Текст книги "Pulled Under"

Автор книги: Sarah Darlington

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

CHAPTER 17:

 

 

 

 

 

SYDNEY

I missed Rhett. It was this sinking feeling that hit me the moment the plane heading toward JFK sped down the runaway and the wheels left solid ground. As we climbed higher and higher in altitude, I felt worse and worse. I still stood by my decision to leave. But that didn’t mean I didn’t miss him. Or that I didn’t feel like complete shit.

All I could think about was the panic attack he’d had on the flight out to LA. What if something like that happened on the return flight? I felt nauseated just thinking about it.

“You should get some sleep,” John suggested, pushing the recline button on his first-class seat. He started moving backward until he was nearly parallel with the floor. “The Carters are in town this week. And I know Mom’s going to be planning a million things with them over the next few days.”

I groaned in agony. The Carters were old family friends. They were entitled, snobbish, and pretty much horrible people. Why my family had remained close friends with them all these years was a mystery. Probably because my parents had gone to high school with them, then college, and then on at least one vacation with them per year for the last twenty-some years. Actually, they weren’t that bad, ‘horrible people’ was a bit too harsh of a label, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see them.

“You know,” John said, still fiddling with the buttons on his chair. “I saw Heath the last time I was in New York. He didn’t grow up to be quite the douche you’d expect. Pretty normal, actually. You might be surprised.”

“Oh. My. God,” I griped. “You better not even be thinking about setting me up with him. You’re so against anything and everything posh and money and upper class/high society. And then suddenly you’re booking us first class seats on Virgin, which I’m sure you used Mom and Dad’s money for, and you start pushing Heath Carter on me. Heath Carter. Ew. I don’t care how little you think of Rhett, you and I both know Rhett is a million times better for me than Heath Carter.”

John sighed, grabbing his pillow and smothering it over his face. “First class was all they had left,” he said, his voice muffled into the pillow. “So yeah, I used Mom and Dad’s credit card. And Heath Carter is not that bad. At least we know he’s STD free.”

That pissed me off to no end. I slugged John on his leg. As hard as I could, too.

“Ouch,” he said, yanking the pillow away from his face. “What was that for?”

“You like to act like you’re not as close-minded as everyone else we know from Mom and Dad’s world. But you know what?” I harshly whispered at him. “You’re still one of ‘them’—still just as judgmental and entitled and conceited as ever. On the outside you don’t look like you belong, but on the inside you fit right in with the rest of them. A sheep in a wolf’s clothing—that’s what you are.”

“That’s bullshit.” He said the words, but his voice hardly sounded convincing anymore. I’d struck a chord. A big one. Everything in life John did was a testament against his old life. His hair, his piercing, his tattoos—all were meant as a big ‘fuck you’ to the world we’d come from. I could tell it bothered him immensely that I was questioning his whole identity.

“Then give Rhett a chance,” I pleaded. “People change. You changed—or at least I used to think so. Is it so hard to believe that he might have changed too? The only thing you have against him is his promiscuous past. Other than that, what else do you even know about him? Nothing. I think it’s safe to say I know his character a little better than you. And he has a good character. And if you’re saying that he can’t change his manwhore ways…then you’re saying I’m not worth changing for. Is that what you’re saying, John?”

“Jesus, Sydney,” my brother groaned, pushing the button to sit his seat back in the upright position. “You should be a fucking lawyer. Fine. I will give him a chance.”

“A real chance?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t try to set me up with Heath Carter?” This shiver ran up my spine. Seriously, Heath Carter was about the last guy on earth I’d ever consider.

“I won’t set you up with Heath Carter,” he repeated. “Now can you apologize for calling me one of them? I am not one of them. That was harsh.”

“Sorry,” I told him. “You’re not one of them…most days.”

John laughed and I knew we were fine. We were brother and sister—we’d perfected the ability to fight and make-up many years ago. I also knew John would give Rhett something of a chance now. He wasn’t the type to back out on his word. But the problem was…I’d said a couple things to Rhett I shouldn’t have said before leaving him in that hotel room. My whole ‘how can I love someone that my brother hates so much’ statement had been a bitchy thing to say and it was already haunting me. What if I’d screwed everything up in one awful moment of doubt? Now I had to wait five more hours until we landed and until I could try to contact him.

I reclined my seat, though there was no chance in hell I’d be getting any sleep on this flight.

* * *

It was snowing in New York. The heavens had opened up and they were spitting white stuff at me. The heaviest article of clothing I had was my black sweater, which I currently wore. I hadn’t brought anything more than this because I hadn’t ever planned on being here.

“You want my coat?” John offered, as we stepped outside into the freezing cold.

“No,” I snapped, my teeth clattering together. “Just hurry and get us a cab—please.”

There was a line of them waiting to pick up passengers. So I didn’t have to brave the cold for very long. My cell phone had about five percent battery life left, meaning a phone call to Rhett would have to wait. As I followed John into the cab, I decided to send him a quick text. My phone had enough battery for that much.

Me: I made it to New York. I know it’s early on the West Coast, but can I call you soon?

No response.

Fifty minutes later and one hell of an expensive taxi ride across town, I still hadn’t heard back from Rhett. John and I made it to my parent’s Manhattan apartment. After hugs and greetings and some half-assed version of the truth about our sudden arrival at eight thirty in the morning was exchanged with my parents, I slipped away to my room. Immediately, I dug my phone charger out of my bag and had my phone plugged in.

Pacing around my room for a minute, I then tried to call Rhett. I’d always had his number. Noah gave it to me months ago ‘just in case I ever needed to reach him for anything.’ At that time, I’d never thought I’d use it. Now I needed it. I also needed him to answer. I was feeling pretty damn desperate at the moment. And then…

No freaking answer.

“Leave a message,” was all his voicemail said. It was weird hearing his voice like this—it made me feel even more disconnected from him somehow.

“Hey,” I said awkwardly into the phone. “Um, I can’t get ahold of you.” Well, duh, obviously since I was talking to his voicemail. “Um, call me back when you can. Oh, and your voicemail sucks. You should probably record a new one. Oh, and this is Sydney…in case you were wondering.”

I hung up the phone. It was possible he wasn’t awake yet. It was also possible the group had gone out to do more touristy Los Angeles stuff today. Or maybe they were spending more time with Ben. I had no clue. I left my phone on the plug and then headed out my room to join my family.

The next couple days were a struggle. Rhett never called me back. He never texted either. To add to my helplessness feeling, it ended up snowing twenty-some inches in New York. It took the snow plows two days to even start digging the streets out. Not that I had anywhere to go, but being stuck indoors wasn’t on the top of my to-do list for this holiday. Thanksgiving was tomorrow. Afraid of more snow hitting, the Carters had come over one night early.

Mom’s main worry was the caterers and her fear that they might cancel tomorrow. “I can’t cook. We’ll have to order Chinese,” she said, laughing with Mrs. Carter over her fifth glass of Pinot Noir of the day. Her solution to the snow was to drink. An acceptable solution, even I’ll admit that, but I feared what this might mean for dinner tomorrow.

John groaned. It seemed he had the same fear. He’d been in his pajamas for the past two days. For as much as he pushed me to come here with him, he looked about as miserable as I felt. “Sydney—put on your snowsuit, we’re going out.”

“What?” I glanced at the window. All I could see was white and then more white. “Are you insane?”

“No. There’s a small market store less than a block away. I think just in case the caterers don’t show tomorrow, then we’ll need to go get a few things. They probably won’t have any whole turkeys for sale…but maybe some turkey breasts or something.”

“Yikes.” Chinese sounded better than that. “Fine. I’ve got nothing else better to do.”

So John and I bundled up from head to toe in all of our parent’s old skiing gear. We each had a full body snowsuit on, goggles, hats, boots, gloves, scarves—the works. Heath, who turned out of be relatively normal just as John had described, although still not someone I would ever consider dating, decided to come with us. After he was properly dressed too, the three of us rode the elevator down to the lobby. Then we waddled out into the cold. The snow was so high, it took the three of us almost a half hour to walk one block down the street. By the time we walked into the market store, I was sweating like it was summer, somewhere underneath layer after layer.

“We can only bring back what we can carry. So what sort of things do you want to eat tomorrow?” John asked us.

“Pumpkin Pie,” Heath said, rubbing his belly. “I could live on Pumpkin Pie.”

“O…kay,” John replied, shooting me a look. “And you Sydney?”

At that moment my phone rang. It was only my mom. She wanted us to get more wine from the store. “There goes my arm space,” I muttered, hanging up. “I guess I’m in charge of wine. The lushes back at the house are demanding it.”

“You get the wine then. Heath, you get the pumpkin pie ingredients. I’ll see what they have in the meat section. Maybe find some sweat potatoes…or stuffing? I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.” John disappeared off in one direction and Heath went in the other direction. That left me, the eighteen year old, to go choose wine. Splendid.

The alcohol section took up half of the entire store. And even though it was kind of picked over, they had a decent selection. Or at least I think that they did. I knew nothing about wine, not that anyone back home would even be sober enough to care what I picked. There was a man in a big puffy coat and hat also trying to make a selection. I thought about asking him for help, but he seemed pretty deep in thought trying to decide between two different bottles. So I decided to go with whatever was the most expensive. Seemed like a good enough approach.

I grabbed something—yikes, one-hundred dollars for wine?—off the shelf.

“Sydney?”

The bottle of red slipped out of my hand and hit the tile floor. Red wine and glass splattered in every direction, all over my boots, my pants, and even on the other person. The man in the puffy coat was Rhett. I hadn’t even recognized him under all his layers. But I recognized his voice instantly.

“What…what are you doing here?” I choked out, looking up at him. I hadn’t heard from him in three days and now suddenly he was here. In the wine section? I’d never seen him in winter clothes before. Seeing him from behind I hadn’t even known it was him.

He set one of the bottles he held back on the shelf. “I was on my way to come see you. I figured I couldn’t show up empty handed. So I stopped here. Wine seemed like a good ‘meet the parents’ gift. Well, actually, that’s not the full truth. I was kind of killing time…trying to decide if I even wanted to show up.”

My heart went through a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Saying he was on his way to see me—I was thrilled and ecstatic and ready to grab his face and kiss him. Then he said he wasn’t sure and I didn’t know what to think. “Oh,” I muttered. “Okay.”

“The flights out here were complete shit. I spent the last few days just trying to book a flight and then when I finally got one I had to transfer in Chicago and Boston. With the holiday and the snow, everything was a mess—the airport was a mess. Thank God they have an underground subway system in the city or I never would have made it this far. And I’ve lying my ass off to all of our friends, acting depressed as hell over us. And the thing is, I don’t know if it’s an act or if it’s real.” He set the other bottle down, groaning, stepping through the wine mess at his feet, coming a little closer to me. His eyes were so sincere and intense and trying so hard to read something from me. “You’re my girlfriend,” he stressed. “At least, for a moment, that’s how it felt. And I missed my girlfriend.”

He said this with so much conviction that my heart kind of stopped and the world stood still.

“Your brother might hate me, but in time he’ll see that I’m genuine. Because I would never do anything to fuck this up. So if there’s any chance that you might feel otherwise…then I don’t see why…I don’t see why we aren’t together.”

There were so many things I wanted to say to him. But I couldn’t contain my emotions or my excitement, and I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, pulling his body in closer to mine, and I slammed my lips to his. I was a little rough and a little desperate, but he didn’t seem to mind as he kissed me back. He tasted and felt exactly like I remembered. It was the most comforting thing on Earth being able to touch him and hold him again. We had too many layers of coats and scarves and whatnot between us, but he held me tight like we were naked.

Big tears were rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t help it. I was so blissfully happy. When it came to Ben, for so long I’d thought I’d been in love with him, but the truth was I knew nothing about love. This was love. What I felt with Rhett was love.

“You’re gonna have to pay for that. You know that, right?” came a voice, interrupting us.

I broke away from Rhett to see a man with a mop staring at us. He was the store manager and he didn’t look happy. “Okay,” I muttered, wiping at my face. Why did I have to drop the most expensive bottle ever? “I can’t believe you took three different planes to get here just for me,” I whispered to Rhett.

He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“It is to me. And I’m good with the whole girlfriend thing.”

Rhett smiled. And then he really started to smile. He pressed a quick kiss to my lips, taking my hand and tugging me away from the giant mess so the man with the mop could clean. “You look like an adorable snow bunny in that outfit. It’s killing me.”

The mop man shot us a very disgusted look.

“We’d better go find my brother,” I suggested, pulling Rhett off in one direction.

“You break it, you bought it,” the man shouted after us.

Jeez. “I know,” I shouted back, as Rhett and I hurried away from him as fast as possible. We were rounding the corner when I ran smack into my brother. His arms were filled with various food items, no rhyme or reason to them. He looked at me and then he looked at Rhett. I waited for the insults to come flying out of his mouth. But, surprisingly, they didn’t.

“Okay then,” John said. “If you’re going to be here then you can carry all this.” He shoved everything into Rhett’s arms. Rhett quickly moved to balance the items as best he could. One stray orange—an orange?—went rolling off into the unknown despite his efforts.

“Look,” Rhett said to him. “I know you don’t care much for me but—”

“We really don’t need to discuss this,” John said, immediately cutting him off. “Frankly, I’m sick of talking about you. If you’re here, you’re here. Whatever.”

“Well, can I at least say I’m sorry about Shelley? If it helps, it didn’t mean anything to me.”

I slapped my hand to my head. Shelley was the last person Rhett should have brought up at this moment. John wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t fighting or screaming or bitching. Just let it go, Rhett.

“It doesn’t help,” John grunted. “So…yeah.”

“Fine,” Rhett said, dropping the Shelley thing. “What are you making?” he asked, checking out the ingredients in his arms. “Chicken stew?”

“No,” John huffed. “I don’t know. Our mom has never made a Thanksgiving dinner in her life. Every year she gets the meal catered. Now with the snow…well, tomorrow isn’t looking so good. So I’m trying to figure out an alternative. There aren’t many options here. I’ve never cooked much more than pancakes in my life.”

“Right.” Rhett handed the ingredients back to John. “Lucky for you, I can cook. I’ve helped my mom with every Thanksgiving dinner since I was old enough to mash the potatoes for her. Plus, whenever one of the cooks at Chancy’s is out sick or running late, they make me cook. I can help.”

I said nothing. Only watched as Rhett took over Johns little ‘grocery trip’ and started running things. Even when Heath found us, holding nothing but a single can of pumpkin, Rhett started ordering him around, too, making him go find ingredients for the pie. An hour later, the four of us left the store, with wine, pumpkin pie ingredients, stuff to make a couple different casseroles, and a giant amount of chicken breasts. The chicken would have to do since they had no turkeys left.

I was impressed. Even if John wasn’t. And Rhett, with his ability to get along with almost anyone, seemed to have made a friend out of Heath. When we reached the house, Mom and Mrs. Carter were both passed out on the sofa. Dad and Mr. Carter, like two children, had found a sled from God only knows where and were heading outside to ‘try to find a hill.’ I think the only hill they were going to find was a set of stairs straight into a subway station.

That left us kids alone and unsupervised. I took Rhett back to my room, to show him around and also get him alone. My heart started pounding the moment I shut my door. I was burning up inside my snowsuit, and I desperately wanted to strip out of it, but I needed one more answer from him. “Why didn’t you return my call or my text? I tried to reach you three days ago. I left a voicemail.”

“I know. I got your message.” He stepped into my room further and sat down on my bed, almost like it was familiar to him and he did it every day. “Honestly…I was scared you were trying to reach me to end things. And if you were going to end things then wanted you to have to do it in person. If I’d known you were going to be as sweet to me then as you’re being today, I wouldn’t have hesitated to call.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted to call. Pretty desperately.”

“Well, you’re here now.” And I was so happy and grateful. Taking the zipper to my suit in my hand, I started to slowly unzip. “And I missed you so freaking bad.” I kept unzipping, past my chest, then my stomach, and straight down.

Rhett suddenly stood up. “Jesus, Sydney. Nope. Sorry, baby. Nope. We can’t do that.” He started backing away toward my door. He backed into my dresser and nearly fell over, but he righted himself and kept backing. “I want to do that. Believe me, the need to be inside you is already killing me. I’ve been going out of my mind the last few days, not even sure if I’d ever get to do that with you again. But not now, not here with your family. Your brother already hates me…so, actually, I shouldn’t even be in your room with the door closed. He’s probably already assuming the worst. So I’m going to go out there and make that pie for that Heath kid, family friend of yours, since that kid is so obsessed with pie. And…I’m gonna go do that.” He stumbled into the door.

I couldn’t help but laugh. He was flustered and it was sexy as hell. “Okay. But tonight. After everyone goes to sleep. You better be in here.”

He reached for the handle.

“Rhett—I’m serious.”

“I’ll be in here. Don’t worry.” He came back across the room, all confident and cocky now, and pulled me in for one more kiss. It was a kiss that let me know he certainly wasn’t about to deny me sex tonight. It left me in one hell of a turned-on state, feeling like tonight was an eternity away. I moaned in protest against his mouth because I did not want him to go help Heath with that pie. “Fine,” he suddenly said and he pushed the material of the snowsuit down over my shoulders. “You win.”

He was peeling my snowsuit down, kissing so deviously in every spot he could, feeling his way, letting go completely, and now I was the one who had to deny him. “No, you’re right. Now isn’t good.” If we did had sex now then it would just be rushed and I wanted more than that right this second. Turning around, I wiggled away from him. I started to pout, mostly because I couldn’t have him and suddenly I’d never wanted him more.

“Tonight,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “I love you.”

I had no idea if he’d meant to say those last three words or if they’d just sort of slipped out. He’d never said them before and part of me wondered if I’d even heard him correctly. Either way, he didn’t wait around to see if I’d reciprocate.

He only left my room.

And he left me out of breath.