Wherever It Leads(65)

“Want to grab some dinner?” Presley asks.

“No. I want to go to bed.”

“Brynnie . . .”

“Don’t, Pres. Not tonight.”

She sighs, flipping her hair off her shoulders. “Can I tell you a secret?”

I don’t react. She rolls her eyes.

“Remember your brother’s going away party?”

I nod.

“He asked me that night to take care of you while he was gone. And I’m a woman of my word.”

“Since when?” I groan, trying not to smile.

“Since forever,” she scoffs. “And I’m going to take care of you, and part of that is not letting you sit here and worry about this.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I toss the pillow across the room and onto the chair Presley usually sits in. “Just skip off and go to dinner, maybe have a margarita? Hell, let’s see a strip show while we’re at it.”

Presley stands and puts both hands on her hips. “Not my idea of a good night, but if that’s what you want to do . . .”

“It’s not. I . . . I don’t know what I want to do. I just feel rotten making plans, smiling, when I just saw . . . that.” The last bit of the video parades through my mind. “What do you think he was going to say? At the end, right before he got hit?”

Her shoulders shrug as her hands drop to her sides. “I have no idea. Probably something very Brady, something positive and motivating,” she laughs.

My lips twitch. “Yeah, probably. Or a quick question about the Dodgers.”

“Or maybe he was going to tell you to tell me he’s in love with me?”

A smile breaks my will and spreads across my cheeks. “Doubt it.”

“He is. I think I just intimidate him and he’s afraid to take a girl like me head-on. But I feel it. I’ll be the wife of a doctor someday.”

“Oh, Pres.” I rise off the sofa and face my friend.

“It’s true. Now, what are we going to do with you?”

“Maybe I’ll start with a shower?”

She nods. “Good girl. Then you can call Cashmere and go see him.”

“Presley . . .”

“No, Brynne. Be sad about Brady, worry about it. But you gotta keep going. If you don’t, what happens? You mope around here and end up ruining yourself? That’s smart.”

“That’s what I feel like doing.”

“I know. But it’s not what you’re going to do. Cashmere makes you happy and happy is what we’re after. So go wash the stink off of you and then call Mr. Abbott.”

I consider arguing with her, but I know it won’t do any good. She’s right. She knows it, and down deep, I probably do too. And down not-so-deep, I know that’s what my brother would tell me to do.





The steam rolls out of the bathroom door when I pop it open. I balance the towel wrapped around my head, turban-style, and take the few steps down the hallway to my room.

There’s something about running water that calms me. Showers, the ocean, even the little brook that drifted through the back of my grandparents’ property when I was a child somehow quieted my mind. I’ve never needed its powers as badly as I do today.

I stood under the shower head until the hot water ran out, thinking thoughts way too deep for someone with a headache like I have. I thought about Brady’s face in that video and the way he seemed so calm. It was so like him, making the best out of whatever situation he faces. Not panicking. Not freaking out. Just doing what he can with the life he was given.

As much as I want to climb in bed and pull the covers over my head, I can’t. How can I let Brady’s situation affect me more than he’s letting it get to him? I have to take a page out of his playbook and keep pressing forward. Living. That’s what he did by going to Africa in the first place—live. Always to the fullest. And I have to live too. For both of us. And the thing that makes me feel most alive is Fenton.

And even he is more complicated than I would like.

Sigh.

I really wish I knew how I ended up at Pano. The answer matters. I don’t want him wrangling to see me, to control what I do, because he’s jealous. I don’t really see him that way. Yes, he can be a touch aggressive, but it’s usually in a joking or protective manner, not in a caveman, seeing-red kind of way. But if it were, I don’t need that. I don’t want that. I want something real, and I don’t know if what it is with him is real or not.

Naturally, my phone takes the opportunity to ring with me in the same room and breaks me out of the spell. I can’t find it, mostly because I still haven’t picked up my room from the Vegas packing debacle. It rings twice, three times, as I scramble across my bed, knocking my pillow to the floor.

I reach it right as it rings for the fourth time. “Hey, Fenton,” I say, trying to keep my breathing from sounding like I’ve just run a mile.

“You busy?”

“No, why?” I sit up and try to push the towel back up on my head. It falls over, my wet hair smashing the side of my face.

“You’re out of breath.”

“I just got out of the shower.”

He chuckles. “I thought my cock was getting hard for a reason.”

“You’re so stupid,” I laugh.