The island escape, p.12
The Island Escape, page 12
“Okay,” she said when there was a lull in the conversation. She really had no idea what he’d said, and her mind revolved around what her life would be as autumn continued to march forward.
“So you’ll come?” he asked, and Riley’s pulse accelerated.
“When, exactly?” she asked.
“Thanksgiving,” he said. “At my house in Malibu.”
For some reason, tears sprang to her eyes. He wasn’t going to come back to Getaway Bay. She shook her head, first at herself for being so stupid as to think he would. And second, because she didn’t want to talk while so much emotion choked her throat.
“Oh, I have to go,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”
“Mm hm,” she said, pulling the phone away from her ear and hanging up before he could really hear how upset she was. She sniffled and wiped her eyes, her black makeup coming off slightly.
She hated that makeup. Hated the really dark locks falling down to her waist. Hated that she’d let herself fall for Evan Garfield when she’d known—she’d known—he wasn’t going to stay in town.
She’d called her stylist weeks ago, but she’d never set an appointment. Time to do it, she told herself.
Her phone chimed and she looked numbly down at it. Evan had texted. Before she could swipe open the text, the bell on the front door rang, and Riley sprang to her feet to welcome their next client.
The Chief of Police entered, his daughter right beside him. They’d come to everything at Your Tidal Forever together, because the Chief had lost his wife to cancer a few years ago. Riley always smiled when she saw them, their solidarity so refreshing and comforting. They reminded her that she could get through hard things with the support of her family and friends.
She could weather this storm with Evan too.
“Jennifer,” she said, making one more swipe at her eyes to make sure she didn’t have any lingering tears. “So good to see you again.” She moved around the desk and hugged the bride-to-be. “Chief.” She stepped back and shook the man’s hand. “Shannon’s ready for you in her office. I’ll let her know you’re coming back.”
“Thanks, Riley,” the Chief said with a huge smile. Riley picked up the phone and did her job, smiling them down the hall. Then she sat down at her desk and cradled her head in her hands.
Evan had texted, and she checked the message. I’ll be back in a couple of days. Want to celebrate with me?
She did, and she didn’t.
He didn’t say he was coming home. And he’d probably stay for a weekend and go back to California. “That’s not the life I want,” she murmured to herself.
Call me when you can, she typed out, each letter appearing on the screen so slowly. We need to talk.
Chapter Eighteen
“We need to talk?” Evan stared at the message from Riley, his heartbeat suddenly racing through his whole system. “That’s not good.”
“Evan,” Hank said, poking his head out of the conference room. “Greg has John on the phone.”
Of course he did. They’d been waiting to get their producer from TriCities on the phone for days. Of course he’d call right when Evan had gotten the worst text of his life. “I need a minute,” he said.
“Nope,” Hank said. “Come on, man. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.” He was right, and Evan couldn’t make his band wait because Riley was going to break up with him. With a heavy heart, he turned and went back into the room.
He barely listened as John and Greg spoke, though everyone else in the room seemed rapt, on the edge of their seats. Evan wasn’t sure what had transpired, only that Greg looked up from the speaker phone with a triumphant smile on his face, and DJ high-fived Peter.
So whatever had just been said was good news. Evan smiled too and tried to focus. This was his career. This was important to him. Riley is too, his brain whispered, but he shelved the thoughts for now.
Of course Riley was too, but Evan felt like she was unreachable. And he’d done exactly what she’d thought he would. Leave Getaway Bay. Leave her.
He hadn’t even given her the six months he’d promised.
His heart felt heavy, and he listened to his agent iron out terms everyone would be happy with. He celebrated with his friends and bandmates, agreed to get together the next day to start working on their set for the Super Bowl, and he went back to the huge Malibu home where no one waited for him.
When he couldn’t put off calling Riley any longer, he finally dialed her number. “Hey,” he said when she answered. “What’s going on?”
“I just…I don’t think you should come back this weekend.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think I can drop you off at the airport and watch you fly out of my life again.” She’d always been so direct with him, and Evan appreciated that. “It’s not really fair to either of us,” she added, her voice a bit pinched now.
“This was not what I intended.”
“I know that,” she said. “Even the best intentions don’t always work out.”
Evan nodded, though she wasn’t in the room and couldn’t see him. “So that’s a no for this weekend. What about Thanksgiving?”
“I think—” Her voice cut out, and Evan thought he must’ve lost the connection. But he checked, and everything was fine. She’d just gone silent.
“Riley, honey?” he asked.
“Don’t,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, unsure of what else he could possibly say.
“I think it’s a no for everything, Evan.” She spoke with authority now. “You probably have a ton of things to do to get ready to play for the Super Bowl.”
The band did want to start on a new song right away, debut it at the big game. Evan didn’t know what to do now. It was rare for him to not have something to say, some way to fill the silence. He could charm sixty thousand people with just a guitar and a microphone.
Why didn’t he know what to say to this woman?
“Okay, I have to go,” Riley said. “I have a client in a few minutes.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Bye.” The call ended, and Evan felt like a complete fool. He stared at his device like the phone would ring again, and Riley would tell him what had just happened was all a joke.
“What’s a joke, Evan,” he told himself as he stood up. “Is that you’ve been in Getaway Bay for two days out of the past twenty-six. No wonder she broke up with you.” He shoved his phone in his back pocket and went into the music studio he kept here at the Malibu home. He’d brought all of his notes and sheet music from Hawaii, and he stared at the song he’d been writing for Riley.
Part of him wanted to crumple all the pages and throw them in the trash. To save himself from himself, he left the music room and went out to the garage. He had a couple of motorcycles here, and he just wanted to ride.
Carl wouldn’t like it, but Evan didn’t like much about his life at the moment. So he grabbed a helmet and the keys to a sleek, navy blue motorcycle, and he left the house in the Malibu hills behind. If only it was as easy to leave other things behind.
Of course, Evan couldn’t outrun anything, even on a motorcycle. He’d learned that during his divorce from Kitty. He went to the meetings Carl told him to, and he met Brett’s girlfriend. He’d called his parents and asked them to come to Malibu, and they’d agreed. So he hosted Thanksgiving dinner at his house in California, and the whole band and their significant others came.
He was really tired of being a couple with Carl, but he hadn’t dared to reach out to Riley again. She’d been quite clear in how she felt about their relationship.
He laid awake most nights for at least an hour before he could get himself to turn his brain off enough to fall asleep. He’d tap out texts to Riley to tell her something that had happened before he realized they weren’t speaking.
Sometimes, while he sipped his coffee, he’d scroll through their old text stream and read the conversations they used to have. The hole inside him seemed to widen inch by inch until he felt like someone had hollowed him out with a spade.
“Hey,” Carl asked one day when Evan finally stumbled down to the kitchen for coffee. He wasn’t sure what day of the week it was, or what time it was. “We still have that place in Hawaii. What are you doing with that?”
“I’m going for the wedding,” Evan said, stirring some sugar into his coffee. Didn’t Carl know he couldn’t talk to Evan until after he’d had his coffee? “So we’ll stay there then, and then I’ll let it go.”
“Really?” The incredulity in Carl’s voice got Evan to abandon the sugar bowl.
“Yeah, really.”
“Odd.”
“Odd, how?” Evan watched his brother, because Carl was very bad at hiding how he felt about things.
“What about you and Riley?” he asked. “Seemed like you two were getting serious.”
“I don’t want to talk about Riley,” Evan said, probably for the tenth time. “She’s—”
“Off-limits,” he and Carl said together, his brother adding, “I know. But, come on, Evan. You’re a complete mess since things ended with her.”
“I am not,” Evan said. “I go to every meeting you set up for me. I’m working on the new song. Heck, we’ll be ready to record it before Christmas.”
Carl shook his head, displeasure on his face. The same look Evan had seen on his face when he’d grabbed his keys to go pick Riley up at work or take her lunch. The furrowed eyebrows, the semi-angry glint in his eye.
“I don’t understand why you’re upset with me,” Evan said.
“I’m not,” Carl said. “I’ve just seen Brett with Skye, and you with Riley, and you guys seemed…happy. I was thinking….” He trailed off and cleared his throat.
Evan stared at Carl. “You’ve been thinking you want a girlfriend.” He couldn’t believe he was speaking these words, but there they were.
“I mean, maybe,” Carl said, so falsely that Evan started laughing. It almost sounded happy, and Evan almost felt like himself again.
Almost.
“Maybe we should keep the house,” Carl said. “I’m thinking of taking a step away from the band, and I might want to see if I can find someone on the island the way you did. Hey, maybe I’ll lose my watch on the flight there.”
“Taking a step away from the band?” Evan asked, trying to process everything his brother had just said.
Keep the house.
Step away from the band.
Find someone on the island.
Lose my watch.
Evan’s mind started buzzing, but Carl said, “Yeah, I love working with you and Brett, but the Panic could hire a new manager. I don’t do anything special.”
“You keep me sane,” Evan said, lifting his mug to his lips. “And on time to everything. And….” How could he say he couldn’t imagine being managed by someone besides his brother?
“And maybe you could hire a certain dark-haired woman to keep you sane and on time to everything,” Carl said. “I mean, isn’t that what Riley does?”
“No,” Evan said, but that buzzing started again. His thoughts whirred, and he couldn’t make sense of them. The underlying message wailed though, sort of a low scream that took him several seconds to understand.
Get Riley back.
“I need to get her back,” he said out loud.
“That’s the spirit,” Carl said. “So we’ll keep the house?”
“How am I going to do that?” Evan asked.
“Well,” Carl said nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t thought about it at all. “You can start with that song you’ve been working on in secret.”
“That’s private,” Evan said, instant anger springing through him.
“I know,” Carl said. “I haven’t looked at it. I just heard you playing it the other day.” He cut a glance at Evan out of the corner of his eye. “It was a beautiful song, and that’s when I knew you were in love with her.”
Evan scoffed. “I’m not…in love….” He met his brother’s eye, his emotions suddenly too overwhelming for him. “Do you think she’ll talk to me?”
“No, bro,” Carl said. “I think you need a solid plan to let her know how you feel. Chocolate. The woman likes chocolate, right? And a million different ways to say you’re sorry.”
“I already said I was sorry.”
“And a job offer,” Carl said as if Evan hadn’t spoken. “And that song ready, and a plan to make sure she can travel with you and the band, be by your side, whatever she needs. Because I know she doesn’t like being left behind.”
“How do you know that? Have you been talking to her?”
“No,” Carl said. “I know, because I’m just like her.” He gave Evan a pointed a look and said, “We have a meeting with that reporter from Vibe in an hour. You better get caffeinated and showered.”
“I don’t want to meet with them,” Evan said.
“Deal with it, bud,” Carl said. “You only become a billionaire once.”
Evan rolled his eyes. “I’m not joining that billionaire club or whatever that was on the island.”
“Yes, you are,” Carl said as he walked out of the kitchen. “One hour.”
Evan wanted to protest, but he always ended up doing what his brother set up for him. So he’d meet with the reporter from Vibe, and he’d join the Nine-0 Club in Getaway Bay—and hopefully, he’d get Riley back too.
Now he just needed to do all of the things Carl had listed to get her back, and that meant he could caffeinate, shower, and practice the song he’d written for Riley.
Chapter Nineteen
Riley kept her head down as she got off the plane. She’d see her family soon enough, and then she’d be plunged into that chaos. She hadn’t gone to Oahu for Thanksgiving, but Hope had insisted she take a few days off before Christmas and the big Pyne wedding.
“Riley!”
She looked up at the high, child’s voice that called her name. Her niece, Winnie, held up a big sign with her initials on it, and Riley burst into a grin. She started walking faster, scooping the seven-year-old into her arms with a laugh.
“Hey, Winnie-bear,” she said, holding onto the little girl. “Thanks for coming to get me at the airport.”
“Mama went to get a drink,” she said. “Daddy’s right there.”
“Aloha, Sissy.” Her older brother Jason slung his arm around her. “How was the flight?”
“Oh, you know. It’s an hour.” Riley didn’t want to think about the last flight she’d been on from Oahu back to Getaway Bay. She grinned up at her brother. “How is everyone?”
“It’s much quieter on the island without everyone here,” Jason said. “You’re smart to come when no one else is here.”
Riley didn’t say that was why she hadn’t come for Thanksgiving. She’d promised her mother she’d come before the wedding and the Christmas holiday, and here she was. Of course, then she’d have to face her mother alone, but Riley hadn’t usually had a problem with her mom.
“Mama’s got her sticky rice on,” Jason said. “Winnie is so excited to show you her new lizard, and you have to act surprised, but Kelly is pregnant again.”
“What?” Riley stopped, hope entering her heart. “Are you kidding me right now?” Tears came to her eyes, because Kelly and Jason had been trying to have another baby for five years. Riley understood waiting for something she wanted desperately, and she grabbed onto her brother and wept into his shoulder. “Congratulations.”
“You told her, didn’t you?”
Riley let go of Jason and grabbed only Kelly. “I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I’m just so excited.”
“When are you due?” Riley asked, stepping back and looking at Kelly.
“Not until July,” Kelly said. “We’ve only told my parents and yours.” She glared at Jason. “We don’t want to have to tell everyone if we lose another baby.”
“Riley gets it,” Jason said. “That’s why she didn’t tell anyone about her rockstar boyfriend.”
Pure horror struck her behind her lungs. “Where did you hear that?”
“I think you forget that I used to live in Getaway Bay,” Jason said, both of his eyebrows raised.
“I broke up with the rockstar a long time ago,” Riley said, feeling every day of Evan’s absence. “I can’t even remember his name.”
“That is so not true,” Kelly said, reaching for Winnie’s hand. “Your aunt is a big, fat liar.” She grinned at Riley, who suddenly felt like crying again. She hated that weakness in her, and that the feelings of sadness over losing Evan had lingered for so long. Lisa had tried to tell her she’d fallen for Evan, and maybe she had. Riley didn’t want to acknowledge it, because then she’d never get over him.
She’d watched the Super Bowl halftime announcement, and she’d followed the news of a new contract for Georgia Panic, which had come in the form of the largest contract for a band in the past three years.
She’d smiled while she’d cried as she read the Internet article. As she thought about Evan in Malibu. As she remembered his bond with his brothers and bandmates.
Then she’d pull herself together and go to work. Keep everything together for as long as she could, and then escape to the beach. When she finally went home, she was glad she didn’t have to use a dozen makeup remover wipes to get her eyeliner off.
“I love your natural look, though,” Kelly said, and Riley smiled at her gratefully.
“Thanks, Kel. I feel more like myself again.” She’d given up the extensions and the hair dye. She’d gone through a few weeks there where she’d pulled her hair up and worn a cute hat to work to get through the transition from dark back to red.
She liked her hair now, and she was so grateful for a stylist who was as patient as she was talented. When she looked in the mirror now, she could see her freckles. Her green eyes matched her red hair better than the black. And she was starting to find herself again.
Maybe.
Slowly.
She rode in the backseat with Winnie to her parents’ house, where her mother and father waited on the lanai. “Mama,” she said as she got out of the car. She went to the patio and hugged her mom. “How are you?”
