Flee (The Aurora Lockette Series, Book 1) (8 page)

He smiled. “As opposed to abnormal people
restaurants?”

I snapped my menu shut. “Correct.”

After a delectable lunch where I discovered I
love things drenched with truffle oil, he drove to a small town
nearby with a huge farmer’s market. I walked around the stalls,
admiring the different cultural crafts, the brightly colored fruits
and vegetables, and the wide variety of people. Soon, every
direction I looked someone was snapping pictures of Gavyn as he
walked by.

When a definitive crowd formed around us, he
put his fingers on his brow, blocking his face with his hand.
“Let’s go. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

By the time we got back to his hotel, the
sunlight was fading behind the hills in the distance.

As soon as he shut the door behind me, he
pulled my sundress over my head and carried me back to the bed.
After some spirited adult activities, we were a sleepy, happy
tangle in the soft bed. As sleep overcame me, I decided this was
the best day of my life.

So far.

I took my time parking in the crisp, fall
morning. The semester was creeping to a close. It should’ve been a
relief, but it wasn’t. Finals were coming up. Since one final was
one hundred percent of your grade for a class, it tended to add
some stress to your life.

I got out of the car and mashed the buttons
on the electronic key until it beeped twice. I was eighty percent
sure that meant the car was locked now.

“That isn’t your car,” said a feminine voice
directly behind me.

“Jesus Christ, Bree! Don’t sneak up on
me.”

She smiled. “This must be Gavyn’s, unless
you’ve been pretending to be poor this entire time.”

“He leases it, and yes, he added my name to
the lease.” I pushed some buttons again until the trunk popped
open.

She fished my backpack out and handed it to
me. “That’s pretty significant, don’t you think?”

I shrugged.

We walked through the parking lot together.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You practically live with him,”
she said.

“Not true.”

“Oh yeah? When was the last time you slept in
your own apartment?”

“Hmm. I suppose it’s been a few weeks.” I
hooked my arm through hers as we approached the classroom building.
“Do you blame me?”

“That I do not.”

My classmates were nice enough not to stare
at me anymore for dating a movie star. One of my other classmates
was dating a professional basketball player. I was glad for the
focus to slide to her.

“I like you better when you’re getting laid.
You’re a lot more relaxed. I guess you just needed some orgasms to
get those endorphins flowing,” Bree said.

“You’re all sorts of wrong, you know?”

She wiggled her hips in her special dork
dance. “Actually, I’m the shiz. Speaking of which, you know about
the par-tay this weekend, right?”

“Nope.” I opened the doors to the building
and gestured for her to walk in front of me.

“Of course, you’ve been constantly holed up
in your luxury suite with Gavyn. It’s a law school tradition. Every
Halloween weekend, everybody drives up to the Guadalupe River in
the hill country. The student bar association rents out cabins and
campgrounds. We party, hike, eat, drink and play for the weekend.
Families and significant others are included.”

“Cool. You going?” Hill country meant thick,
tall trees. Lots of trees gave strange people places to hide and
stalk me, but I hadn’t seen anyone in a while. Probably because I
spent most of my free time in Gavyn’s bed.

“Girl, shoot! Hell to the yes I’m going, and
so are you.”

“Well, maybe I could go for one night.”

“What? Go for two, with me. Bring Gavyn.
It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Oh, come on. People have gotten used to the
idea of him being your boyfriend, or whatever he is. I bet after a
few hours people would stop staring. I’ll spread the word for
people to treat him like everyone else. No autographs or
anything.”

“We’ll see. I’ll talk to him.”

She grabbed my arm outside the classroom
door. “You need to do this. These classmates are going to be your
coworkers someday. It is a very small legal community, and you need
to try, at least a little bit.” She let go of my arm and opened the
door for me. Her bright smile was back. “Plus, I’m going. And you
know you love me, bee-yotch.”

“Okay, okay.”

***

After a long day of classes and library
study time, I drove home to find Gavyn stretched out on my couch
and flipping through channels. His presence shouldn’t be a surprise
to me since I’d given him a key, but he never ceased to knock my
socks off with his general hotness.

“Hello, my lady.” He pulled me into a tight
embrace.

“Hi.”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “Did you finish
all your reading?” he asked.

“Yes. What time did you get up this morning?”
He’d been gone when I woke up at 5:30.

“3:00,” he said. “It did not feel good, but I
had to be there by 3:30.”

“You must be tired.” I threw my backpack on
the ground near the front door and lowered myself on to the
couch.

He sat next to me. He looked tired, pale, and
his eyes were off. “You want to go to the wine bar?”

We ordered a Chilean red and found a small
couch in the corner of the dimly lit bar.

He looked at me for a couple of minutes
without saying a word. He was fidgety, playing with the leather
strap on his wrist and continually adjusting his shirt.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

“No, not wrong. Not really.” He stuttered
when he spoke. It was weird. He never stuttered. Stuttering was my
gig.

“What is it?”

He ran both of his hands though his thick
black hair, still not saying a word. He took the wine glass out my
hand and set it on the table, wrapping his hand around mine.

Oh crap. I was so getting dumped.

“Aurora.” His voice was very quiet. “I love
you.” He took a deep, shaky breath before continuing. “I’m sorry if
this is too soon.”

Whoa. My heart flip-flopped around in my
chest. Crap. Wait, this was good. And bad. And Complicated.

But I did.

He held up a hand. “You don’t have to say
anything if you’re not ready. Are you okay with this?”

“Yes, because I love you,” I said, testing
the words in my mouth. They felt good.

He cradled my face in his hands and kissed
me. “Thanks.”

“Thanks?” I repeated. “Why are you thanking
me?”

“For being you. And loving me.”

“Now that we are officially lovers, do you
have free time this weekend?” I asked.

“Yes. Why?” His face was dark again.

“It’s a law school thing, a tradition on
Halloween weekend where the student bar association rents out some
cabins on the Guadalupe River in the hill country. People bring
their families or whatever, camp out, and have a good time. Bree
wants me to go, and she thinks you should go too.”

“Would you like me to go with you?”

I took a long drink of my wine. “Yes. I don’t
want to be away from you the whole weekend.”

He looked at his hands, which were folded on
the table. “Okay. I’ll go.”

“What’s wrong? You don’t have to go if you
don’t want to.”

“We’re wrapping production down here next
week. I’m going back to L.A.”

“Oh.” Now it was my turn to stare at my
lap.

“Please say something,” he said.

“That blows.”

He smiled, but it was weak and didn’t reach
his eyes. “I’m going to figure something out.” He reached for my
hand. I hesitated, but he grabbed it and squeezed it between his.
“I mean it when I say I love you. I want this. I want you. I will
figure this out for us, okay?”

“Okay. Sure.” I tried to smile back, but I
could already feel the slices of pain about his impending
departure.

***

Gavyn drove to the campground on the
Guadalupe. South Texas had blessed us with perfect seventy-eight
degree weather and a cloudless blue sky. It was only a forty-five
minute drive from downtown, but we were both silent. It felt like
we were driving to a funeral. After all, it was our last weekend
together.

The silence was okay. I needed some time to
think.

I had let myself fall in love. Time to cue
the happy music and ride off into the sunset.

Reality was a little different. Gavyn was
based out of London and Los Angeles. He was a movie star with a
very tight schedule that would pull him all over the world. I was a
poor law student in Texas, with a demanding schedule that would
tether me to my law school. More importantly, I was a circus freak.
There was no way I’d be able to hide it from him forever.

But there was a tiny little piece of good in
all this. If Gavyn lived in Los Angeles and I lived in San Antonio,
then maybe I could hide it from him. I’d just have to exercise
great caution for the next few dates and the time we spent together
in the future. At least I could buy some time to figure out if
Gavyn had a permanent relationship in mind, something that would
warrant a full disclosure of all superhuman attributes.

“Hey, beautiful, glad to see you’re
smiling.”

“Thanks. I’m happy to be with you right
now.”

“Good.” He reached over to pat my leg. “I
hope you don’t mind. I got us a little private cabin.”

“Oh?”

Of course, it turned out it was no simple
cabin. It was two stories, with a loft overlooking the living room,
and a vaulted ceiling with a skylight. There was a full kitchen
with stainless steel appliances, stately leather furniture, and
huge bedroom with the biggest bed I had ever seen. A small back
patio, complete with rocking chairs, overlooked a beautiful view of
trees and a sliver of bubbling river. The cabin was at least five
times the size of my apartment.

“Gavyn! This isn’t a freaking cabin. This is
a house!”

“Do you like it?”

“Oh, my God! It’s too much.”

“It’s really not a big deal for me to do
this, so let me do it, okay?”

“Right, sure.” I nodded.

“What time did you say the barbeque was?” he
asked.

“Three. What did you have in mind?”

He maneuvered me onto the ridiculously large
bed and showed me what he had in mind.

We managed to crawl out of bed and get
dressed by mid afternoon. I was sore in the right places and my
legs were shaky, but Gavyn was a ball of energy. He loaded up a
small backpack cooler with our steaks, beer, and ice.

“You ready?” His smile was so wide it looked
like his face might split open.

“Yeah.”

“I was thinking we could walk. It’s not even
a mile away, and it’s so nice outside. We’ll walk back and get our
car before it gets dark,” he said.

“Good idea.”

He pulled a map out of his packet, consulted
it, and seemed confident with what he saw. He led me to the thick
tree line right behind the cabin.

The trail we chose was a narrow strip of
packed dirt. Knobby tree roots stretched across the path, which I,
in my infinite grace, occasionally stumbled over. Gavyn kept his
hand on my arm during the steep parts, making sure I wouldn’t fall.
The trees were so thick that only small streams of sunlight
filtered through the leaves, making woven patterns on the ground.
Occasionally, we would hear rustling in the trees as we approached
and scattered the wildlife.

At first, I was uncomfortable with the
deafening silence of the forest. When my ears adjusted to the
quiet, I could hear the birds chirping, insects buzzing, the
creaking of the tops of the trees as they swayed in the wind, and
the occasional dim roar of a nearby river.

We came across three picnic tables in the
shade of a large tree, barely visible from the trail. A small brook
bubbled nearby. We sat down at the small picnic table, brushing off
as much vegetation as we could.

Gavyn met my eyes. “I have a little surprise
for you.”

“You do?”

“It’s something I made for you during my down
time on set. No big deal.” He pulled something small and brown out
of his pocket. It was a narrow leather bracelet similar to the one
he wore. It was made of tiny strings of leather, woven together.
The braid of the weave was dotted with small pearly sea-shells.

“It’s beautiful. I love it. Thank you.” I
leaned across the table and gave him a loud smack on the lips.

“I’m glad you like it.” He tied the bracelet
on.

I held out my arm and admired it again. “One
of a kind.”

“Yes, you are.” His face became more serious.
“I want to talk to you about something. Something important.”

I got up from my position across from him,
and sat next to him, straddling the bench so I could face him.
“Okay.”

“I’ve been thinking about us a lot. I know
I’m hard to be with. I’m contractually obligated for about the next
two and half years with various projects.”

I nodded, since I already knew about his
upcoming projects.

“And you. You and your brilliant little brain
are in law school.” He shifted his body so he was facing me. “Let
me ask you something. If you could do anything you want, without
regards to consequences, what would you do?”

“No one has ever asked me before. I’m not
sure I’ve asked myself before.”

“I’m asking you now.” He nudged me with his
shoulder. “I know you space out a lot, so what are you thinking
about?”

“Mostly you.”

“Seriously, what do you want to do?”

“I really don’t know what I want to do with
myself on a permanent basis, if that’s what you’re asking. I hate
law school. I think it was a mistake.” I dropped my eyes to my lap.
I had never admitted that out loud, or even to myself for that
matter.

He took my hand. “Well, then my plan might be
perfect.”

At this point, my nerves had taken me to a
point where I was pretty sure I would throw up if I opened my mouth
to speak, so I kept it shut and waited for him to elaborate.