Page 9 of Clay
I’m literally in the line to board my plane when I hear my name being shouted across the airport.
“Megan!” The voice calls, loud and deep.
At first, I ignore it. It’s probably a little girl called Megan who’s gotten separated from her parents. A father shouting out in a desperate attempt to find her.
Instead, I waddle forward with the rest of the passengers.
“Megan!” The voice calls again, but this time it’s closer.
I can’t help but turn around to see what all the fuss is about, and there, running across the terminal with three police officers in tow is Clay.
“Clay?” I say aloud, the word escaping my mouth just as one of the police officers tackles him from behind.
They slam to the ground. Clay tries to get up, but another officer behind him draws a taser and all of a sudden a thousand volts of electricity are being shot into his body. Forcing his muscles stiff as my name escapes his lips one last time.
Without thinking, I run over to him.
“Clay!” I call, as I push past the crowd of gawking onlookers.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” one of the officers says, “you know this man.”
“Yeah,” I admit, although, if I really think about it, I don’t know him all that well. And he's not exactly in my good graces, either.
“Megan,” Clay groans from the ground. “I wasn’t too late.”
Half and hour later, Clay and I have managed to convince the airport security it was all a big mistake.
For a moment I’m tempted to let him rot in jail. It’s what the cheating, no good son-of-a-bitch probably deserves.
But then my curiosity gets the better of me. I can’t speak to him if he’s in jail, and if I can’t speak to him I can’t find out why he rushed here and risked getting arrested just to talk to me.
Besides, he looks even hotter than normal with his shirt half torn off. Tanned, rippling abs on show.
“Next time you stop when an officer tells you to stop,” they warn him.
“Yes, officer,” Clay says, then turning to me, “can we find somewhere and have a talk?”
“I donno, Clay?” I say, my arms crossed across my chest, my toe tapping against the floor petulantly. “Can we?”
“That’s what I just asked,” he smiles, but I’m in no mood for his perfectly straight, dazzling white teeth, or the sexy stubbly dimples on either side of his face.
“Is it?” I sneer back, remember how it felt to see him walking around the mall with that other woman on his arm, and all the reasons I’ve decided to move up to the city with Kate.
“Megan,” he sighs, “I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you. Maybe I never should have come. But, the truth is, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I had to give it one last try. Otherwise I’d never know… I’d never know if I missed out on the best thing that every happened to me.”
“You don’t know what you did?” I scoff, trying my hardest to ignore the other words he said, which are slowly melting my heart like a slab of butter in the sun on a hot summers day. “How about being a lying, cheating, no good asshole? That ring a bell?”
“Lying?” he asks, “Cheating?… what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you at the mall… with that gorgeous slim woman all over you… and don’t you try and deny it. I saw you… I know where I stand.. and yeah, I don’t know why you bothered to come here. All you’ve done is make me miss my flight.”
“You mean Lisa,” he smiles, “my sister?”
“Your sister?” I frown, “But she was holding your arm?”
“Well, I don’t know what you think you saw… but I can assure you it was nothing romantic… she was probably trying to get me to buy her something.” He looks down at his torn shirt. “We went shopping to buy me some new clothes for our date… I bought this shirt and a pair of jeans, and somehow got talked into buying Lisa a new pair of shoes, two dresses, a bag, some makeup, a plant which she managed to leave in the changing room of a shop, and a years supply of romance novels.” He lets out a little laugh. “I should have known I was in for it when she told me she’daccidentlyleft her purse at home.”
It takes me a few minutes to recalibrate all this new information. I’d been so certain Clay was a jerk, it never even occurred to me he might be a decent guy with a hot sister.
