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Her two suitcases are at her door, and she rushes out of the bathroom with her toiletry bag. “Almost forgot this,” she says, tossing the bag into her carry-on bag.
“Ready?” I ask her as she wheels her luggage to the door, and we walk out. We roll the suitcases down the path toward the lobby. I can hear the commotion already, and I’m not even there yet. “One of these days.” I look over at Gabriella. “I’m going to opt-out of traveling with the family and find my own way home.”
“Girl, same,” she agrees, and I look over at her, laughing, not paying attention to where I’m going when I crash into someone. My eyes look at the man in front of me, who looks over his shoulder at me. The blue eyes that have haunted me all freaking morning long. “I’m so sorry,” I tell him, and he just smiles at me. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“All good,” he says to me. I thought I was ready to face him this morning, but when I finally lay eyes on him, I can confirm that I am not. “How are you doing?”
His question makes my cheeks turn pink from the embarrassment of the question. I avoid even looking into his eyes. “I’m fine,” I answer curtly. “I should get my luggage into the bus.” I just walk past him, trying not to show how unsteady my legs are. He must think I’m such a loser for still being a virgin at my age.
I breathe out through my mouth and inhale through my nose to stop the tears that are threatening to come. “Here is my bag,” I say to the man loading the bus.
I turn and walk up the steps of the bus and spot Tristan, of course, in the front with Penelope. I don’t spend more than a second on the bus before I turn around and bump into Gabriella, who huffs. “What the heck are you doing?” she says to me. Now all eyes are on me, and if I could secretly push her off the bus, I would.
“I forgot to get a water bottle,” I tell her, walking around her and down the steps. I pretend I’m walking back into the lobby but duck into the other bus instead. I don’t say anything to anyone as I take the first seat. The man packing the bags hits the side of the bus, telling him he’s all done. The driver leans over and closes the bus door, and the sound of a hiss starts right before he takes off. I watch as we drive out of the resort, and my eyes fixate on the room that was his. The room where I gave him everything in me. The words replay in my head, “What are you going to miss, Abigail?”
My heart screams out, “You!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TRISTAN
I’m trying to calm down and tell myself it is all in my head when I hear the commotion coming from the front of the bus. “What the heck are you doing?” Gabriella shrieks, and I see Abigail glaring at her.
“I forgot to get a water bottle,” she mumbles and gets off the bus. My stomach sinks even more than it did when she walked away from me not too long ago. I peer out the window to see she isn’t going to get water. Instead, she’s going to get on the other bus.
My stomach lurches and then rises to my throat as my hands start to shake. God, what have I done? I should never have kissed her. I have ruined everything for what? The best night of my life. I didn’t sleep a fucking wink last night. I kept telling myself I should go to her. I lay awake in Penelope’s bed and wondered if I should go over and talk to her. The only problem was I didn’t know what room she was sleeping in. Having Gabriella come to the window because I knocked on hers was not something I wanted to do.
When I saw her this morning after she bumped into me, it was as if my world was complete, which is so dumb to say. It felt like all the pieces of my heart were together, and I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and tell her I missed her. But she avoided even looking me in the eyes; it was as if someone reached into my chest and ripped my heart out. Now she runs away from even being on the same bus as me. The banging on the side of the bus makes me look up as I see the bus in front of us, the bus I know she is on, start to move.
I put my head back on the headrest, and I watch out the window as the resort fades away in the distance. Every second we get farther and farther away, my chest gets tighter and tighter. It’s the strangest thing and something I don’t even know how to explain.
The bus drives through the stainless-steel chain-link fence toward a plane that waits on the tarmac. We slowly make it off the bus as I hold Penelope’s hand. My head is not paying attention to anything. Instead, I’m replaying last night over and over again. I can still taste her kiss on my lips. When we walk up the steps, my eyes roam the plane looking for her. She sits in a seat near the window with Gabriella next to her. She has her head against the side of the plane with her eyes closed.
“Let’s sit here.” I point at a seat on the opposite side of the plane, farthest from her. “Do you want the window seat?” I ask Penelope. She nods as she walks in and takes off her backpack before sitting in the seat. I do the same thing, tucking my backpack under the seat in front of me.
I look over and see she is already getting her iPad out of her bag and yawning at the same time. “Someone partied hard.” I look over and see Justin sit down in the row next to me.
I laugh nervously as I put my hands on my stomach, linking my fingers together to stop them from shaking next to him. “Yeah, I don’t think she’s going to last the whole trip.” I swallow down the way my heart is beating in my chest. I can’t even imagine what he would do to me if he knew I took advantage of his daughter last night. What the whole plane would do to me. I feel sick with the thought that I took advantage of their generosity and what I did do. I slept with Abigail.
“When the girls were younger…” He starts to tell me a story, and I listen as I always do when it’s about Abigail. “They packed their bag full of their favorite things.” He smiles. “Got on the plane and forgot the bags at home.”
I open my mouth, not even imagining how that would have been. “Back then, there wasn’t a lot to keep them entertained. So we all had to whip out our iPhones.”
“That sounds like a vacation gone wrong,” I say as the plane fills up and people start getting their seats. I lay my head back and close my eyes, but they are haunted by her eyes. It’s the longest plane ride of my life. The number of times I had to stop myself from turning back to look at her were too many to count. Even when Penelope had to go to the bathroom, I got up to let her pass and looked around but never in her direction. I am a chickenshit, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I don’t think I can handle seeing the regret in her eyes, especially not when the only thing I regret is not going after her after she left.
The plane touches down, and we make it out, my hand in Penelope’s as we grab our bags. It’s only when I’m loading my car with the luggage do I look around for her. I don’t even know what I would say to her. Actually, I do know what I would say to her. “Come home with me,” I say. I look around as I see everyone lugging their stuff to their cars.
I scan the crowd looking for her, but I can’t find her anywhere. “Dad, are we leaving?” Penelope asks from the back. “I’m tired.”
“I know you are,” I say, taking a deep breath in before pulling out of the parking spot. My eyes even look at the rearview mirror to see if I can find her, and she is nowhere to be seen.
When we get home, I press the button for the garage door, driving right in. I pop the trunk, grab our bags, and make my way into the house. Penelope is already inside, opening the fridge. “It’s empty.” She looks over at me, shocked.
I just laugh at her. “It’s empty because we are leaving tomorrow,” I remind her, and she huffs.
“I’m starving,” she exaggerates just a touch. She ate less than an hour and a half ago on the plane.
“Why don’t we order some food and then start doing our laundry?” I suggest and she comes over and grabs my phone, opening up the Uber Eats app.
