let him touch her beautiful, soft skin, to let him inside her. But he had a feeling if he could walk at more than a snail’s pace without needing to rest every half a minute, she wouldn’t have minded him tagging along.
Visions of what could have been flashed through his mind. Running down the cavernous walkways of O’Hare, scouring for a mini-Brielle, resting a hand on Brielle’s shoulder while she talked some sense into a teenage runaway. Depositing the girl into the arms of Brielle’s mother—an older Brielle with gray hair, he pictured—and swooping Brielle into his arms as they walked away. Her kissing him not just because she wanted to be touched, not because she was used to doing this with guys anyway, but because she wanted to feelhislips on hers, to thank him for being there when she needed him most.
Instead, some guy named Gavin was going to have the honor. He wondered if this was another of Brielle’s ex-boyfriends—at the very least, a guy she trusted enough with something like this. Surely, she trusted him enough to sleep with him, too, if she gave Archer, someone she only barely knew and who’d almost messed things up when they’d met, the same level of intimacy.
And he’d thoughthisphone call had been disheartening. Brielle’s was so much worse—and he immediately felt guilty for even thinking that, considering it wasn’thisemergency to panic over, it wasn’t his loved one who was about to make a reckless mistake.
He hadn’t even known she’d had a sister. He didn’t know if she had more siblings. But he knew the vanilla-like scent of her hair, the touch of her smooth, small fingers.
He wheeled over to his drafting desk, reminding himself that he had a deadline this week and for once, his Sunday (his one physical therapy-free day) wasn’t devoted to keeping his mother busy. Not that he hadn’t had a bit of that when his dad had called, demanding that he and his mother get back on speaking terms and then handing the phone back to his wailing mother, who’d spent the better part of twenty minutes listing off all she’d done and sacrificed for her son. Only because his dad was somewhat sensible did he eventually take the phone back from her, demand a promise from Archer to talk to her when she called later that week, and leave Archer to bask in silence.
