Page 155 of Whirlwind

“You are blowing my mind right now.”

“I’m blowing my own mind. But...is it such a bad idea?”

“Beck…it’s…crazy.”

“What’s crazy is that I never thought I’d be saying those words to anyone anytime soon. But I just did to you.” His head hung as he took in a breath. “I don’t want to lose you, Violet. And I’m feeling you being pulled away from me. Like you’re good to go back to the way things were before this, before us. Not me. I can’t. For me, everything’s changed. Everything. Nothing’s the same.”

“I’d be a rock girlfriend?” I let out a short laugh, but he wasn’t amused. “Follow you and the band and the roadies around, be on the bus, fight with the groupies for your attention? Give you head backstage, or stay home and wait for your call in the middle of the night from Bangkok?”

I waited for the inevitable laugh at my witty tirade, my crazy and colorful cavalcade of images and what ifs.

There was none. Beck remained serious, patient, one side of his mouth twitching. Non-fazed by my outburst. “No, baby.” His voice so small my stomach curled. “I just—don’t want this to end. Plus, you have all these new job opportunities now, and there’s so much going on in L.A. I could help you—”

“Beck, you’ve helped me so much already. Meeting Tag and Lars and getting to work with them was an insane dream come true. It was such a blast, and you helped me see that I could do the kind of photography I’ve always wanted to try. I’m so grateful.”

“I don’t want your gratitude.” His jaw flexed, his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I want…I want to keep helping you. You already have something lined up with Alessio. Lars and Tag would love to have you back on a trip—”

“Really? You wouldn’t mind me going on a trip to whothefuckknowswhere with Tag?”

His hand cupped my face, his warm fingertips at my neck. “I’m not jealous of the two of you, Violet. I know what that was. Do you?” His lips brushed mine, and my breath burned in my chest. Soft press of soft lips. Chest against chest. His breath fanning my hot face.

Beck’s kiss. A new bright and shining kingdom. A hot liquid simmered inside me. “I know,” I whispered.

His mouth claimed mine, his tongue unleashing a fire branding. Possessive, thorough. Passionate. My head in a tizzy, my body ablaze, he released me, his thumb tugging on my bottom lip. “If you go back home now, I don’t think you’ll ever leave. Your parents are in the beginnings of what will probably be a messy, endless back and forth, and you are going to be in the middle of it, trying to take care of everybody like you always do. You’ll stay to support both of them, to pitch in. To help your sister through it. And you’ll dump everything you want and need into a ditch to do it, which includes your work, and you and me.”

His chest puffed up. “And before you know it, you’ll go back to Ladd or get involved with another Ladd, a guy who smiles nice, talks easy, feels comfortable, who fits and ticks all the right boxes. You’ll be smiling and so fucking unhappy.” His warm hands slid to my neck, cuffing it the way he always liked, rubbing, stroking as if trying to impress his words into my flesh. “That’s when you’ll miss me, baby.”

My pulse drummed under his strokes, his words, his drilling gaze, the ache in his voice.I already miss you.

I swallowed that thought back down like a crushed pill having spewed its bitterness on my tongue. “Beck, I loved our time together. I did. But I…You make it sound so simple, but it isn’t.”

“It is.”

“You’re pushing me out of the airplane.” My voice came out low.

“I am.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed, tangling his fingers with mine. “But this time, you’ll be flying tandem with me.”

61

Violet

I could barely usemy legs after over nine hours on an airplane. It felt good to stretch, to move. It felt awful to stretch, to move.

Holding onto Beck’s hand, trailing behind him, I stumbled a step, adjusting the strap on my heavy tote bag for the zillionth time as we tracked through the tired, old, and never-ending winding hallways of JFK airport in New York with passengers who’d just unloaded from many other arriving international flights. Herds of cattle heading for the weighing station through the pens.

Finally. There it was. The massive room that was Passport Control.

“Fuuuuuuuck,” I groaned.

“Shit,” Beck said under his breath.

The lines were many and each one long and serpentine. Would we get out of here alive? Wheeling our carry on suitcases, we got in a line.

This was the last piece of our journey together. Once we got through, officially crossing the border into the USA, we would go off in different directions. Him to catch his flight to L.A. and me to my flight to Denver. And that would be it.

The End.

The fucking bitter end.

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