RISE - Part Two (The RISE Series Book 2) (3 page)

"She's an incredible woman," Landon corrects him with a ghost of a grin. "She's one of the most fascinating people I've ever met."

I watch Ansel's expression knowing that at any second he's going to feign an excuse about having to leave so he can meet a fan or he'll say he needs to get back to the recording studio. He's not above plugging his own career, even if it's in the middle of a desperate attempt to get away from an emotionally charged situation.

"I actually have to go." He waves his hand over my head. "I'm meeting my New York fan club."

Landon and I turn in the direction he's pointing. The large group that had been gathered across the street must have decided that waiting longer than ten minutes for a chance to talk to Ansel was long enough. Only a handful of women remain now and as one catches a glimpse of Ansel looking towards her, she yells his name.

"That's my cue." His hand leaps awkwardly in the air towards Landon before he abruptly pulls it back. "It was good to see you, Tess and to meet you too."

I sigh in relief as he finally brushes past me, leaving me alone with the man whose touch I've been craving all day.

***

"I
'm not saying this to be facetious," he pauses before he continues. "I've got nothing against the guy but where's the appeal?"

I cock both brows as I work to stifle a laugh. "You're asking me what's appealing about Ansel? If you are, I am the wrong person to ask."

He digs his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. "You dated him. Was he always like that?"

"Like what?" I ask as I watch him lean forward to hand a few bills to the taxi driver as the car pulls up to the curb in front of his apartment.

"Like that," he repeats back. "You know what I mean."

I do know what he means and I also know that he's been trying to lighten the mood since he hailed a taxi for us. He'd pulled my hand into his after we'd settled in the car and as the driver maneuvered through the late afternoon traffic, I hadn't asked Landon about his father.

He hadn't spoken much either except for a mumbled apology about not answering my calls earlier because he was busy with the police. He simply held onto me as his thumb stroked the palm of my hand. It was a quiet gesture and even though I thought I needed more, it satiated everything within me. The connection between us is palpable. I feel that now more than ever.

As we slide across the torn, weathered vinyl seat of the taxi, I know that he came to my office to find me, not because he wanted to avoid the awkward silence that often invades a phone call when there's an elephant in the room but because he wants to look at me as he explains what happened last night.

"I want you to come up to my place." He gestures towards the front doors of his building with his chin. "I'll need to shower and change but can we talk after that?"

I stare down at his hands. They're fisted together in front of him. "Have you been home since last night?"

"No," he says through a heavy sigh. "I stuck around because I wanted to talk to him."

I don't need any clarification beyond that. He wanted to speak to his father and for that I can't blame him. I don't know any of the details. I've convinced myself that Landon hasn't been harboring the secret that his father has been alive all these years. I want to believe that his presence last night was as much a shock to Landon as it was to me. I know that I'm basing that on want and not reality at this point.

"Did you talk to him?" I ask, not only because it's expected but also because my curiosity is pushing me towards asking questions he's probably not ready to answer.

"He refused." He rests his hand on my back before he takes a step towards the building. "He's pissed that I set him up with the police."

As I fall in step beside him I feel the weight of the world drop from my shoulders. He's a good man. If I had any lingering doubt about that it's disappeared with his words.

––––––––

"I
had no idea you'd be standing in the lobby last night." He tugs on the drawstring at the waist of the dark sweatpants he pulled on after he showered. He's not wearing a shirt and I'm not complaining. I love looking at his body, his smile and the way his entire face comes alive when our eyes lock.

"I forgot my keys." I skim my hands over my jean covered thighs. "Like I said last night, I tried to call you to get my keys back but you didn't answer."

He rakes his hand through his still damp hair. "I was nervous. I called one of the detectives after my father made contact. I didn't look at my phone again."

Of course he didn't. I can't fault him for not answering my calls. All day I've tried to put myself in his shoes and I've failed each time. I love my father. I will mourn endlessly if he takes his last breath before I take mine. It's hard to imagine how I'd feel if I thought he had died, only to discover that he was still alive.

I reach for his hand when he lowers himself onto the sofa next to me. "How did it happen? How did your dad end up here?"

He squeezes my hand briefly before he pulls his free. I feel bereft at the loss of his touch. I stare at his hand wanting the motion to be nothing more than part of his need to compose himself but the heave of his chest as he draws in a deep breath says more than the silence that has overtaken the space.

"I need a drink." He's on his feet quickly. "Do you want some wine?"

I may not want any wine, but I think I'm going to need some. "Half a glass of whatever you have is fine."

I don't turn towards the kitchen. I listen intently as I hear a cupboard door opening and the unmistakable sound of glasses being placed on the counter. There's a shuffle and then the faint echo of liquid being poured into one glass and then another. I hear nothing for more than a minute before the sound of liquid filling a glass breaks the silence. As I look at the familiar pictures of Landon and his family I realize that he must have emptied a full glass of wine with one swallow.

As much as I don't want to give him a way out of our conversation, I feel obligated to make the offer. "I can come back tomorrow if you want to sleep."

I see a glass being offered out of the corner of my eye. I reach for it. I'm grateful for the taste of the full bodied merlot, as well as the comfort it provides. As I take a small sip, I'm granted a brief reprieve from the stilted exchange we've had up to this point.

"I want you to stay, Tess." He brings the wineglass in his hand to his lips and takes a heavy swallow as he settles back on the sofa next to me. "I need to explain some things to you."

They're the very same words that Ansel used several months ago during a conversation we had over dinner. Back then, the words didn't carry any promise of understanding. They were a precursor to a litany of excuses about why he couldn't be the man I wanted, and needed, him to be.

"I'm listening," I say quietly as I place the wineglass down on the table in front of the sofa.

He follows my lead, setting his glass next to mine before he turns towards me, bending his right leg at the knee so he can face me directly. "I don't know where to start."

I tap my fingers against his calf. "The beginning is always the best place. Just start there."

He nods as he rests his hand over mine. "It all started on the flight you were on. It was that day when you flew back from Milan."

If words could cause whiplash, I'd be unable to move. I stare at his face even though his eyes are trained on my legs. How did we move from talking about his father to talking about me?  I don't want to wander down the short memory lane we've established for ourselves. I want to know about Frederick and how exactly he ended up in this very apartment less than twenty-four hours ago.

"I remember the flight," I stop myself, unsure of how to move the conversation back to his dad.

He swallows hard as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "I saw you sitting in a chair near the gate in the airport before boarding. I literally stopped walking, Tess."

The admission catches me off guard. I had been so engrossed in answering work emails that day that I hadn't glanced up after I'd settled into a seat right after I got to the gate. I didn't stop looking at my smartphone until I boarded. "You saw me before I even boarded the airplane?"

"It was when I was boarding with the rest of the crew." He closes his eyes briefly before he looks at my face. "You didn't even look up when I cleared my throat. I just wanted to see your face. I knew it had to be beautiful but I wanted to see it."

I really need to stop obsessing over my work. I had zoned out that day, like I do most days. Building my business has been what drives me since I graduated. It's all that's really mattered, beyond my family, until now. "I didn't know that. I had no idea."

"I had to board so I walked away." He moistens his bottom lip with his tongue. "When I turned away from you to head towards the gate, that's when I saw him."

I furrow my brow as I try to make sense out of what he just said. "Who did you see?"

"My father," he says gruffly. "I saw my father waiting to board that same flight."

I
wait for him to pick up the now stalled conversation. I hadn't responded after he told me that he saw his father in Milan, at the airport. I thought my silence would push him into another confession but it hadn't. All it did was make him reach forward to pull the wineglass back into his hand.

I breathe deeply as I watch him finish the last traces of the red wine. He licks his lips scooping up any remaining droplets. His hand scurries across his jaw and over his beard before it settles on his neck. "I didn't know it was him at the time. I thought he was just another man who resembled my dad."

"You've seen other men who resembled your dad before?" I spit the question out hurriedly and with little thought attached to it. It sounds insignificant and misplaced given the fact that he's trying to tell me about how his father came back into his life.

He rests the glass back on the table. "My mom took my brother and me to see a therapist about six months after the accident. We weren't adjusting and she thought it would help us both."

It's not a direct answer to my question but I know it's his way of working himself up to an actual response. "Did it help?"

He nods. "I told her that I was constantly looking for my dad in the faces of other men. She told me that was normal given the fact that his body was never recovered."

"That makes sense," I say under my breath. I've only attended a few funerals and memorial services in my life and each time, there was either a body on display in a coffin or an urn, which contained the remains of the person. I suspect having that grants those grieving a sense of finality that they wouldn't normally have.

"It would have made sense if I'd stopped doing it at some point." He rests his hand on mine. "I never stopped. I'd see a man the same height as my father and walk out of my way to catch a glimpse of his face. There were times when I'd even hop out of a taxi at a traffic light because I saw someone I thought remotely resembled him."

It's a confession grounded in vulnerability. I see the pain in his eyes and I hear it in the pitch of his voice. "That couldn't have been easy. It sounds as though it consumed you in a sense."

"I never wanted it to." His eyes travel from my face to a row of pictures of his father and brother. "Dane told me I had to let it go but I couldn't."

"Did you have a suspicion that he was still alive?" It's the most direct question I've asked him.

He sits back on the sofa before he scrubs his hand over his face. "No, I don't think that's what it was. I just missed him. I wanted him to be alive because I missed having a dad."

I want to reach forward to cup his face in my hands. I want to pull him into my arms and tell him that I understand. I can't go an entire day without talking to my father. I crave his approval and as I've matured, his friendship has grounded me in a way that no one else's can. I understand Landon's wish to have a dad. I have one and I wouldn't trade what I share with him for anything or anyone.

"That day in the airport in Milan when I turned away from where you were sitting and saw him," he begins before he looks up at the ceiling. "It was different. I felt something I hadn't before. I knew it was him. I just knew."

I rest my head against the back of the sofa so my eyes point to the ceiling too. "Is that why you came out of the cockpit? You wanted to see him?"

He shifts slightly beside me until his thigh is touching mine. "No. He was seated in economy. I wanted to see your face. I felt like I was drowning again and all I wanted was to look at you."

***

"D
id you talk to him after the flight?"

It's been at least ten minutes since his phone rang in the middle of our conversation. He hadn't rushed out of the room to take the call. Instead, he had rested his hand over mine as he spoke gently to his mother, asking her to come to New York as soon as she could. He'd arrange a seat on a flight for her this evening if she could pack just a few things.

The pauses he took were brief which could only have meant that her questions were short and to the point. He explained that something had happened before assuring her that Dane, his fiancé, Bridget, and their baby were all fine. He wanted her to get on the next flight. He was compassionate, patient and most of all, calm.

"Not that day." He rests his smartphone on the sofa next to him. "I couldn't. I knew that if it was really him that he'd intentionally stayed away all these years. It meant that he couldn't have loved me or my brother if he just left like that."

"Not that day," I repeat back in more of a statement than a question. "You saw him again after that?"

The question is heavily rhetorical in one sense, and completely genuine in another. Obviously, they moved beyond stolen glances on an airplane if his father was in this apartment last night.

"He was on another flight I piloted last week." He skims his hand over the screen of his phone. "I spoke to him that day."

"What did you say?" I blurt out without thinking.