Wherever It Leads(14)

My jaw drops and I shoot her a look of disbelief. “Did you really just say that?”

“I did,” she laughs. “Do you see what I’m saying though? It’s just a mini-vacation with a super hot guy.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and let my memory settle on the way the corner of his lip quirked as he watched me talk. The intensity of his gaze and the way it made my body heat from the inside out washes over me. My skin nearly burns with the memory.

“It’s a rebound,” I hesitate, tasting the words.

“Just a rebound . . .” she echoes.

A rebound I can handle. A rebound I’ve done before. It’s just a segue from one guy to the next. I have had a hard time moving on from Grant’s trashing of my self-esteem. If I’m being truthful, there’s not a better way to forget Grant than with Fenton.

When I look at Pres, she’s grinning ear-to-ear. “It’s just a way to boomerang from before,” she motions with her hand, “to after.”

“It’s not a bad idea . . .”

“Not a bad idea?” She collapses onto her back and sighs dramatically. “It’s the best idea I’ve ever heard! Every girl needs a rebound, and you, naturally, are rebounding better than anyone I know. Most people pick a decent looking guy in a bar covered in tattoos that’s the antithesis of the guy she had. You go all out and get the smokin’ businessman. I have to say,” she laughs, “I’m proud. Jealous as feck, but proud.”

“So what do I tell him? Do I just call him and say, ‘Hey, take me with you this weekend but don’t pay me to go so I don’t feel like a whore’?”

“Or just go.”

“Nope. Deal breaker.”

“Okay . . .” She chews on her bottom lip. “Tell him you used vacation days. So you’re getting paid the shifts you’ll miss. It works.”

“Then I just have to figure out what to do if they fire me . . .” I fight a grin as a course of excitement takes flight. Even though this feels right, I don’t want to jump the gun just in case I wake up in the morning with a different feeling about it. “Okay. I’ll call him in the morning.”

“Why not now?”

“Just in case I have second thoughts.”

The blankets rip away and she jumps off the side of the bed. “You need to be more instinctive. Fenton is not going to give you swoon regret.”

“Swoon regret? Seriously?”

“It happens,” she sighs. “I swooned over this rocker guy once, let me tell you. Hot and sexy and a voice—not cashmere, more whiskey—and in the morning, I regretted my swoon. He wasn’t that cute in the daylight and he had a smoker’s cough, two things I didn’t see in the strobe lights of the bar.”

Laughing, I climb out of bed too. “Want to watch a movie?”

“Let’s order Italian and watch Netflix.”

“I’m not hungry, but go ahead and order. Just get me some breadsticks.”

“Is that some Freudian slip?” Presley laughs.

“Probably,” I say, shaking my head and realizing I might be a little more affected than I even realize.



The sun trickles through the curtains, casting a cheery glow through the kitchen. Perched on a barstool at the island, my third cup of coffee at my side, I easily check off the crossword puzzle in front of me.

After talking through what to do about Fenton with Presley last night and vegging out in front of the television, I slept like a baby. The fresh air on my walk this morning helped too. Although everything Pres said was right and all her points legit ones, my final decision to go with Fenton came after I remembered something Brady said about making decisions. “When you aren’t sure, imagine you’ve already said yes and then pretend you’ve already said no. Choose accordingly.” Thinking that I’d said yes made me feel excited on a level I haven’t felt since I was accepted into the college of my choice. Pretending I’d said no makes my spirits sink, a continuation of the doldrums that have hovered over me for months. Looking at it like that, the choice was easy—I go. I enjoy myself. Rebounding at its finest.

I check off another answer to the puzzle when my phone rings. Lifting it up, I don’t recognize the number, but a flutter of worry ripples through me. I was the one to answer the unknown call when we were notified that Brady was first missing. It was me that answered the door when the uniformed man came to tell us about the “proof of life” video posted on the internet. The roll of bile will always find its way up my throat now when I get an unexpected call for the rest of my life. First hearing that he was at the mercy of some psychopaths, and then weeks later, seeing him bound and on his knees in front of two men with guns is something you can’t shake. It will haunt me forever.

“Tell them your name,” a hooded man said in broken English, waving the barrel of a gun near my brother’s face. Brady shied away from it, like a dog that scoots away from a foot after it’s been kicked too often. “Now.”

“Brady Stewart Calloway.”

He was clothed in light colored garb, his face half covered by facial hair. His voice was steady, strong, and when he looked in the camera, I could see the hope he was trying to give us. He was trying to tell us he’d be okay and not to break down. But that was impossible.