Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (32 page)

I
was driven. On a mission. My head was full of points I wanted to make in my opening statement. I even tuned
out the neon lights in the ceiling of the tunnel I had to
pass through to get between concourses A and B of the
United terminal. I tuned out the new age space music as
well. No time for errant thoughts or even for the outside
world. My life was all about focus and moving forward.

My phone vibrated in my bag. I answered it without
looking at the caller ID. It didn’t matter who it was
because I planned to get rid of the caller in as few words
as possible regardless. I was already in a sour mood. My
eyes hurt, I couldn’t find my eye drops, and I hadn’t eaten
in hours since nobody wants to feed you on a plane any
more and I had accidentally packed my wallet in my big
suitcase, which was hopefully on its way to Flight 494.

“Hello,” I said, maneuvering around a mother and
her large stroller.

“Denise.” The voice that came through my phone
was flat and obnoxious.

“Lindie. What do you want?” I said. I hadn’t had
much to say to her since the honor council mess.

“Just because your note is being published doesn’t
mean you don’t answer to me anymore. I’m still in charge
for now. I asked to meet with you before you left for the
airport.” Her voice became even tighter. I think it almost
killed her that my note was chosen for publication even
after all that had happened.

“I couldn’t risk missing my plane.”

“The school is not that far from the airport, Denise. You wouldn’t have missed anything.”

“
Look, Lindie, I don’t have time for this right now. I
have to catch my connecting flight, and my plane from
Richmond was late. I haven’t been able to get any infor
mation about my flight to New York yet. And this is a
pointless conversation anyway. Whatever it is can wait
until I get back.”

“There’s no need to attack me, Denise. I just wanted
to let you know that you’ve been selected as next year’s
editor-in-chief for law review.”

I stopped by the escalator leading up to the concourse
and stumbled backward a bit. “What? Really?”
“Congratulations.” Her voice was stiff.

“Thank you,” I murmured, a grin spreading slowly over my face. Warmth chased by chills raced over my
body. We said our goodbyes and I slipped my phone back
into my purse. I couldn’t stop smiling until I got to the
gate my flight was supposed to leave out of. I knew there
was a problem when I saw that there was not one avail
able chair at my gate, or any of those nearby. People
lounged on the floor. Bored-looking teenagers sat in the
aisles and toyed with laptops, cellphones, and MP3
players. I looked up at the nearest flight board just then
and my heart sank. My flight was canceled.

“What?” I dropped my carry-on to the floor and
glared at the flight board.

Someone tapped my shoulder and I jumped. I turned to see Donnovan smiling at me.

I smiled back. It was catching. “Shouldn’t you already be in New York?” He was on my competition team, and
the only other person connecting through Chicago. The
o
ther three members of our team had all gotten a flight
together with a different connection.

He sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah.
About that. Neither one of us are going anywhere
tonight, Denise. They’ve grounded some of the planes
and cancelled the rest of the night’s flights. Something about safety checks.”

I’d rushed to the gate for nothing. I tapped a finger
against the boarding pass I’d printed out from the self
check-in machine and scrunched my lips up in disappointment.

“I have some good news,” Donnovan said. He leaned
in closer to me with a conspiratorial grin.

“Oh, yeah?”

He held up two small pieces of paper. “I managed to
wrangle two hotel vouchers.”

“Oh, yeah? How’d you do that?”

“A little bit of flirting. I little bit of lying.”

We laughed. I kept smiling afterward. Donnovan had
broad lips that looked soft to the touch. His dark brown
hair was cut close and he had round, dark brown eyes to match. There was a shadow of a beard across his long jaw
line. He was about my height and a few shades darker than me.

I realized he was asking me something and I had to ask him to repeat it, the blood rushing into my face.

He chuckled. “I asked if you wanted to go over to the
hotel and grab a drink at the bar there before bed.”

“Um, sure,” I said. I smoothed a few stray hairs back
down, attempting to tidy my ponytail. I wished for the s
econd time that day that I’d taken time to iron my gray
pants and burgundy blouse that morning, but at least I
wasn’t wearing the sweats I’d contemplated changing into
for the duration of the trip.

We took the shuttle to the airport Sheraton and sat at
the bar. We called our coach and teammates on the way
to the hotel to let them know what was going on. I was
glad I always packed a change of clothes in my carry-on
in case my luggage was lost. And that I wasn’t stranded
alone at the airport, curled up in some corner at the gate.
The night could have been worse. And I could have had worse company.

Once we were seated at the bar and had ordered our
drinks, we started chatting about the competition and
about school. We were both on law review and he con
gratulated me when I told him about editor-in-chief.

To break a lull in the conversation, Donnovan said, “I
heard about what happened between you and John.”

I forced the start of a grimace to finish in a smile. I didn’t even like hearing that name. “It’s okay.”

“That wasn’t cool at all what he did. He really lost
out, and you can do better.”

I nodded away his concern and flashed another forced smile. “So, speaking of relationships, how’s
Sandy?” Sandy was his girlfriend. She was in grad school
at a college in North Dakota.

He turned back to his rum and Coke and twisted the
stirrer between his fingers. “We broke up a little while ago.”

“Wow. It must be in the water or something,” I said
with a nervous laugh.

“
Well, here’s to us doing better and showing them,
right?” Donnovan said with a wink, raising his glass.

“Right.” I clinked my glass to his. Taking a long sip
of my chardonnay, I let my mind wander for a moment,
wondering if Donnovan and I would work and if I
should initiate giving it a try.

Chalking it up to rebound fantasies, I pushed the
thought aside.

* * *

We won the competition, and Donnovan and I joked
that we carried it for the team thanks to the adrenaline
surge we were given by making it to the conference center just hours before the competition began. After that trip,
Donnovan and I spent a lot of time together. He even
came to my last roller derby game of the season. When I
was around him, my heart felt a little lighter. Every time Astoria tried to label it, I gave her a look that shut her up.
And shutting Astoria up isn’t easy to do.

Life was almost back to normal. I was doing pretty
okay until one Saturday night in early April when I was
rudely awakened by my cellphone’s ring. There’s always
something.

“What?” I mumbled, barely holding the phone up to
my ear.

“Denise,” a voice I hadn’t expected said.

“Thom?” I said, shocked completely out of my sleep,
wondering why John’s brother was calling me. Why, why,
why, when I’d been doing such a good job of pulling
myself back together?

“John doesn’t know I’m doing this. And he would kill
me if he knew, but this is for his own good,” Thom said
in lieu of a greeting.

“Huh?” I was still trying to figure out why I was
talking to Thom.

“He won’t listen to a word I say, and someone’s got to
stop him from flying down this path of destruction he’s
on. My brother is an ass. He’s a confused ass. I know he asked her to marry him, but that doesn’t make any sense.
He’s still in love with you.”

“Yeah. Your brother’s good at that. Not making any
sense,” I said, rubbing my eyes and fumbling for my
alarm clock, wondering what in the world time it was.

“But he told me he still loves you.”

“Yeah. He tells me all the time. Still marrying that
bitch.”

“But he told me the night before he asked her to
marry him. He just didn’t tell me his plans at the time. He
told me he loves you more than he could ever love Sasha.”

I dropped my alarm clock.

“I can’t take any more of this, Thom. The disappointment. The anger. The hurt. It’s over. I’ve moved on. And that’s the way it has to be. Let him marry her. I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do. It hurts you as much as it hurts
everyone else involved.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be hurting John
or Sasha very much,” I said. “And I’m sure it’s not hurting
your parents, either.”

“
John is hurting more than you think. He’s gotten
very good at covering up pain, disappointment, and anger
over the years. Just trust me. There’s a lot you don’t know
about growing up in this house. There’s a lot money can’t
buy. What he said at dinner that day you were here—that
doesn’t even begin to cover it all,” Thom said.

I remained quiet. I didn’t like it him pointing out
John might have a side in all this.

“Denise?”

“What do you expect me to do? Huh? They’re getting
married. That’s perfectly clear. There’s nothing I can do
to stop it. So what does it matter? Even if he cares about
me, which I doubt he does.”

“I don’t think you believe that any more than I do,”
Thom said. His voice was quiet, yet firm. “John was
never so happy about being with anyone before. I know
there were problems. Massive ones. But you should have
heard how he talked about you to me. I know it’s out of line for me to call you, and I wouldn’t if I didn’t think it
was really important and I didn’t know what I know. I
just didn’t know what else to do. If only you knew what
he was going to—if only you knew. I don’t think it’s too
late. And I think you’d be making a huge mistake to just
let go. And not try.”

“He’s not trying.”

“I love my brother, but he doesn’t always do what’s
best for him. I was hoping you’d see things more clearly
than him. For both of your sakes.”

“Well, us being apart is really what’s best for both of
us.”

“
So letting everybody else tell the two of you what’s
best for you is what’s best? Really?”

“Thom, you don’t know what it’s been like.”

“I know I’ve seen John go through changes over the
past few months. And even at his most miserable with
you? He was happier than he is now. I mean, like I said,
he’s good at putting up fronts. But I know him. I know
John well. And he’s really dying inside. And I’d be pretty
willing to bet you are, too,” Thom said. “Even for that short time I saw you two together, I could tell that you
two were for real. That you really had something that’s
still worth saving.”

I said nothing. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to
respond to that without breaking down. John was prob
ably off somewhere with Sasha at the very moment I was
talking to Thom. I wished he was dying inside, but he
couldn’t have been. I refused to believe it.

“Denise? All I know is Sasha being in my brother’s life
is no good for anybody. And don’t even bring up my parents. But you? You in his life? I think you could change
everything for the better. You were already working on that before everything went wrong. And you were doing
a great job.”