First Love (Complicated Love Book 1) (3 page)

“Oh, that’s fine. He won’t hold this meeting against you.” She throws her arm around me. “I have tequila. I hope you still like shots and margaritas.”

This is why Shawna’s my best friend. I really should consider moving to California to be closer to her. Maybe that’ll help with the pain of not seeing Brian every day. The thought of being around him and his slut of a secretary makes my eyes sting.

“You know me so well. I still love tequila,” I say, remembering some of the good times we’ve had.

Finally, I take a look around. She has a really nice place with floor-to-ceiling windows. I bet it’s an amazing view; I can’t wait to see it in the daytime. I’m eager to see the rest of her home, but that can wait until tomorrow.

“Let me show you to your room,” Shawna says, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Sounds good. I need to put my bag down and get into something comfortable.”  I look down at my wrinkled slacks. My mother would disown me if she saw me wearing clothes that looked like I’d slept in them.

“Donna, are you all right?  You look like you’re about to fall apart.”

“I am about to fall apart, but I just want to have a drink and then I’ll break down.”

“Hey, come here.” Shawna pulls me into a hug.

I can’t stop the tears now. I want to be strong, but I’m not. I feel like my whole life is falling apart in front of me. How do I get it back?

“Can you show me the room now so I can set this bag down and then have a drink so we can talk?  Please.” I should just let her comfort me, but…I can’t face saying what Brian did to me while sober. It’ll be hard enough saying it, even with liquid courage flowing through me.

“Yes, and take your time. There’s a bathroom next door to your room if you’d like to use that as well. I’ll be waiting for you in the kitchen, love.” Shawna gives me a hug and leaves me to my thoughts.

While I’m in the guest room, I overhear Shawna and Frank talking. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem bothered that I showed up in the wee hours.

He asks, “Would you like me to make the drinks while you go talk to Donna?  Also, you need to tell her to call Brian. He’s already called here a couple of times and I hate lying to him.”

She’s told me so much about Frank, but I didn’t believe there was a man out there who’d do anything for his girl. I’m not even sure Brian would be willing to stay up all night to wait for my friend to arrive then make drinks and be there for anything we needed.  He’s always consumed with work. He does nice things for me, but his work always comes first.

Brian said, “I won’t make partner by sitting around on

my ass all day. I have to work hard to get to the top, and I’ll have to work even harder to stay on top. I don’t want people to think I got the job because my dad owns the firm.”

He wants to make partner within the next two years, but he’s working sixty-plus hours a week to achieve that goal. I know he loves me, and one day, he won’t work as much, but sometimes, it’s hard being alone so much and feeling like I’ll always be second to his work.

Well, fucking the secretary isn’t working very hard. It’s playing around, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive that.

“Sweetie,” Shawna says.

Crap. I was spaced out and didn’t even notice that Shawna had come back into the room.

“Are you going to call Brian and let him know where you are?” she asks.

“I’m not ready yet. I want to hear what your thoughts are before I call him, but I can’t ignore him, can I? Do you think he’s called my parents, looking for me?”

“Let me or Frank call him for you. I’ll tell him you made an unexpected trip to see me because I got engaged, and you meant to leave a note and must’ve forgotten in your excitement. We don’t have to tell him the real reason yet,” she says.

It sounds like a good way to go about it. But he’d still wonder why I wasn’t the one to call him. “No, you can’t do that. I don’t want him to know where I am because I need some space to think. The moment he knows where I am, he’ll be on the next plane. Whoa, hang on a minute! You’re engaged?” I shout as I stare at her, my mouth gaping open. “When did this happen? Isn’t it too soon? You guys have only been together a few months.” I don’t know if I should be mad I’m only now finding out or if I should be excited she’s finally happy.

“I was going to wait until after we talked about why you came to visit me so suddenly, but yes, I’m engaged! I’m so excited, and it happened last night. I was going to call you tonight and tell you. I wanted to call you last night, but he took me to the most romantic bed and breakfast and I was preoccupied with my man,” she says, wagging her eyebrows. “I’m thinking we’ll have to go there every year and celebrate the anniversary of our engagement.”

She said the last part with so much enthusiasm that I don’t want to tell her my problems and burst her bubble.

“Frank’s excited to finally meet you, but he’s going to let you have me to yourself so we can deal with whatever happened. He’ll even wait till tomorrow to get the proper introduction to you.”

God, even when she’s excited for herself, she still puts others first. We should be celebrating her engagement, yet we’ll spend our precious time together talking about my disaster of a life. Hopefully, we can figure something out and celebrate while I’m here.

“Can you give me a few minutes before I join you in the living room? I need to call Brian and let him know I won’t be home tonight.”

“That’s a great plan. Don’t let him talk you into anything you don’t want to do. This is about you tonight. Not him,” Shawna says.

“I won’t let him talk me into anything. I’m hoping I can get away with leaving a message.” I know she disagrees with me by the disappointed look she gives me. I’m hoping he’ll be asleep, but because he just called, he’s probably awake and waiting by the phone.

As the phone rings, I silently chant, let the answering machine pick up. Please don’t let him pick up. Please.

I need to talk to him, but I don’t know what to say without either breaking down in tears or yelling. I don’t want him to know yet that I went to his office today, but I won’t be able to hide it if we talk right now. The answering machine picks up and my breath catches until I hear the recorded greeting. Saved by the answering machine.

“Hey. I won’t make it home tonight. Don’t worry. I’m safe and need some time away from all the wedding planning. Please don’t call my parents. I’m not at their place, and I don’t want to worry them. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can talk about everything.”

I sigh as I end the call, relieved I don’t have to deal with him yet. Then my brain starts wondering where he is, what he’s doing. Why didn’t he answer the phone?

Now that I’ve made the call, it’s time to talk to Shawna and see what she thinks. I need to think rationally. I can’t be one of those girls who accepts lies and stays with a cheater. I’m better than that. Maybe even Frank will have some advice, because I really do need help with this one.

Could my mind have been playing tricks on me and it wasn’t really Brian? But I’d have known if it wasn’t my man, wouldn’t I? But, if it wasn’t Brian, who could it have been?

So many thoughts swirl through my mind, and I can’t think straight.

B
efore Donna called and left that message, I’d been worried out of my mind, wondering what happened to her. It figures she’d call the one time I’m in the bathroom. I haven’t been able to sit still since I came home and found her gone. I called her parents—before she called me—and a few of her friends from work, and I even called hospitals to make sure nothing bad had happened to her. I would’ve called the police and filed a missing person report, but they won’t do anything until she’s been missing for at least twenty-four hours.

This is so out of character for Donna. She never goes off anywhere without calling, leaving a message for me at work, or leaving me a note. Something had to have happened when she was with our mothers today to have caused her to run, but that still doesn’t make sense as to why she’d leave me without letting me know. What could have happened?

Fred, the security guard in my office building, mentioned he’d spotted Donna practically running out of the building around lunchtime, but I hadn’t seen her. Why didn’t she come by my office? Did Janice forget to let me know she stopped by? Or had she come to see someone else?  No, don’t even go there. Donna would never cheat on me. Fred also said, when she arrived, she looked very distraught and didn’t even stop to say hi like normal.

I wonder if my dad knows what happened today. I can’t ask though, because if I do, he’ll know something’s wrong, and then he’ll try to fix it. And, by fix it, I mean he’ll send me one of his sluts. He thinks sex with random women will fix anything. That’s only one thing we disagree on. My thoughts are, if you’re committed to a woman, you shouldn’t be with another. He, on the other hand, thinks the more the merrier. Why be stuck with one when you can have a variety? 

Because she said she’s safe, my assumption is she’s with Shawna. There’s nowhere else she’d feel safe.

I can relax a little. But she’s in California, at least a twelve-hour, if not closer to a fourteen-hour, drive away, and I want her in my arms. I don’t understand why she up and left. My head is spinning with all the possibilities of why. I need to see for myself she’s okay.

I’ll call Shawna’s and hopefully she’ll answer me if Donna refuses to talk to me.

What will I ask Shawna? Do I ask to talk to Donna?  Or do I pretend not to know she’s there? Crap! I’m still at a loss for what to do.

After I’ve dialed Shawna’s number, she answers and her voice is bubbly even though it’s late and most phones calls this late are bad news.

“Hello, Shawna, it’s Brian. How are you doing?”  Could I possibly sound like more of an idiot right now? I’m sure she knows the sound of my voice by now. We’ve only been friends for almost eight years, though we’ve known about each other for fifteen.

“I’m well. Is something wrong?  You never call at two in the morning.” 

I love that she always tries to lighten the mood when it’s tense. But I now know I’m not supposed to know Donna’s there. What the hell did I do? Everything was fine this morning when I left for work.

Shit. “Sorry. I didn’t even realize the time until the phone was already ringing. My head isn’t on straight at the moment. Have you by any chance heard from Donna?”

Please let her say yes. If she says no, then I’ll know Donna doesn’t want to see me and I did something wrong.

If she says yes, I’ll be on the next plane out.

Shawna pulls me out of my head by asking me the question I can’t answer. “Brian, what happened? Why don’t you know where she is?”

“To be honest with you, Shawna, I have no idea why she vanished. She called me a few minutes ago and left a message on the answering machine saying she’s safe and I shouldn’t worry, but this is so unlike her. If she’s in a safe place, it has to be with you. She told me not to contact her parents, so I’m almost positive she’s not there. I need to talk to her, though I’d prefer to see her and find out what happened. She was with our mothers today and they’re always pushing her around, but I can’t imagine what they’d do to make her leave without telling me.”

Please let her tell me Donna is there. I want to make things right.

“Brian, she showed up here about thirty minutes ago. We haven’t really had a chance to talk yet. I have no idea why she up and ran, but when she called me around noon, she was really upset. She was crying and I could barely understand a word she was saying. That has me worried. It has to do with you though. I did get that much. But I don’t know what happened. Let me talk to her, get her drunk like she wants. Then I’ll get in touch with you later this morning.”

I guess that’s all I can hope for: that whatever happened can be fixed. I can’t lose Donna. She’s the love of my life, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to be with her. Trying to make partner at such a young age is stressful, but we can make it work. I need to make more of an effort in showing her how much she means to me. I’m trying to be successful so we have a better future, but I can’t let her think my job is more important than her. She is my number one, no matter what.  Money isn’t everything, even though I sometimes think it is. Losing her, even if it’s only been a few hours, is showing me how much Donna really means to me.

“Thanks for letting me know she’s there. I understand you need time with her, but I’ll fly down there in the morning. I’d be on a flight now if I could get one.  Please don’t tell her I’m coming. I don’t want her to run away again. I need to talk to her. I’ve been dealing with some issues at work, and I’d planned to talk to her about them tonight because I need her help and support. I probably should have already asked her for it.”

She has to tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.

“Brian, I can’t guarantee I won’t tell her. She’s my best friend. Now, if you did something to hurt her, I’ll tell her and help her get away from you. If I don’t think she needs to know, then I’ll keep it from her. It’s so unlike her to be this upset. I’ve only seen her this way a few times, and usually, it was her parents causing it. Please be safe until I see you tomorrow. I’ll have Frank pick you up if you want to call us and tell us when you get a flight.”