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“Are we doing this right here?” I throw my skull against the seat and look up at the ceiling of the tube we’re stuck in.
“Well, it seems we have time,” she sneers, crossing her arms. “Someone mentions marriage and you shut down. I don’t even want to marry you.”
Ouch. The stabbing pain from her admission scars me. “Whiskey, I didn’t shut down. I haven’t ever felt this much before. I wish I could shut it down.”
Max gets up and moves to another part of the plane. Thanks, asshole. You started this and now you’re leaving me to hang myself.
She swallows and her voice shakes when she asks, “Why did you bring me here, Ryker?”
“To prove to myself that you were an in-the-moment thing.”
Her jaw tics and her eyes pool with tears as she pins me with her glare. “How’d that work out for you?”
“You weren’t.” You’re a forever thing, but not my forever. My heart thuds against my chest in protest.
When the first tear escapes down her cheek, she pushes up and disappears into the bathroom.
“Fuuuck!” Leaning on the table, I drop my head into my hands, scraping my fingers through my hair, gripping the strands on their ends. Why did I have to fall in love with this woman?
“The heart’s a bastard, huh?” Max slaps me on the shoulder and sits down in the chair next to me again.
“I screwed up.”
“We all do. It’s what we do after that decides our fate.”
No matter what I do, it won’t change our fate. “It’s not that easy in my case. She’s leaving. She has obligations at home. And I can’t move there. I dug myself a hole and I’m drowning in it.” The weight of it all is too heavy. “And now this. What’s happening?”
He shrugs. “Best I can tell you is we’re doing this as a safety precaution. There’s a reason for the message Addie sent me, but until we talk to her, your guess is as good as mine. Tell me about your last couple weeks.” I recount everything we did. I told him that Aspen hung out with Addie one afternoon. And then she was with them at the game. But I’m sure Aiden would have told me if something had happened during that time.
Aspen appears and scoots over to her seat, eyes red, but back in control of her emotions. “Aspen, did you and Addison ever talk about anything that could have led to this?” Max asks her.
She flicks an apologetic gaze to me before answering. My shoulders tense, afraid of what she’s about to say. “She offered to locate my mom. I just wanted to see if she was in the US,” she adds quickly.
Max nods. “Okay. What did she find out?”
“Nothing. She couldn’t find her in the system.” Why didn’t she tell me any of this? I wouldn’t have cared. “She couldn’t find anything on my father either. I asked her if she could search based on a picture.”
Max leans forward on his elbows. “You gave her a picture? Who was it?”
“It was all of us, my mom and dad. When I was a year old. It’s the only picture of her I have. Do you think that’s why? Did I get her in trouble? I didn’t mean to. She could have said—”
Max holds his hand up, cutting off her panic. “It’s okay, Aspen. This isn’t your fault. There’s nothing wrong with searching for your mom.” Max bends over and pulls a notepad and pen out, sliding it over to her. “Can you write your parents’ name down?”
She looks to me for answers. Oh, now you want my help? I swallow the sarcasm threatening to come out. “Max owns a security team. He might be able to locate your mom and maybe it’ll help figure out what’s going on.”
She drags the pad in front of her and stares at the blank page, hesitating to write the names at first, but she eventually writes them on the first two lines. Her handwriting is even perfect. It’s written in beautiful cursive.
Max stares at it, too. “I don’t mean to sound rude and question this, but for a girl who’s grown up on an isolated French island in the Pacific, you speak and write perfect English.”
She folds her hands on the table and I settle back against my seat. “My father homeschooled me and was very strict on how I spoke and wrote.” She chuckles to herself. “He would tell me that the island might not always be my life and wanted me to succeed in the outside world.”
Tapping his finger on the table, he stares at the names. He focuses back on her. “Why did your parents move you to Tahiti?”
“My dad wanted a simple life. He was tired of hearing about the volatile political environment and didn’t want to raise me here. I would ask questions, but he never wanted to talk about it. Said it stressed him out, so I would drop it.”
“Was he involved in politics?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t think so. He was an English professor.”
