Between Hello and Goodbye(53)

So do something about it.

I had five solid days off. Faith had been buried in work on some big-time ad account. But the last time we talked—a few days ago—she’d said it was finally winding down. Maybe…

My pulse picked up at the mere idea of seeing Faith, but I’d be breaking my vow to never step foot on the mainland again. Not just the mainland, but a bustling city of concrete and noise and everything I’d come to associate with my time on Wall Street—the years I’d put in to buy Morgan and me some stability when we’d had none. I’d hated every second of it. Going back felt like taking a step backward, away from whatever healing I was searching for.

But seeing Faith again…

Being with her might be its own kind of healing.

I nodded. It was just a visit. My baggage could stay locked away for a few days. She was worth it. Moreover, I didn’t know how much longer Faith and I could hold out on texts and phone calls. A holding pattern had to end before the plane ran out of fuel and crashed.

I cleaned up the dishes and Kal ran to the living room to play on my Xbox. I opened my laptop on the kitchen counter and searched flights, then stepped out onto the lanai. The sun wasn’t even thinking about setting, and the ocean was the deepest blue. I texted Morgan a brief outline of a plan and told him to call me when he was free.

Kal and I tossed a ball around, played a card game, and when twilight approached, my phone rang.

“Give me a sec, buddy,” I told Kaleo.

“Can I watch Tales of Arcadia?”

“I don’t know what that is, but…sure.” I waved him toward the TV and answered the phone. “Hey.”

“You’re going to Seattle?” Morgan asked immediately.

“Yeah, I wanted to make sure you’d be okay without me watching Kal for a few days.”

“We’ll be fine. Go.”

I snorted a laugh; he sounded more eager than me. “Okay, I’m going to head out tomorrow night—”

“Tonight.”

“What?”

“There are flights tonight, right? Redeyes?”

“I suppose…” I tucked the phone against my ear and went back to my laptop. “Yeah, one. At eleven tonight.”

“Grab it. If you’re feeling up for it. You still sound like shit. Are you sure—?”

“I’m fine. Stop asking.”

“Then go to Seattle. Tonight.”

“Jesus, do I seem that fucking desperate to everyone? Between you and Kal and—”

“You have five days off, Ash. Make the most of them.”

I started to protest but no words came out.

“Exactly.” Morgan laughed. “I’m on my way to get the boy. Pack up, my brother. You’re going to do something for yourself for a damn change if I have to drive you to the airport myself.”

He hung up and I had to laugh for a moment, but it burned up fast at the thought of seeing Faith again. How I felt about her raged uncontained in my blood, in my thoughts, in my heart. It was probably fucking crazy to keep whatever we had alive. Neither of us were equipped to handle something real and would probably crash spectacularly.

That might be worth it too .





Chapter Fourteen



“Ms. Benson?”

I jerked out of a doze and lifted my head from my desk. “Hmm, what?”

My assistant, Jess, was standing over me. “Terrance wants to see you.”

I blinked and sat up. For a second, dopey déjà vu came over me, and I expected the pounding headache of a hangover to land on me. But it was plain, old-fashioned exhaustion that had me taking a catnap on my desk at four in the afternoon. I’d pulled three all-nighters in a row to finish a national commercial for Zuma, an athletic clothing brand based in Seattle, and submitted the final rough cut of the ad to Terrance earlier today. I must’ve dozed off waiting to hear the verdict.

“Am I in trouble?”

“Judging by the fact he can’t stop smiling, I’d say the opposite.”

I rose from my desk, smoothed my hair, and straightened my suit jacket—dark blue with white pinstripes. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck?” Jess smiled at me, disbelieving. “You’ve seen your ad, right? It’s…” She shook her head. “Let me put it this way, I’ve never teared up watching a commercial about snowboarders before.”

“Thank you,” I said and eased a breath, then headed for Terrance’s office.

Truthfully, I was pretty proud of the work my team and I had put in, but I hadn’t yet had the chance to fully grasp that it was finished. Four weeks of long nights, location shoots in Vancouver and Denver, and meetings all up and down the West Coast left me burned out. So burned out, that instead of wanting to celebrate with my usual brand of all-nighter—partying it up with Viv—I just wanted to go home, take a hot bath, and sleep.

That’s not exhaustion, that’s Kauai.

Since I’d returned from my leave of absence, I’d approached my job differently. Intently. The Nestle account was locked in but that was a huge, slow-moving barge of a campaign. Meanwhile, Terrance had made me creative director for the Zuma commercial, and I’d thrown myself at it, initiating an advertisement that focused on the personal stories of snowboarders, their triumphs and defeats, as they tried to make their Paralympic and Winter Olympic dreams come true. The focus had been family. The connections between the athletes and their teams, their coaches, their partners, and their parents who’d sacrificed so much to support their goals.