Catch Me (19 page)

“Yes?” I ask, unwilling to turn around because my heart is pounding at my throat.

“You have permission to interrupt me,” he says.

I turn around, stunned, because I have to—how can I not?

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay,” he agrees with a sense of finality before he turns around and gets back to work.

Shaking my head, I turn around and take the elevator up to my office. I stick my head in Stacey’s office on the way to mine and ask her if my brother’s in yet. She’s on the phone, so she nods with a smile and signals me to go into his office. I knock once before I let myself in, finding him standing, facing the window as he talks on the phone.

“I’ll be there on the weekend,” he says quietly. “I know we need to talk. I have to go. Okay. Bye.”

Hendrix’s face is clouded as he turns to face me, and I can tell he’s still mulling over the conversation he had.

“Who was that?” I ask with a frown as I walk toward him and give him a kiss on the cheek. I haven’t seen him in a couple of days. It seems like when I’m home, he’s not and vice versa.

“Sarah,” he says with a sigh, running his hand through his curly blond hair.

“Oh. How is she?”

“Fine. She wants to talk.” The way he says the words, as if he’s not sure he wants to talk to her, makes me think there’s a lot more to the story, so I do what every good sister would and take a seat.

“Talk. What’s going on?” I ask; glancing at my gold boyfriend watch quickly to make sure I have time to be nosey.

Hendrix sighs loudly and takes a seat in his huge cherry leather chair. He places his elbows on the desk and buries his face between his hands. “How did things get so fucked up?” he asks, seemingly talking to himself. “One minute we were in love, crazy about each other, married. The next we were thrilled to be having a baby together, and then it seemed like we couldn’t even bear to look at each other. I just don’t get it. What the fuck went wrong?” His voice is soft and cracking and it breaks my heart along with it.

“I’m sorry,” I offer in a whisper. I’m not good with comforting others. Hell, I can’t even comfort myself most of the time. Growing up we weren’t really shown empathy, and I think that’s one of those things that you kind of have to be shown in order to give.

He shakes his head, still in his hands. “I just … I love her so much, but I don’t think we can work this out anymore. She’s there and I’m here and I’d
rather
be here … but I can’t bear the thought of completely losing her.”

I purse my lips, nodding as if I understand what he’s going through, even though I don’t. It’s easy to dish out advice when you’re not the one in the situation, though, so I do.

“I think if you really feel that strongly about the whole thing, you should fight for your girls,” I suggest.

He nods in agreement. “I think you’re right and I will.”

“Good. I’ll be back in next week but I’m having Stace email me whatever she has for me. I’ll listen on the road,” I say, ruffling his hair as I lean down to place a kiss on his forehead.

“See ya. Please be careful, Bee. PLEASE,” he pleads, frowning his sad brown eyes at me.

“I will,” I promise. “Stop worrying, Mother Hen. Geez,” I joke, making him smile.

A nagging thought strikes me as I’m walking out of his office, so I turn around and face him. “Hey, Henny … why do you want to fight for her now? After all this time? What changed?”

He looks surprised by my question and averts his eyes from me. “Some guy in that band she’s producing asked her out,” he grumbles.

My mouth falls open. “So a guy asking out your ex-wife is what made you realize that you might lose her? Jesus Christ, men are fucking stupid,” I mutter under my breath, turning back around and walking out.

“We are! Remember that for future reference!” Hendrix screams behind me, making me laugh.

On my way back downstairs, my elevator stops at the forty-fourth floor and Nick gets in with a couple of guys and one older lady. I scoot further back in the elevator to make room for them and anybody else that will get on as we descend floors. Nick pins me with his gaze, causing butterflies to reawaken in my core, and he scoots beside me.

“Did Gia finish recording her part of the song?” I ask, tilting my head to look up at him.

He nods, his eyes locked on the elevator door. “Yep. She’s usually pretty good once she stops fucking around.”

I nod and turn my face forward to look at the metal door as well. “Cool.”

“You headed straight to the airport?” he asks, scooting closer to me when more people step into the elevator and go completely still when his bare arm touches mine. It’s so dumb, really. I’m not in the fifth grade, surely I can handle a man’s arm touching mine, but holy crap his arm touching mine makes my insides mush. I decide in this moment that this is the most ridiculous crush I’ve ever had in my life. So what if he looks like a God himself sauntered down here and sprinkled gold all over him. So what if he smells like one of those little ads that come in Esquire magazine for men to sniff the next perfume of their choice? He could totally model for one of those ads too. It doesn’t matter, though—I’ve seen plenty of hot guys. I’ve been with some too. The difference between them and Nick, however, is that he is a man, not a guy. He. Is.
Man
. If you look up the definition of
hot man
, you’ll find Nick. No joke.

He nudges me, snapping me out of my crazy thoughts. “Huh?” I say, confused, looking up at him.

He grins and I feel my knees go a little weak. “Are you going to the airport now?”

“Ohh … well, I have to get my bags and then I’m going.” I frown. “Are you?”

He nods. “Responsible.” He points at himself.

“So am I,” I counter, a little offended at his suggestion.

Nick laughs loudly as we step out of the elevator. “Hey, I don’t know.”

I push his shoulder playfully with my hand, making him laugh louder as he takes my hand and squeezes. “I am responsible! I just need to get my suitcase and that’s it!” I say with a laugh.

“Sure. You don’t need to pack your hair products?” he jokes, grabbing a lock of my hair and shaking it in his hand.

I slap his hand away. “Stop it,” I fume jokingly. “I do need to pack my hair iron,” I mutter under my breath, making us both laugh.

“Figures,” he says, his sea-green-blue eyes twinkling.

“You know your eyes change colors?” I ask randomly.

Nick slows down his pace until we both stop walking. We’re standing in the entrance of the building and people are walking past us on either side, but neither one of us move. We just stand there; holding each other’s stares until I feel dizzied from the way the look in his eyes makes me feel.

He steps in, just an inch closer to me, close enough for my breath to catch at the proximity. Close enough that I have to crane my head to look at him. Close enough for the amazing smell of fresh smelling man that radiates from him to wrap around me. His gaze dances over my face and falls onto my mouth, lingering there as he licks his own lips slowly, making a new kind of warmth curl in my stomach. When he looks back into my eyes, the side of his mouth tilts up, as if he can hear my thoughts ringing loudly in his head. I’m sure what I want is written all over my face. I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions.

“They do change colors—my eyes,” he says quietly, as if I might’ve forgotten what we were talking about. “And I love the way you look at them. Like you get lost in them, like you can’t help yourself.”

My eyes widen, but I’m too stunned to move or reply to that. What would I say, anyway? Yes? I swallow loudly instead and bite down on my lip, looking toward the door for a distraction.

Nick’s finger tipping my chin brings my attention back to him. “See you later, Brooklyn,” he says, dropping his hand and tugging a lock of my hair before walking off.

By the time I climb the stairs of the jet, Shea and Nick are already sitting in there playing the Xbox that’s connected to the big screen television toward the back. Shea nods his head at me in greeting, not taking his eyes off of the screen as he continues to shoot his opponent. Nick turns his head to me and smiles, tipping his fingers in a salute.

“Dude! You’re gonna get me killed!” Shea shouts.

Nick laughs and looks back to the TV. I shake my head and walk toward them, plopping down behind them.

“Is anybody else coming?” I ask, propping my head on my hand and laying my body sideways across the couch so that I can still look at the game they’re playing. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the excitement of these Call of Duty games, but Shea loves them.

“I’m surprised you’re a gamer,” I say in reference to Nick. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for one.”

Nick chuckles and turns his head, his brows raising slightly as he does a slow sweep of my entire body that leaves me shivering. When his eyes reach my face again, my stomach feels like it’s zip lining from the look he’s giving me. He looks like he wants to devour me and between the way my heart is beating against my chest and the rest of my body is coiling, I wish he would.

“I’m a man of many talents,” Nick says, his voice dropping into what I can only describe as a sensual timbre that makes me bite down on the inside of my cheek.

“Nick! You’re gonna fucking die!” Shea screams, visibly upset over the game.

Nick completely ignores Shea’s plea to get back in the game and lets his gaze continue to rock through me, making me feel unnerved, bare, as if I’m under a microscope. I’m not one to back down from a challenge, but I know that the only reason people look at each other like that is because they either want to kill each other or fuck each other to death. Because I know we’re both aiming for the latter of the two and I don’t know if I would survive that with him, I find myself shuffling to my feet quickly and excusing myself to go to the bathroom. Shutting the door behind me, I sag against it and let out a breath, closing my eyes until my heart goes back to normal speed.

There’s a knock on my door shortly after, followed by the flight attendant telling me they’re ready for departure. I open the door and peek out, noticing that the bathroom light is on and only Nick is in the cabin. I take a breath and push my shoulders back, walking toward the couch again to buckle my seat belt. We don’t have to do this, people rarely actually put their seatbelts on during private flights, but I like to be safe and not rolling all over the cabin. It happened to me once before and I learned my lesson.

Nick is on his computer with his earphones on, his head bobbing, and hasn’t acknowledged my arrival. If he knows I’m here, he shows no sign of it. Shea steps out of the bathroom, stretching his arms up, his white T-shirt riding up and the top of his underwear showing. It’s the same underwear I saw him in an advertisement for.

“Do they give you free underwear now?” I ask curiously.

Shea grins his shit-eating grin that he throws around when he catches girls checking him out and I have to laugh because he’s that ridiculous. He sits down beside me and throws his arm over my shoulder, tucking his face into the side of my face. Normally I would laugh at his antics, but for some reason the only thing I can think about is Nick and the fact that he’s sitting right in front of us. The entire thing makes me feel weird for some reason, though I don’t know why.

“You wanna see them?” Shea whispers into my ear, causing me to shiver, but it’s more on the disgusted side than turned on side. It’s not that I’m disgusted by Shea, but the idea of being with him in that way only clouds me with bad memories, horrible memories even, ones I don’t care to explore more than I’m doing by going to San Francisco with him. Even that’s pushing my luck, I realize, but at least I can rationalize my visit by thinking I’ll get some closure.

I move my face further away from him and catch Nick’s eyes bounce from the computer screen directly into mine. Shea’s oblivious to my discomfort. Oblivious to the fact that I’m more tuned into what the guy across from us is doing, the guy who hasn’t even touched me, yet ignites tiny fireworks in my veins with just one look. Shea doesn’t feel that my body isn’t responding to him but leaning away instead, the way it has been for years. He doesn’t get it though, he just keeps leaning in, trying to drain me of whatever I have left, even though it’s not his. Not anymore.

Nick, however, notices. He sees it all and he doesn’t look pleased with any of it. Why does this thrill me? What is it about him looking at me like he wants to possess me that makes me giddy inside? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never felt as wanted as he makes me feel with just one glance, just one phrase. Maybe it’s because stupidly, I want to believe that he’ll prove me wrong and show me that not everybody is selfish.