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“Thanks, Stella.“ I give her a hug and turn to leave. It would be best to avoid the bursting-into-tears action that’s threatening.
“You sure you don’t want to stay at my place tonight?” She asks, her brows tugged into a scowl.
“Thank you, but I’m okay.”
I’m stopped by a note of hesitation from Stella. Like she wants to ask me something else.
“Oakley, wait. What are you running from?”
It takes me a moment to understand she doesn’t exactly mean it literally. “I don’t know,” I mumble. I’m caught off guard from the question. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes I did before.”
She nods.
Except, what mistakes am I talking about exactly? And will I ever live up to the girlfriend who died?
I know I won’t figure all that out sitting with Stella, and I won’t figure that out being around Alec right now.
I give her a hug, get in my car, and drive to Tollark, the moon overhead casting a sheen on the dark forest engulfing me on either side.
Chapter 33
Alec
Oakley’s car pulls out of the driveway just as Sebastian is about to pull into it. She’s facing away from me, focusing on turning. But something in me tells me she knows I’m there.
Sebastian hadn’t taken long to get up from the game table and motion that he was ready to take me home. He probably sensed I was miserable being there without Oakley. Or he was miserable himself and just wanted to leave.
Regardless, after he drops me off, I see the sticky note on the kitchen island when I walk in, and dread pools in my gut.
I’m going back to San Antonio for a while. Thanks for letting me stay here. Good luck in Miami. Stella took Jerry back for now.
“For a while?” What does that mean? I shunt out a breath. What does all this mean? What does Oakley want?
I know one thing’s for sure. I know whatIwant. I want her.
But will she always expect me to suck because Brandt sucks?
That’s what I need to figure out.
Everything else in my life needs to be figured out and decided upon, too. I need to take a step in the right direction for me, for my career. If working with my brothers at Tate International isn’t it, then I’ll figure it out. I have a reason to now.
I’m not going to sit on my rear end anymore, waiting, wishing, and wondering what might have been.
Miami is unseasonably hot and muggy. I’m out of my element here. Sebastian sent me a long, detailed itinerary of where I need to be and when I need to be there. Uber drivers have become my lifeline.
I checked the mail before I left, and still no documentation that would allow me to go into the driver license division and take the test. I was hoping I could have done that before I came, but no.
I haven’t heard from Oakley, and I haven’t reached out to her, either. It still stings that she left without saying goodbye.
But it’s not an angry sting. I’m not angry. I just miss her, that’s all. I think of her bright green eyes, the way she gets serious when she’s training, and the soft sighs she makes in her sleep. I remember her laugh, and how she’d become freer with it.
I’ve been going over those last few moments in my mind of when we were together at Sophie’s, and how Oakley’s face froze right before the game. Was it the game she was so worried about? All she’d had to do was tell me she didn’t want to play and I would have left in a heartbeat. It’s just a silly, made-up game that means nothing to me.
It’s Oakley that I want, not a gambling game with my arguing family.
I ache for her and for the way she suddenly fit into every twist and bend in my life. It’s probably a good thing I’m not home now. I don’t know if I could bear going back there in the state I’m in.
That doesn’t mean I want to be in Miami, either. My Uber driver pulls up to a site we’re scouting—well, Sebastian is scouting. I find myself caring less and less where he chooses to build the more days I spend here.
