His phone ringing interrupts me telling him I plan to come back this summer when I have a few days off from my internship.
“Lemme grab this,” he says frowning at the phone. “It’s Jade.”
I remember her name from the story he told me on the Ferris wheel. The one he still feels guilt over.
“Hey, whassup?” He presses the phone to his ear, and his brows snap together. “Why’d you tell her I was here?”
I turn away, heeding Rhyson’s call to come on or I’ll miss my flight. We walk outside to load up the car so we can get on the road. Rhyson and Grip are taking me, and I’m not sure if we should tell Rhyson what has been going on or not. It feels like such a fledgling thing but still substantial enough that he should know. I’m still silently debating when a Toyota Camry pulls up to the curb, and a curvy woman with dark brown skin and black, curly hair gets out. A scowl mars her beautiful face, and anger has her arms swinging at her side with her long strides.
“Where is he?” she demands of Rhyson without any preamble.
“Uh, hey, Tessa.” Rhyson glances up the driveway and widens his eyes meaningfully at his best friend.
Rhyson may be looking at Grip, but Grip is looking at me, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he’s panicking. Before I have time to process what’s happening, how my world is about to be ripped into tiny pieces, Tessa begins her tirade.
“How you gonna ignore my calls and text messages?” Yelling, she fits her hands to the swell of her hips. “For two damn weeks, Grip?”
“I didn’t.” Grip looks at me with troubled eyes over her shoulder and then back to her face. “We just kept missing each other. What’s going on? What’s this about?”
“This is about me trying to t
ell you something I wanted to talk about in person, not over some voice mail.” Her strident voice pitches across the yard at him.
“Okay, damn, Tessa,” Grips says, irritation evident on his face. “I’m going with Rhyson to take his sister to the airport. Can we talk later? When I get back?”
“Who is she?” I whisper to Rhyson.
“That’s Tessa.” Rhyson stretches his eyebrows until they disappear under his unruly hair. “Grip’s girlfriend.”
“His girl—” I choke on the rest of the word as a tight hand vices my throat. That can’t be. Last night’s water-dappled promises and sea salt kisses. The perfect kiss under the stars at the top of the world. All lies? We shared deep, dark lonely things. We shared everything, and it was the most honest connection I’ve ever had with anyone. And under it all was the lie that he could be mine? That maybe I could be his? That he didn’t belong to someone else? He would have said.
“No, we can’t talk when you get back,” Tessa snaps. “We need to talk now. I’m sick of chasing your ass down. You are taking responsibility for this.”
“Responsibility?” Grip shakes his head and shrugs “For what?”
“For this baby, that’s for what,” she retorts with harsh smugness.
His wide eyes snap to my face, and any doubt that she might be the one lying, that somehow this is all a prank, a hidden camera stunt, dissolve. That guard I forgot about and dropped all week falls back into place over my heart just in time.
We don’t cry in front of strangers.
My mother’s admonition, the voice of reason in my head that I ignored the last few days, slips iron discs between my vertebrae.
“Rhyson, can we go?” I ask. “I can’t miss my flight home.”
“Bristol!” Grip yells over the screeching banshee with wildly gesticulating arms in front of him. “Wait. I can—”
I open the door to Rhyson’s car and get in, not wanting to hear the dollar-late, day-short explanations disguising his lies.
Rhyson gets in, glancing over his shoulder at the spectacle on the yard, the beautiful woman screaming at Grip’s rigid face and ticking jaw. He looks at me through the car window, his eyes begging me for something I won’t give.
Second chances.
“Drive, Rhyson.” My voice is rock and resolve. “Let your friend sort his shit out. I’m going home.”