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All the yelling in a foreign-to-me language was giving me a headache. I still had no idea what had caused the rift between brother and sister, but it made my heart hurt to hear the anger and pain in both Sammy’s and Vaughn’s voices.
And then, seemingly out of nowhere, when things began to calm down, Samara started to laugh. It was a bit chilling, but I tried to brush off the way it made the fine hairs on my body lift with a shot of fear.
“She’s laughing,” I whispered, stating the obvious, but I felt a need to distract myself from the slight mania in my friend’s laughter. “That’s a good sign, right?”
Vaughn kissed the top of my head. “I would call it a win, wildfire.”
That was reassuring, but when I saw the warning side-eye he sent his sister, I wasn’t so sure I believed him.
As soon as Sammy’s laughter dried up, they were back to arguing in Russian again, and I didn’t care about her half-hysterical laugh from moments before.
Until she meticulously broke the nail off her manicured pinkie and picked the lock of her handcuff without so much as a flinch.
“I expect a manicure when we’re done,” she told Vaughn. “You’re going to throw in a pedicure as well. I expect to be pampered afterward.”
“How did she do that?” I asked in gaped-mouthed fascination.
“Our mother, I suspect,” Vaughn said, amusement lightening his voice. “Anything else you expect, princess?”
“Daddy is going to be so angry when I get home,” Sammy muttered to herself, and I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing at the way Vaughn’s face scrunched up, knowing she wasn’t talking about her father. Her daddy was Elias, and she wasn’t embarrassed to let anyone know the dynamic of their relationship.
For the rest of the flight, Sammy was calmer, but she and her brother continued to speak mostly Russian. Obviously, they didn’t want me to know what they were talking about. Which was fine. Vaughn wasn’t ready to tell me what had led to the breakup of his family. I didn’t want to cause him more stress when he was already having to face his sick father with his injured sister in tow.
Once we were on the ground, Vaughn helped us to the SUV that was already parked on the tarmac for us. With a kiss to my forehead, he walked over to speak to the two pilots as they stood waiting. One of them had already loaded a few cases into the back of the vehicle, so it was just me and Sammy watching the three men a good distance away.
The silence between us wasn’t uncomfortable, but there was something I wanted to know before Vaughn joined us.
“Why did you pretend not to know Vaughn when I told you he was my professor?”
Turning her gaze to me, she shrugged. “I didn’t realize my brother was your Professor Vaughn. He and I haven’t kept in touch. I didn’t even know he became a college professor.”
I wasn’t sure if she knew it, but there was a sadness in her voice when she said his name that pulled at my heartstrings. Reaching out, I touched her hand. It still had the IV line in it. Vaughn had changed out the bags of saline before we left the plane so she could stay hydrated even on the drive to their parents’ home.
“He was really worried when he found out about your accident,” I confided. She flinched. It had been hours since her last dose of meds, all of which had been administered while she was still sleeping, so I didn’t doubt she was in pain. But everything that was going on must have been overwhelming for her. It sure as hell was for me. “How are you really feeling?”
She gave me a tired smile. “Like I’ve been hit by a truck. But I’ll be back to normal in a few days. This isn’t my first concussion.”
After I nodded my understanding, we fell into another comfortable silence, the both of us choosing to watch Vaughn as he continued to have a conversation with the two pilots. My eyes felt like they had magnets on them because they were drawn to Vaughn, no matter where he was. I couldn’t go long without looking at him, despite how hard I’d tried in the past.
“I’m so nervous,” I confessed to Sammy, finally acknowledging the anxiety fluttering around inside me. Everything had happened so fast, I hadn’t had time to fully process what we were about to do. “Do you think your dad will like me? I’ve never had a boyfriend before… Not that Vaughn is my boyfriend. Or a boy. Or even a friend.” Groaning, I closed my eyes. “Tell me to shut up already, Sammy.”
“What are the two of you, then?”
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. Everything had moved super-fast this past week. “One minute, I was trying to figure out how to get into his summer class—the next, we were kissing.” And so much, much more. But I wasn’t ready to tell her about that. I didn’t know a lot about Sammy, but what I did understand was that no sister wanted to hear those kinds of details about her brother. Hayat wouldn’t want to know that about Evan, that was for damn sure. “And now I’m on my way to meet his dad. I know fuck all about him. And my parents are going to freak out when they find out I’m into a much older guy. But I really like him. I mean, like-like him.”
Love.
Oh God. I was in love with Vaughn.
It wasn’t smart. I kept making mistake after mistake. But there it was. My truth. I was in love with Vaughn, my professor. My stalker.
My obsession.
I was in another state, on the other side of the country. On top of that, I had a final first thing Monday. Shit, it wasn’t my parents I was worried about so much as Hayat. When she’d called me the day before, we hadn’t had time to discuss all the crazy new things going on in my life because her own was still blowing up in her face. She said she would call me back, but other than a few texts, we hadn’t spoken much since she was so busy.
Remembering I’d forgotten my phone, I nearly groaned. “Do you have your phone?” I asked Sammy hopefully.
