Dream (Fighting Fate Book 5) Page 19

  Dropping the handle, I moved over to the bed and gingerly picked it up, holding it in my hands as though it was the most precious thing in the world. His scent was all over it. I didn’t even try to convince myself that I could live without it. I simply placed it in my bag and turned and walked away. Down the stairs, through the living room, out the door, and down the trail to the beach. I didn’t look back as I moved. I was still here for another week, so I knew I’d be seeing his house many times over, taunting me with memories of things I’d never have again. I just walked down to the other end of the beach and straight up to Aunt Jenny’s house, and when I stepped inside, she was there waiting for me, just like she had said she would be, with her arms wide open.

  Chapter 40

  Josh

  Driving the Escalade up the driveway to Mom and Dad’s house, I drew in a long, deep breath and exhaled, letting my shoulders relax. I had three days before I was due to fly out to Florida. Three days of downtime with my family. It was long overdue.

  I knew that even though the guys hadn’t said anything about it, they were just as excited to be seeing their own families. We all needed this time, regardless of the sacrifices we had to make to see it happen.

  Making sure I’d closed the gate properly with my remote, I climbed from the car and grabbed my bag off the backseat. I only made it as far as the front porch before Lenny, our Labrador, pounced.

  “Hey, buddy. How you doing? You miss me?” I said, dropping my bag and roughing him around the neck.

  “Nowhere near as much as me,” a voice said, coming out through the front door.

  I looked up to see Mom, smiling broadly. “Hey, Ma. Happy birthday. Did you get my present?”

  She gave me a chastising look before wrapping her arms around me. “Yes, I did. And you shouldn’t have.”

  I laughed, squeezing her back. I’d bought her a pair of diamond drop earrings while I’d been in Paris earlier this year. I’d organized to have it delivered first thing this morning. “Of course I should have,” I said dryly. “You’d kick my ass if I didn’t get you anything.”

  Pulling back, she clutched my biceps and studied my face. “Yes, I would, but you didn’t have to get me something so expensive.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, smirking hard. “You know I’m not five anymore, right, Mom? I’m not going to cut some crap out of cardboard and stick it together to make you something you’ll love forever and ever.”

  She sighed and pressed her hand to her chest. “Ah, those were the days. You know I still have most of your cardboard creations.”

  Picking up my bag, I followed her inside. “You know, I think you might’ve been on to something, keeping those things. You could probably sell that crap for a bazillion dollars now.”

  She gasped in horror. “Never!”

  We walked into the kitchen, where Dad was working away, cooking up a storm—something bacon by the smell of it. “Hey, Dad!” I said, dashing in to give him a hug. “What’s on the menu today?”

  Dad was a self-proclaimed cooking addict. He lived and breathed food. If he wasn’t so into healthy shit, I was sure he would’ve been the size of a whale. He dropped his spoon on the tray and turned to envelope me in one of his big bear hugs. “Hey, Son. How have you been?” he said, patting me on the back. “I’m just whipping up some good old-fashioned leek, bacon, and pea risotto.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t think that’s old-fashioned, Dad, but it sure smells good. Is Carly here yet?”

  “She is,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “She’s just upstairs, changing Liam. Paul’s outside.”

  “Let me guess. On the phone?” I said, quirking an eyebrow.

  Carly walked around the corner with a very excited Liam on her hip. “How did you know?”

  “Hey, hey, hey, little man!” I said, scooping Liam out of her arms and swinging him around. “My goodness you’ve gotten big. Look at you!”

  “Don’t worry about your big sister or anything, will you?” Carly said, rolling her eyes.

  Sitting Liam on my hip, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “I never stop worrying about you. Tell dickless to get off the phone for a change.”

  She swiped at my arm. “Watch your mouth. And leave him alone. He’s trying to close a deal. It’s an important one.”

  I rolled my eyes. “They’re all important, Carls. What he needs to learn is that his family is more important.”

  She smirked. “Like you can talk. How long’s it been since you’ve been back?”

  “Now, now,” Mom said, as she stepped in to help Dad with the risotto. “You know your brother can’t help where his work takes him, or for how long.”

  Liam squirmed in my arms, trying to get back to his mom, so I dutifully passed him over. Carly sighed and lowered him to the floor. “Where’s Lenny, Liam? Go find Lenny.” Liam’s little face lit up, and he was rushing into the living room as fast as his little legs would take him.

  Carly stretched her back. “So, I hear you’re engaged now. How’s that working out for you?”

  I gave her a dirty look. “Fucking tabloids. Why do you even read them?”

  Walking to the fridge, she grabbed the juice bottle. “How else am I supposed to know what you’re up to? It’s not like you call or anything.”

  I assessed her mood in a more serious light. This wasn’t unusual for her. We bantered quite a lot when I was home, but there was something about her tone that made me feel as though she wasn’t joking around anymore.

  As she poured herself a glass of juice and returned the bottle to the fridge, I jerked my head toward the living room. “Grab your drink. I’ve got something for the little man.”

  Walking out, I motioned for her to follow me to where I’d left my bag. Liam was already in there, cuddling up to Lenny.

  “Hey, buddy. I’ve got a surprise for you. Do you want to come see?” Unzipping my bag, I pulled out a toy truck and held it up for him to see.

  Liam’s mouth popped open, and he scrambled over Lenny to get to me. “Fruck!” he said, excitement oozing from his every pore.

  My eyes rounded at Liam’s pronunciation. “Whoa,” I said, looking over at Carly. “You might want to work on that pronunciation before he gets himself into some trouble.”

  She rolled her eyes, but she giggled too. “Leave him alone.”

  I handed Liam the truck and watched him toddle away making brmm noises. As he disappeared into the kitchen, where I assumed he was going to show Gran and Pop, I turned my attention on his mom.

  “So, what’s going on, Carls?”

  She sat down on the couch and dropped her gaze to the floor. “Nothing.”

  “You know you can’t bullshit me, so you may as well just tell me,” I said, calling her out. Mom and Dad had always insisted on us having an open and honest relationship. Mostly because of the career I’d chosen and the crap that went down with it, so I knew I could get her to talk.

  She sighed and chewed on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. Paul’s just been weird lately. Like he’s keeping a secret from me or something.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Explain.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, irritation rising. “It’s probably nothing. It’s just a feeling, really. Like sometimes it seems like he gets off the phone as soon as I walk into the room. Like he’s hiding something.”

  I let my mind run over possible explanations. “It’s your birthday next month. Have you thought of the possibility that he could be organizing something for that?”

  She stared at me, her eyes sparking with thought. “I hadn’t considered that. I guess it’s a possibility.”

  “So is him cheating, Carls. I just don’t want you to jump straight to the negative. Sometimes, it’s good to just come right out and tell him you’ve been noticing things and you’re worried.”

  “I know, but what if he is cheating, Josh? I don’t know what I’d do. What about Liam?”

  Moving over to sit beside her, I pulle
d her into a hug. “Life if full of what-ifs, Carls. If you worried about all of them, you’d be a constant bundle of nerves. Like I said, talk to him. Tell him how you’re feeling. Ask him questions. And whatever the answer is, you deal with it then.”

  She sighed. “Obvious isn’t always that easy, Josh, but okay. I’ll talk to him.”

  I smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “Atta girl.”

  She gave me a shove and smiled her normal shit-stirring grin. “So, what’s really going on with Hannah?” she asked.

  I scowled. “Nothing is really going on with Hannah. We went on one fucking date. And it was mostly for work.”

  “Oh, that’s funny.” She giggled. “I love the stories they make up. They have the best imaginations. You better make sure whoever you really date has a good sense of humor and a large amount of trust.”

  My mind immediately went to Liv. This was one of the biggest reasons why I would never drag her into my world. Even though the crap they made up about me wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what Lucas got, it was still enough to hurt someone as sweet as Liv.

  “Okay, who is she?”

  I looked up to see Carly watching me with a curious tilt to her head. “Who’s who?

  She smirked. “The girl you were thinking about just now.”

  I paused. My intention was to never talk to anyone about Liv. For a couple of reasons. The first being the fact that I really needed to stop thinking about her, and the second being that I didn’t want anyone getting wind of her being involved with me. For obvious reasons. But just as Carly had spilled to me, I owed her the same.

  Drawing in a deep breath, I met her gaze. “I met someone.”

  Her eyes sparked, her gaze instantly serious. “Really? Who? Do I know her?”

  I shook my head. “She’s not an actress. Actually, she’s not in the entertainment industry at all.” I watched the questions swim through her eyes. “And, no, she doesn’t want to be either.”

  “Then who is she? Where did you meet?”

  Leaning forward, I rested my forearms on my knees and pressed my fingers together. “She was staying in the house next to mine. Her name is Olivia, and she’s nineteen,” I said, not liking the way my gut ached when I talked about her. “She had no idea who I was, Carls. She’d been living over in Africa for the last six years.”

  Her eyes widened a little. “Whoa.”

  “I know. It was surreal.” I gazed out the window and allowed myself to let my mind run free. “It was so good to just be me again. You know what I mean?”

  She gave me a sad little smile. “Yeah. I do.”

  “What do you know?” Mom asked, carrying a tray of food in with her.

  Carly gave me cheeky smile. “Josh’s in love.”

  I rolled my eyes. I could retaliate by sharing the stuff she just talked to me about, but chances were, Mom and Dad already knew about it. We’d learned the importance of sharing things a few years ago.

  Mom paused, tray still in hand, and stared at me, blinking once with confusion. “You are?”

  “No, Mom. I’m not in love.”

  Carly raised one perfectly sculptured eyebrow knowingly. “Oh, I think you are. You just don’t want to admit it.”

  “Who’s in love?” Dad asked, joining the circus.

  “Josh is.”

  “No one.”

  Carly and I answered simultaneously.

  All three of them looked at me with a mixture of confusion and expectation. Knowing there was no way I was going to get out of this alive, I exhaled and prepared myself for the coming third-degree. And then I started filling them in on my summer.

  Chapter 41

  Olivia

  Settled into the couch in my new apartment, I tapped my pencil on the edge of my laptop as I chewed on my lower lip. Pictures moved through my head, words flowing, scenes unfolding. Tucking the pencil behind my ear, I sent my fingers flying over the keyboard, releasing the words, pausing to quickly read them before continuing again.

  This was the third time I’d written this scene since I’d decided to convert it to a screenplay.

  Hitting enter, I sat back and smiled. That scene had been bothering me for a long time. There had always been something missing from it, but I could never work out what it was. As I looked at it now, freshly shuffled and embellished, I knew I couldn’t get it any more perfect than that. Picking up my coffee—my third for the day—I took a minute to simply sip and gaze out the window, happiness warming my heart.

  Writing had always been like that for me. Even when I’d barely known how to write. Back then, it was mostly drawn pictures with a few scattered words, but they still told a story. It was my salve. It didn’t matter what turmoil I was in, I knew I could always lose myself in my imagination. So, that’s exactly what I’d been doing for the last three weeks—since Josh had vanished from my life.

  As I sipped, I wondered what he was doing now. Of course, he’d mentioned heading to Florida to start filming his new movie, so I assumed he was there now, but I couldn’t be sure, really. Occasionally, I thought to jump online and take a peek at the entertainment sites, but I refused to lower myself to reading that sort of garbage again. Especially after the way Josh had spoken about how relentless the paparazzi could be. No, I was not going to go there. Even if my life depended on it.

  The sound of a key in the lock had me turning for the front door. Samantha, my new workmate and roomy, flew in like a whirlwind, hair mussed and a smile as goofy as a clown’s stretching across her face. “Hi!”

  I bit back a laugh at her disheveled appearance as she dumped her bags by the door and came to slump down across from me, Starbucks in hand.

  She huffed. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Sam was always late.

  Shrugging out of her cardigan, she nodded to my laptop. “Are you working on the same thing?”

  I’d mentioned to Sam the day I moved in that I loved writing. When she expressed a similar interest, we’d immediately hit it off. Over the past few weeks, we’d more or less become inseparable, spending not only our work hours together, but a lot of our time at home too. I hadn’t told her everything about the book I’d written, but she knew the gist of it. And she knew I’d been playing around with converting it into a screenplay.

  I wasn’t exactly sure why I’d decided to convert it. It was something that came to me after Josh had left the beach house. After seeing the script he’d been studying for his newest movie, it brought back memories of the module I’d studied back in Africa. I remembered how much I’d enjoyed learning about script writing. Back then, it wasn’t something I thought I could do. I mean, I had no knowledge of the movie industry at all. I’d never been behind the scenes of one being made, and I had no idea how it all came together. I still didn’t, of course. But the idea intrigued me. I knew nothing would ever come of it. I wasn’t doing it for that reason. I was simply enjoying myself. And as far as I was concerned, that was the main point of doing anything in life.

  “I am. I’m almost finished,” I said, a little proud of myself.

  “Can I read it when you’re done?” she asked, eyes wide and hopeful.

  I considered her question. Was I ready for someone to read it? I thought I might’ve been. “Did you want to read the book or the screenplay?”

  She pursed her lips in contemplation. “Book, I think.”

  I swallowed my nerves. “Okay, but you have to remember that it’s not edited yet. It’s still pretty raw.”

  “Of course,” she said, nodding so quick I was worried her head was going to fall off.

  “All right, then. You can tell me if you think anything needs changing.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, that reminds me. Mike wanted us to go over the notes your parents have prepped for the UN meeting next month. I got some screenshots of the notes David sent, but I haven’t got the ones your dad sent. Do you have those?”

  Unlocking my cell, I opened my pictures and scrolled through what I still had. “I’ve got four pa
ges of notes in relation to the human trafficking, as well as the list of names and ages. I think I’ve also got the one Mike e-mailed last week.”

  She frowned, scrolling through her own cell. “Which one is that? I’ve only got the one he sent on Tuesday.”

  Turning my phone around, I held it out for her to see. She leaned forward, squinting at the words. “Damn, I need new contacts,” she muttered. Holding my hand steady, she tried to read it again.

  Laughing, I pushed it farther toward her. “Just take the damned thing. And yes, you need to go get your eyes checked again.”

  She gave me a dirty look before using her fingers to enlarge the writing on the screen. “Yes, I’ve got this one. I think it was the one before that, he was talking about. The one with the St. Petersburg attachment.”

  “Oh, okay. That’s there, then. I think it’s a couple before that one.”

  I watched her flick across my screen, her gaze focusing even harder before she flicked again. “Oh, shit, I went too far.”

  I smirked at her, ready to grab the phone and find the damned thing myself, but her expression made me pause. Her eyes rounded as she stared at whatever she was looking at, then she looked up and met my gaze, her mouth dropping open a little. I thought it might’ve been one of the pictures I had of the kids back in Gulu. Some of those were pretty hard to look at, but her next words shut down my thought process completely.

  “You know Joshua Emerson?”

  Oh. My. God. I’d totally forgotten about the picture. Well, that was a lie, but only a little lie. I’d meant to put it away in a hidden folder, but I hadn’t actually got there yet.

  My mouth popped open, but nothing came out. I actually had no words. My mind was blank. I was painfully aware that Sam had previously worked at a blog that focused on celebrity gossip, so I was seriously panicking I’d just fucked up in a major way.

  Sam turned the phone around so I could see the picture of Josh and me on the screen. “That’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Uh . . .”