Code word the atrous ser.., p.10
Code Word (The Atrous Series Book 3), page 10
But then, of course, they knew who I was, and then more officers came and some other staff from somewhere. It took all my self-control not to lose my ever-loving shit because all I wanted to do was find Luke and I was so fucking close.
Yet oh so far.
“I’m not here as a singer or . . . My friend is missing,” I told them. It wasn’t an outright lie. “I’m here to find him and bring him home. I don’t plan on staying long. Please. You can call my manager at the company. She’ll verify everything.”
Well, I’d like to think my ex-manager Amber would lie to a foreign government for me. Wasn’t too much to ask . . .
“Or my friend’s family. They asked me to come get him. His sister drove me to the airport. Or you can call my lawyers.”
I’m sure they’d love that.
They’d love to bill me for that.
The customs guy slid a piece of paper toward me and a hundred scenarios ran through my head.
Was I being denied entry?
Was I being bribed?
Did I have to pay someone?
Did I have to write my last fucking words?
“Can you autograph for me?” he said nervously, grin wide. “My daughter is a big fan.”
I blinked at him and had to remember to shut my mouth so I could speak.
“Oh. Of course.”
I scribbled my autograph, then a dozen others to waiting, smiling official faces, then I was handed back my passport and told to have a good trip.
“I hope you find your friend,” the customs guy said. “If he wants to be found.”
If he wants to be found . . .
What the fuck did that mean?
“Some people come here to not be found,” he said with a shrug. “Good luck.”
For one brief moment, I considered asking them for help. Maybe they could help me find him, track his passport number or something. Just a small blatant abuse of power, maybe?
But then I remembered thinking they were about to deny me or detain me, so I just took my passport, gave a nod, and got the hell out of there.
I walked out to the first waiting cab and tried to remember some Spanish. “Hola, Señor. Necesito ir a . . .” I held up my phone and showed him the screen, showing him the place Luke was seen at. “I need to . . . este lugar. Lo siento, mi español no es bueno . . .”
The cab driver, an older man with a kind smile, maybe fifty years old, took pity on me. “My English is not too good either.”
I laughed with relief. “Sorry. I need to go here, to this address.” I was still showing him my phone. “To this beach, I guess.”
He nodded. “I know where it is.” He set his meter and pulled the car into traffic. “It’s out of town. There isn’t much there. Just beaches and a few bars, some houses.”
I nodded, not really caring what was or wasn’t there.
“Are you meeting someone?”
I cut to his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Uh, yeah. I think . . . I hope.”
“Ah, an internet romance? You meeting a beautiful woman you’ve never met before on a beautiful beach? Because I hate to be the one to tell you . . .”
I snorted. “No.” God, could I tell him it wasn’t a woman I was meeting? “Uh, it’s my best friend. He was last seen here.”
The older man winced and mumbled something in Spanish, then he looked at me in the mirror again. “How long ago? How many days?”
“Just yesterday,” I said. “I think.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Maybe he not go too far, yeah?”
“I hope so.”
Because if he wasn’t here, I had no clue where to even start.
“How long you be staying for?” he asked.
“As long as it takes to find him,” I replied.
He nodded again, and maybe he could tell I wasn’t up for conversation, or maybe he didn’t have the heart to tell me this was a waste of time and money, but either way, he was quiet for a few miles.
The scenery was beautiful, in a desert-meets-the-ocean kind of way. I saw glimpses of the bay as the road followed the shoreline, and I was grateful that it was warmer here than it had been at home.
But I was glad I was still wearing the hoodie because I was pretty sure once the sun went down, the night would be a lot colder.
The cab slowed down and we pulled into what looked like a large parking lot that fronted the ocean. The lot was dirt and sand, no pavement here, and it was mostly empty save a few cars to one side. We pulled up close to them, and the cab driver turned in his seat.
“Bars up this way.” He pointed past the cars. “People walk from here.”
“Okay,” I said, pulling out my wallet. I realized belatedly I only had American dollars on me, and I only had fifties. “Shit. I’ve only got dollars.”
“Just as well I accept those,” he said with a laugh, but then his smile faded a little. “You not come prepared, huh?”
I gave him a fifty, even though it was more than double the meter. “I heard where he was seen last and literally boarded a plane. No luggage, no anything.”
“I hope you find your friend,” he said gently.
“Me too.”
He took a card from his sun visor and handed it to me. “My number. You need a lift to a hotel or back to the airport, you call me. You’ve got not even two hours of daylight left.”
“Thank you.” His kindness surprised me, and I tried not to get emotional. “I have to go.”
I got out of his cab and, without looking back at him, headed the way he’d told me to go. I walked out onto the beach, and it did look exactly like the photos the Atrous fan had posted with the location. The white sand stretched for maybe a mile, the water was blue, but the evening sunlight was making everything pastel and pretty.
There were bars up on the shore to my left, with fire pits and hanging lights, some cabanas. People walked along the waterline, some with dogs, some with kids.
There were people in the bars too. It certainly wasn’t pumping busy, but I wasn’t alone.
And these bars, those cabanas weren’t the ones in the pictures. So I kept walking, looking at my phone, at the photos every so often. I tried to allow for the different angles, for the time of day and change of sunlight.
Toward the end of the beach, I stopped.
I looked at my phone, at the photos, then back up to the bar, to the cabana. I was pretty sure this was it. It looked like a private house; I wasn’t sure.
Except it wasn’t a cabana. It was a veranda, a covered patio that looked more like a bar than a patio. There were timber posts and ceiling fans, patio-style furniture, and a woman sweeping the floor.
I looked at the photos again, at the photo of Luke, and I was pretty sure it had to be it.
I walked up and called out to the woman, not wanting to scare her. “Hola señora, D-disculpe.” God, my Spanish was not good. “Uh . . . ¿Puede ay-ayudarme? Por favor? Sorry, my Spanish is not good.”
She stopped sweeping and looked at me.
I gave her my best smile, trying to appear friendly and lost. I held up my phone, showing her the photo of Luke. “Have you seen this man? I’m looking for this man.”
She glanced at the photo, then at me. “No.”
Then she kept sweeping as if I wasn’t even there.
“I’m a friend of his,” I tried. “He’s kind of missing, and I’m trying to find him.”
She kept sweeping, kept ignoring me, so I took that as my cue to leave her be.
Fine. Whatever.
I headed back down the beach to the next place. There was a man with his kids near the water, and I stopped him, showing him my phone screen. “Excuse me, por favor. Have you seen this man?”
He shook his head and pulled his kid closer like I was a bad guy. “No, lo siento,” he said.
I gave him a smile so I didn’t seem threatening. “Gracias, thank you. Sorry.” I backed away and kept walking, trying not to feel disheartened.
What I wanted to do was scream or sit down on the sand and cry.
The next place up was dark and it looked empty, and from the background in the photo, it definitely wasn’t the right place, so I parked my ass on the sand and tried to get a fucking grip.
I didn’t know what I’d expected.
To find him? Maybe.
But god, I’d hoped.
And hope was a godawful thing.
I had a text from Bec.
LMK when you arrive. Keep me updated. Be safe.
It just made my heart hurt even more because she’d been nothing but kind.
Have arrived. Found the beach he was on but haven’t found him. Will keep looking
Then I sat there and watched the waves come in, one after the other, as the sky and sand got pinker and the air got colder.
I kept looking at the photo of Luke, then looking at the places behind me, and I’d be damned if that house with the veranda wasn’t the one in the pic.
He might have just been walking by for all I knew. Though the photo looked like he was right by the veranda, near where I’d stood. But fuck, he could have been passing by and was now on the other side of the country. Or in a different country by now. Maybe I’d missed him by minutes at the airport.
Maybe he saw me and pretended he hadn’t . . .
Fuck.
Then I was mad at myself for thinking like that. There was also no point in sitting there till dark, and I wasn’t sleeping on the beach. I knew I had to find a place to stay or call that kind taxi driver to come back and get me, maybe.
I felt so useless.
Helpless.
And fucking lost.
Come back tomorrow. Come back every day after that if you need to.
And that’s exactly what I’d do. No matter how long it took.
Determined again, I stood up, dusted the sand off my ass, and turned back the way I’d come. The beach was prettier now, hues of purple and pink, fairy lights twinkling, people walking, people laughing in the distance.
And with a heavy heart, I headed toward them.
Maybe I’d show them Luke’s photo and ask them if they’d seen him. Or maybe they knew of a place I could stay . . .
I glanced back at the place where the woman had been sweeping, and seeing it in the fading sunlight, I stopped.
I was sure it was the place.
I looked at the photo again and looked back at the place, holding the photo to catch the corner of the veranda the way the photo had.
I was certain.
I headed up toward it. The woman wasn’t there, but there were lights on inside and the doors were open. “Hello,” I called out. “Hola. Anyone home?”
The woman came out, and seeing it was me, her expression became annoyed. “You need to leave.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do,” I said. “I’m looking for my friend.” I held out my wrist, pulling up my sleeve so she could see the Atrous tattoo. “He has a tattoo just like this one.”
Her eyes went to my wrist, then to my face, and she opened her mouth to say something just as someone came up onto the veranda from the side of the house.
“Alma, all I could get was . . .”
It was Luke.
He was wearing shorts and a long-sleeve T-shirt, holding a white plastic bag. He stopped dead when he saw me. His eyes went wide, he rocked back on his heels as if hit by an invisible force, the bag in his hand forgotten as it fell to the floor, his eyes filled with tears.
“Luke,” I breathed, trying not to cry. Seeing him made it all so real.
Nothing in my life had been clearer to me than it was in that moment. Like I was seeing him for the first time.
Like I was seeing what he meant to me for the very first time.
He shook his head, his mouth opened and closed, his expression shock and heartbreak, and I just couldn’t stand it.
I collected him in a hug, wrapping my arms around him, holding him tight. His body, his warmth, familiar yet new. But he kept his arms by his side, rigid.
Alma came over and picked up the plastic bag. “You okay, Mister Luke?”
He sucked back a breath and let out a sob. “I was doing so well,” he mumbled into my neck.
I cradled the back of his head. “Doing so well at what? Luke . . .”
He pulled back, eyes full of tears, and he thumped my chest. “At not thinking about you. I was doing so well.” He sobbed out a cry. “Why are you here?”
What the . . . ?
“Why am I here?” I put my hands to his face, cupping his jaw. “For you. I came here for you. Because you left me. Because you fucking left me.”
Luke’s face crumpled and he sagged. “I couldn’t . . . I tried . . .”
I pulled out my wallet and took out the folded piece of paper. The song with my name on it. “I found this.”
His eyes went wide with fear, and he shook his head as another tear fell down his cheek. He looked about to protest, to deny, but then he sagged, so utterly defeated.
I pulled him into my arms again, and he was heavy this time, leaning against me, his arms going around me. I held him tight as he cried, and I’d held him a hundred times in my life, but this was different.
I was different.
“I came here for you, Luke,” I murmured. “And this time, I’m not letting you go.”
ELEVEN
“We need to talk,” I whispered. “We’re gonna talk this out.”
He pulled back, his face a mess of tears, and he tried to put his hand up. “Can we just forget about it? I’ll get over it. I’m sorry, I—”
“I don’t want you to forget about it. I don’t want to forget about it. I’m here, Luke. For you.”
“I can’t . . . I can’t lose you, don’t you see? Don’t you see, Blake?”
“See what?” I asked. “That you left me? That Becca broke up with me because I’m a dumbass who’s been in love with his best friend his whole life but was too blind to see it. Until he left me and I had to deal with all this shit on my own, because I have no one but you, and you fucking left me. I have been a mess, Luke. A fucking mess. I got on a plane with nothing but my passport. No bag, no anything. And I walked this beach looking for you because it was the only clue I had—”
“Wait . . .” He stared at me. “Becca broke up with you?” His face crumpled and he began to cry again. “Why?”
Was he not listening?
“Because I’m a dumbass. Her words exactly were that I’m a dumbass and I’m blind. That I never really loved her because I’m in love with you, and that I’m an idiot.”
He stared at me for the longest time. “You what?”
“I’m an idiot.”
He snorted out a teary laugh. “No, I got that part.” But then more tears ran down his cheek. “You said—”
“That I’m in love with you,” I replied. Pretty sure that was the third time I’d said it, not that I was counting. “I always have been. I just never realized what it was until I didn’t have it anymore.”
Luke shook his head and tried to speak, more tears spilling down his cheeks.
“It took you breaking up with me for me to realize. I’ve spent the last week either drunk or crying on the floor. Everything’s been fucking awful. Then today I tried to be normal and I went out in public, but it was terrible, and I ended up at your house. I found all the photos you left on the floor and the song you wrote.” I looked down at the crumpled song. “And I can see it now, you and me, and what was always there. I don’t know what any of it means, but I just had to find you. I was going in-fucking-sane, Luke. And everyone saw it, so that was great. Maddox can eat an entire bag of dicks; I don’t fucking care. Amber almost had to lie to the Mexican government for me, and Becca drove me to the airport and told me not to come back without you. And I flew economy, Luke. Economy. It was awful.”
Luke stared and then barked out a laugh. “What?”
“What to which part? Because I said a lot, and I’ve told you I’m in love with you three times already, maybe four, and you haven’t acknowledged that at all and I’m starting to think—”
He threw his arms around me, his arms sliding around me tight, holding me exactly how I needed him to.
My god, how I needed this.
Like everything would be okay. Like the last week was over, all the awful things were over, and we’d be okay.
“I’m in love with you,” he whispered. “I tried not to be. For years, I tried. But it was killing me, and . . .”
I pulled back and slid my hand to his jaw, searching his eyes. “You should have told me.”
“And what? You were with Becca and you didn’t see me like that, and I didn’t want to hurt either of you.” He looked so damn sad. His chin wobbled. “My best friend and my sister. God. Does she hate me?”
I shook my head. “No. Becca . . . Becca’s great.”
He tried to step back but I held him fast. “Stop and listen. Becca is great. A great friend and a great sister, but honestly, I never deserved her. And,” I said with a shrug, “I never loved her. Not like I should have. She told me to come find you and to tell you. She literally called me a dumbass. A blind dumbass. And you. You’re a dumbass too. Then she drove me to the airport.” Then I remembered something. “Actually, she’s going to kick your ass when you get home.”
“Oh.”
“For dumping me. Well, more for leaving the country and not telling your family, but mostly for dumping me.”
Luke managed half a smile. “I didn’t dump you.”
“You broke up with me. You left me. You said you needed time and space, and then you left me, and the only person you spoke to was Maddox, and he’s on my shit list.”
Luke smiled and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead on my chin. He breathed in deep, heavy, and tired. “We need to talk. About everything. About what this is and what we do from here.”
I cupped his jaw and made him look at me. “Tell me you’re not leaving me again. I can’t go back to what I was before.”
His blue eyes softened. “I’m not leaving you.”
Then it happened. I looked at his eyes, then down to his lips. His pink lips. And I’d never noticed them before, not like that, and I realized my heart had stopped beating, thumping against my ribs instead, and holy fuck, I wanted to kiss him.
