Page 61 of Heartbreaker
A deep inhale matches the heavy exhale that follows, and I wait for his rebuttal—some reason why meeting with his father is a bad idea, despite it being the only way he’ll be able to move on. I’m shocked when a small smile crosses his lips. Not exactly how I imagined this going, but let’s see how it plays out. He leans down to kiss me and says, “You’re right. I know you’re right, and I think that’s what has been the hardest part of this. I’ll never get over it without confronting him.”
“Did she say when he wanted to meet?”
“Saturday.” John chuckles when my eyes grow at least three times their size. His father wants to meet onSaturday? That’s in three days, and just so happens to be the same day I had planned to host the anniversary dinner. Then we have to be in Boston on Sunday night or early Monday morning at the latest. That’s not a lot of time. “Ari has been texting me all day asking if I changed my mind.”
“I think you should go.”
“Savannah—”
“If you don’t, it will be on your mind all week leading into Wrestlefest. You don’t need this kind of distraction with your match next week. Call Ari back and tell her you’ll meet him on Saturday.”
John sighs, but nods. He doesn’t have a choice. The last thing he needs is something like this weighing him down when he has a cage match againstNohea NakoaandColin Rykernext Sunday. It’s his first title shot in two years, and the last thing I want is for it to be messed up because of his father. “What would I do without you?”
A quiet hum escapes me before I smile. “Crash and burn.”
John searches the parking lot until he finds the furthest space from the front door. The address Ari sent three days ago led us to a luxury residential community and country club in a northern suburb of Indianapolis. When we pulled up to the front gate, it reminded me of our neighborhood in Crystal Bay, except Sycamore Farms is surrounded by an expansive rolling countryside, farmland, and built-to-last homesteads. After he came clean about his father’s request, my boyfriend returned to his normal self. We spent our days off lounging by the pool, having dinner at our favorite restaurants, and enjoying morning strolls to Cream & Sugar. Until this morning…John hasn’t been himself from the moment he woke up, and I’m starting to worry that maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him to do this.
John doesn’t turn off the car, and his hands grip the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn white. His eyes are glued to the double doors of the red brick building at the other end of the parking lot.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say
“But you think I should.”
I reach over to gently pull his gaze away from the door to meet mine. He leans into my touch, even briefly returning a small smile. “Do I think this will give you the closure you need? Yes, I do. But it’s not my decision, John. You need to do what’s best for you, and if that means getting on a plane and flying to Boston without so much as a word to Leeland Cabot…then, so be it.”
Gnawing on his bottom lip, his blue eyes search my cheeks before his breath fans across my face in a deep sigh. John sits back in the driver’s seat and runs a hand through his hair. He clutches the key for a brief moment, long enough to count five Mississippis before he kills the engine.
When we walk through the front door of the clubhouse, I feel like I’m backstage, watching him transform from John Brooks toBrooks Taylor. His shoulders push back a little further, as if attached to a string pulled taut, almost at its breaking point. His face falls into a thin line, and his eyes scan every inch of the hallway we walk down, ignoring the patrons who stop and stare. Wide gazes reveal what’s going through their minds before they recompose themselves.
“Should we come up with a safe word?” I ask.
“What did you have in mind?” His words are tense, eyes now fixated on the French doors that showcase the foyer of the restaurant. A shiplap white desk sits before a wall of faux greenery, and blue-gray drapes hang on the back side of either door.Fuzzy’s on 18thhangs over the door’s blue-gray painted doorframe in gold script.
“I’m thinking kumquat.”
John laughs—a real laugh—and halts our steps mere feet from the entrance. When he looks down at me, I get a glimpse of the man behind the mask. “Kumquat, huh?”
“It’s just different enough not to come up in conversation, but not too odd that it would seem weird if we say it.”
John breathes out another soft laugh before he leans down to kiss me. “Kumquat it is, then.”
“You ready?”
“I’m ready to be done with this,” he says, resting his hand on my lower back.
The host offers us a tight smile and asks for the member’s name when we walk inside. He leads us through a maze of tables, past the bar, and into a separate room that overlooks the golf course. The windows along the back wall are open, letting in the beautiful spring day before the rain showers that are supposed to roll in this evening. Every table along the windows is filled, but even from here, I know which one we’re headed for.
A man occupies the table at the far left end. He’s pressed his back far into the corner of the room, but leaves enough space to get a full view of the outside. His eyes scan across the newspaper in his hands, but even from here, I know they are a similar color to those of the man at my side. Actually, there are a lot of similarities between the two men—their broad, square jawlines, prominent chins, bushy eyebrows, and slightly bulbous noses.
“Mr. Cabot,” the host says, catching his attention. “Your guests have arrived.”
Leeland folds the paper in half three times before slapping it down on the table and standing. “Well, I’ll be damned. You really showed up.” A wide smile spreads across his thin lips, and he juts out his hand toward John, who doesn’t so much as look at it. “Oh, c’mon, boy. Shake your ol’ man’s hand. That’s one of the first things they teach you in that circus you call a job, isn’t it?”
Shit. I sigh. We didn’t even make it five minutes.
“You must be Sarah,” Leeland says, turning his attention to me when John still refuses to shake his hand.
“It’sSavannah,” John answers for me.
