Back to the Drawing Board (26 page)

She giggled, smacking my bare chest as I came after her. “Carter! I have to go! And you have to get up, too!”

“One day,” I said, undeterred, watching her as she slipped on her jacket. “You’re going to wear just this jacket in your office and invite me in. After hours, of course.”

Her cheeks reddened further, and I knew I had her. Small puffs of air released from between her lips. “You’re so good at doing that.”

“What’s that?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at her.

“Making me want you. Again.”

“I live to make you want me,” I growled against her lips. “Now get out of here before I make
both
of us late for work.”

I got ready quickly without Julia there and headed for the office. I should’ve known something was wrong the second the elevator doors opened. It was quiet; too quiet. No one was around. I didn’t even see Brandi. I headed for my cubicle to check my emails and see what was on the agenda today when I heard shouting. I froze, looking around for the source of the noise.

It was coming from down the hall, so I walked that direction. I looked for Paige but didn’t see her. Mr. Gibbons’s door was shut, and it was his voice I could hear yelling. I ducked my head into Julia’s office, but it was empty. Fear slid down my stomach like ice. What was going on?

I knocked on the door softly, hoping I wasn’t overstepping my bounds but needing to know that everything was okay. His voice stopped and the door flung open. Mrs. Gibbons stood there, her eyes red from crying. My eyes quickly scanned the room, stopping on Julia’s huddled figure on the couch. Mr. Gibbons stood in the middle of the room, his fists clenched. His eyes were now trained on me.

“I-I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see anyone out there and I heard yelling. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.” I was talking to them but looking at Julia. I’d seen her body stiffen when she heard my voice, but she didn’t look up. Her shoulders were shaking from crying, and all I wanted to do was run across the room and scoop her up. But I couldn’t.

“We’re just having a . . . family discussion,” Mrs. Gibbons said, her voice thick with emotion. “If you don’t mind, take an hour and grab a coffee or something. We’d appreciate it.”

I was frozen. She was asking me to leave Julia here. Whatever was going on, Mr. Gibbons was angry, and Julia was crushed. If I stayed, I’d need to tell them how I felt about Julia. The problem was, I didn’t know how I felt about Julia. I knew we’d come so far in the time we’d known each other, but was I ready to throw away everything for the chance that she’d want me for good? What if she changed her mind?

My head and my heart were screaming at each other, different scenarios on what I should do at this moment. She still hadn’t looked at me.
Julia, look at me
, I willed.
If she would just look at me, I’d do it. Right now. I’d tell them to go to hell and stop hurting her, whatever is going on
. I waited two more agonizing seconds, but she never looked up.

“Okay. Is . . . everything okay, though?” I couldn’t stop myself, my thoughts still muddled on how I should handle being asked to leave her here.

“It will be,” Mrs. Gibbons said. “Thank you for checking on us. If you could call Mr. Adams back, he had some questions on the next stage of construction. Also, Mr. Latham called and had some questions about the schedule of the plans for the stores.” Mr. Gibbons hadn’t moved, but had turned his gaze back to his daughter instead of to me. He hadn’t said a word.

“Okay.” I had no idea what else to say. Here was Julia, crumpled on the couch in her dad’s office like a broken little girl, and they were giving me work to do. But why wouldn’t they? They had no idea how I felt about their daughter.

Mrs. Gibbons started closing the door and I allowed her to do it, the sound of the lock clicking behind her reverberating through my head.

I stood there, my feet rooted to the floor. I heard whispered voices, but no more yelling. Finally, I forced myself to move back to my desk and grab my computer. Maybe Ethan was at the coffee shop, too. A conference door opened and Brandi came out, with Paige on her heels. They smiled at me thinly but didn’t say anything.

“Paige,” I said, grabbing her attention. “What is happening? Why are they yelling at her?”

Her sad eyes met mine. “I don’t know. All I know is when we got here today they asked me to clear the office for awhile for an important meeting that had to be kept confidential. Then, when Julia got here they ushered her into the office, and I haven’t seen her since.”

My stomach roiled. What the hell was happening? “Thanks, Paige.”

“Did you see her?”

I nodded. “She was . . . crying. I didn’t know what to do.”

A sad look passed over face. “I wish you could tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“That Julia is more to you.”

I sighed, turning away from her. “Me, too, Paige. Me, too.”

“What’s going on, bro?” Hayden’s familiar voice made me instantly homesick.

“I need your advice.” I was sitting in the coffee shop nursing the same cup of coffee and blueberry muffin I’d had for an hour. My computer was on but I wasn’t doing anything but worrying about Julia.

“Hang on, let me step away for a second . . . Okay, what’s up, Mac? You don’t sound good.”

“Well, you know things have been great with Julia. More than great. My mom and dad are flying in later, and we have plans to do an early Thanksgiving with them and then go see her brother next week.”

“Right. Why do I think there’s a ‘but’ here?”

“Because something happened, and I don’t think I handled it right.” I filled him in on everything I’d seen that morning and that I’d left her there instead of stepping in. When I finished, Hayden was so quiet I thought for a minute we’d been disconnected.

He whistled. “Let me guess. You’re kicking yourself for leaving her there, but you don’t know how to broach this subject with the bosses.”

“Right. I know I didn’t handle it correctly.”

“What could be a reason for her parents being so upset with her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen either of them like that. Mrs. Gibbons was crying, and Mr. Gibbons looked so furious. I know from what she’s told me that they have some issues, mostly her feeling that they never cared about what she wanted, and after her brother . . .” I broke off. “Oh, shit.”

“What is it?”

“There’s only one thing that she’s told me that makes her parents furious, and that’s her having anything to do with her brother. What if they found out she’s been seeing him?”

“How would they find out?”

“I don’t know, but that makes sense. I can’t imagine them being that mad at her about work, and that’s the only time they talk to her.”

“Get back there, Carter. Find her. Don’t be a moron.”

I closed my computer and threw away my trash. “I
am
a moron.”

“So stop being one, and help your girl. Be the man I know you can be.”

I hung up and slid the phone into my briefcase. Just when I was about to push the door open, Ethan walked in.

“Carter, have you seen Julia?”

“Earlier, but not since. Why?” I wasn’t sure how much he knew about what had been going on in the office.

“She left the office. I saw her pulling out of the garage. She was extremely upset. You may want to call her.”

I nodded. “I know she and her parents were getting into it earlier,” I said. “I don’t know what it was about though.”

He sighed. “It was about her brother.”

My mouth dropped open. “How do you know about that?”

“Everyone knows about that,” Ethan said, sliding into a barstool. I followed. “It’s a taboo subject and no one ever talks about it. It was a huge controversy here a few years ago.”

“But how do you know that they were angry with her about him?”

“Paige,” Ethan admitted. “I guess they found out that she’s been going to see him in prison. They
fired
her, Carter. Cut off all ties. Said if that’s the kind of family that she wanted then she was dead to them. When I got in earlier, all of her projects were on my desk.”

I stood up, knocking my stool over. The patrons all turned to look at me, but I didn’t care. I checked my watch. I had two hours until I had to head to the airport. I had to find her. “Thank you, Ethan.” I ran out the door, pressing her number on my phone as I raced for my car. She didn’t answer, and I peeled out of the parking lot, pedal to the metal to get to her apartment.

I hit the steering wheel. “You don’t deserve her,” I said out loud. “Not at all. You left her there. She was crying, and you left her. You were so frozen you didn’t even think it could be about Johnny, and now she got fired. FIRED! Holy shit! What’s her parents’ problem? How could they do that to their own child?” I tried to think about my parents being that angry, that mean to me, and I couldn’t. Even Ronan hadn’t ever acted like that towards me.

I squealed into a parking spot at her building and ran inside, hitting the button on the elevator over and over. When it finally opened, I tapped my foot on the floor the whole time it lifted to the third floor. Bursting out of the doors, I made it to her door in seconds. I banged loudly, calling her name through the crack. There was no answer.

I slid down the door to the floor, my hands shaking. I pulled out my phone and called her again. This time, it didn’t even ring but went right to voicemail. “Julia. Please call me. I’m sitting outside your door. I-I’m sorry, baby.”

Where else could I look? Tracey. That was it. I didn’t have her phone number and had never been to her place, though, so that posed a problem.
Wait
,
Julia had said something about her working at a small coffee shop. But there are a million of them in this city. That won’t work
.

I ran back to my car, needing something to do to try to find her. She wasn’t there, so there was no point in standing around. As I pulled out of her complex, I dialed the office number, asking Brandi to connect me to Paige.

“Paige, I’m not coming back in today. I need to find Julia, and then I’m getting my parents from the airport. I have a favor to ask you. Do you have Tracey’s number?”

“They fired her.” Her tearful voice made me want to punch something.

“I know. I need to find her. Any thoughts on where she could be? I checked her place.”

“Maybe Tracey’s. Carter, I can’t even believe this happened. I’ll text you her number, okay? Find her.”

“I’m going to find her.”

I hung up, waiting impatiently for Paige’s text. When it came through I hit the number immediately.

“Hello?”

“Tracey?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Carter.”

“Oh hi, Carter! What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“No. Do you know where Julia is?”

“At work? With you?”

“No. You haven’t heard from her?”

“We haven’t talked since yesterday. She was so excited about your parents coming. What’s going on?”

I pulled into my apartment complex, hoping she escaped here to find me. I filled Tracey in quickly while I scanned the parking lot, my heart sinking when I didn’t see her car. She hadn’t contacted Tracey and she wasn’t at her apartment or mine.

“Do you have any idea where she could’ve gone?” I leaned my head against the steering wheel, tears stinging behind my eyes. I’d failed her. Epically.

“Let me make some calls,” Tracey said. “I can’t believe this happened.”

“I screwed up,” I admitted. “I should’ve gone in there and done something when I was how upset she was, no matter what the repurcussions would’ve been for me.”

“Let’s just find her.”

My phone was at five percent, I’d left my car charger at home, and no one had found Julia. Tracey had taken to driving around Denver, stopping at all of her favorite places. She’d even gone out to Colorado Cares to see if Julia was working. No one had seen her. She wasn’t answering her phone. It was going directly to voice mail. I’d left her at least ten messages already.

I was waiting at the airport now, wishing I was sitting here with Julia instead of reliving what had happened today. I was sick with worry.
Not enough to stop her when you had the chance
, I reminded myself. Whenever I found her, I’d pull her into my arms and tell her how sorry I was that I didn’t stick up for her.