Take Me (35 page)

“I didn’t ask her to stay,” Chad said, wondering how Jay could eat at a time like this. You’d think he would have been a little more sympathetic to the fact that his best friend’s life was falling apart.

“What do you mean you didn’t ask her to stay?” Jay asked, frowning.

“I mean I didn’t ask her to stay. Why would I have done that?”

“Um, because you wanted her to stay?” Alyssa asked.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t going to put myself out there.” Chad shook his head. “I mean, what if she said no?”

“So let me get this straight,” Jay said. “You slept with her, then paraded her in front of the paparazzi, then never asked her once to stay?”

“Right.”

“No wonder she’s pissed!” Alyssa said.

“Well, yeah, when you put it like that, of course it seems like she has a right to be mad. But you didn’t see her this morning, you didn’t see the way she was acting, flouncing all around like she wanted to get the hell out of New York.” Chad waved his hands around in what he hoped was a good imitation of the flouncing.

“And you believed her?” Alyssa asked. She reached over the coffee table and thunked Chad on the back of the head. “You’re hopeless, no wonder you’ve made such a big mess of this.”

“Of course she wanted you to ask her to stay,” Jay said. “She was just pretending that she didn’t.”

“I don’t think so,” Chad said, shaking his head. “She was really going out of her way to make it clear. You should have seen her twirling around in the lobby of the Parker Meridien.”

Alyssa rolled her eyes. “She was trying to prove to you, and probably to herself, that she didn’t need you,” she said. “Women do stuff like that all the time.”

“They do?”

“Yes,” Alyssa said. “And men are supposed to have the balls to call them on it, to tell us how they really feel so that we can stop.”

“Is that true?” Chad asked Jay, blinking in wonderment.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Jay said, and sighed.

“So I’m supposed to go and tell her how I feel? That doesn’t seem fair.” Chad shook his head. “I’m not going to put myself out there if she doesn’t want to do the same.”

“Well, that’s your decision,” Jay said. He looked at Alyssa again, and then turned his gaze back to Chad. “But you have to ask yourself what’s worse – having her leave, with no chance of her ever coming back, or risking telling her how you feel if it means there’s a chance she might stay.”

Chad thought about how it would feel for Kenley to be gone, to walk out of his life forever. He stomach clenched and his heart stopped in his chest. And that’s when he knew what he had to do.

“Thanks,” he said to Jay and Alyssa as he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

“No problem man,” Jay said. “Let me know how it turns out.”

But Chad was already halfway out the door.

***

When Chad got back to his apartment, Kenley was gone. He knocked on the guest room door, but even before he did, he knew she wasn’t in there. There was a stillness, an emptiness in the apartment that let him know she’d left. He opened the door to her bedroom, praying that her stuff would still be there. But it wasn’t. Everything was gone. Her clothes. Her suitcase. Her computer.

Shit. He ran his hands through his hair. So that was it, he thought. She wouldn’t have left like that, without even saying goodbye, if she cared about him even a little bit.

There was no way. Despite what Jay and Alyssa had said, it just didn’t make sense.

He sighed, then walked into the kitchen. He sat down at the breakfast bar and put his head in his hands. He didn’t know what to do. Should he call her? He dialed her phone, but it went right to voicemail, further cementing the idea that Kenley didn’t want anything to do with him. The thought was like a knife to his heart.

And then he saw it. The check, still sitting there on the counter. She hadn’t taken it. She hadn’t taken his money! Which meant obviously last night had meant something to her.

Hope rose up in his heart. He had to find her. But where would she have gone?

A hotel? No, Chad decided. She’d want to go home. She’d probably changed her flight.

And before he even realized what he was doing, he was flying out the door of his apartment, praying to God that he could catch her.

***

The woman at the ticket counter was starting to piss Kenley off.

“No, you don’t understand,” Kenley said for the third time. “I want to change my ticket, not start a whole new ticket.”

“But you’re not the one who bought this ticket,” the woman said, looking down at it with a confused look on her face. “So how can you change it?”

“I didn’t buy the ticket,” Kenley said. “But I
am
the passenger.” She tapped her nail against the paper where her name was printed. “ And I know for a fact that the passenger can change their ticket without being the one who bought it, because I’ve done it before.”

It was true, too. One time a few years ago Kenley and Melissa had gone on vacation with their mom to California. Kenley and Melissa had decided to come back a day early because Melissa had gotten into a fight with their mom, something about how she’d never supported her dreams of being an actress, which was kind of ridiculous since Melissa had never even ---

“Fine,” the woman said, sighing like Kenley was really ruining her day. “But I’ll have to get a supervisor.”

“Thank you,” Kenley said, not really meaning it. She hated when she had to thank people just for doing their jobs.

“So if you’ll just step aside, then…”

“I’ll wait right here,” Kenley said firmly. She knew all about stepping aside.

Once you stepped aside, you were done. You ended up waiting there forever, missing your flight, getting angrier and angrier, only to end up being told that there was nothing they could do for you anyway.

“Ma’am,” the woman said, sighing. “I can’t have you holding up – “

“Kenley.”

She turned around. It was Chad. He was standing there, behind her, looking a little out of breath. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he had a sheepish look on his face.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted. Her heart leapt at the sight of him, that he was there, that she was seeing him again when she had thought that she would never see him again.

“I came to get you.” He took a step toward her. The ticket agent’s mouth dropped open as she took in the scene in front of her.

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of in the middle of something.” She turned her back on him, needing all her willpower to do it.

“I need to talk to you.” His voice was strong, commanding. She felt herself weakening, wanting to say yes, to hear what he had to say, to hope that maybe he was going to beg her not to go. But no. She wasn’t falling for that again.

“Chad,” she said. “Please go away.”

“No.”

“Chad,” she whispered, turning to him. “Stop, you’re going to wreck everything.” Was he stupid? Didn’t he know that if something happened at the airport, in public, with people watching them, that the word might get out that she wasn’t really his girlfriend? He hadn’t signed the deal yet, probably wouldn’t until tomorrow or the next day. Their pictures were already on the internet, all they needed to do was lay low until he signed. A big airport fight might blow their cover. Already people were starting to stare.

“Fuck the endorsement deal,” Chad said loudly.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

“Come,” Kenley commanded, picking up her bags and leading him around the corner so that at least they weren’t making a scene in front of everyone in line. Of course, they were in one of the nation’s busiest airports, so it was going to be hard to find a place that was completely private, but still.

“Okay,” she said, once they were around the corner. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you want?”

He moved in close to her, his eyes on hers. She tried to take a step back, but she was suddenly frozen in place, mesmerized. All she wanted was for him to kiss her.

“I want you,” he said.

Kenley shook her head, mustering up what little strength she had left. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’m not for sale.”

“Not like that,” Chad said. He shook his head. “For real. I want you to come home with me.”

“What do you mean for real?” she asked. Her heart started to beat hard, to start to believe, but Kenley forced the feeling down, not wanting to believe it until she could be sure.

“I mean, no more of this fake stuff. I mean, for real. You and me. Seeing if we can make this work.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Kenley, I’ve never felt this way about anyone, ever.” She opened her mouth to protest, but Chad put his finger on his lips, silencing her. “And it’s not just about the sex.

It’s about you, the way you make me feel.”

He leaned down then, kissing her softly. Fireworks exploded through Kenley’s body, and she felt the kiss all the way down to her toes. When Chad pulled away, he leaned his head against hers, and it was just the two of them, in this moment, together.

“Come home with me?” Chad asked.

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“As long as you’ll stay.”

She hesitated, looking at him, and she could tell by the look on his face that he was being sincere. She nodded. Chad kissed her again, and the sound of applause echoed through the airport. Kenley turned around, surprised to find a bunch of people taking pictures of them. She’d been so caught up in Chad that she hadn’t realized they were making a spectacle.

“Well,” Chad said, grinning. “I guess this means they got their picture.”

He picked up her bags, and Kenley linked her arm through his. They walked like that all the way through the airport until they got to the traffic circle.

Kenley climbed into the waiting car as Chad put her bags in the trunk.

“Ready?” he asked when he climbed in. He took her hand.

“Ready,” Kenley said, and rested her head against his shoulder.

“Where to?” the driver asked, glancing at them in the review mirror..

“Home,” Chad said.

The car started heading toward Brooklyn, and Kenley snuggled closer to Chad as she watched Manhattan slide by through the window.
Home
, she thought.
That’s exactly
where I’m going.