I was gutted.
“I do. You’re all I see, sweetheart. I handled tonight all wrong. This is new territory for me. I don’t know what to do or say in any of these situations.”
All the anger in her face turned to sadness. A single tear fell, and she let me brush it away with my thumb, leaning into my hand for just a second.
“Mr. McCash.” A woman with a cell phone clutched in her hands approached. “The team is waiting for you.”
“I’m not coming.”
“Sir—”
“I said no, dammit.”
The woman hurried off and I felt like an arse. How many people was I gonna treat like shit in one night?
Adele sighed. “Go back inside, Finn.”
“Not without you.” I held my hand out.
She shook her head from side to side. “I have to go. I shouldn’t have come. We live in two different worlds.”
“Let me take you home,” I begged as she walked away.
My mind reeled and I didn’t know if I should stop her or let her go. Something about the broken resolve in her expression kept me rooted to the spot. Fuck.
I watched her get into a cab and disappear from sight. I was parked in the back lot so I went back inside and weaved through the crowd as fast as I could. Each step to my truck felt like an eternity. She was running away again.
“She’s pretty.” Cindy appeared in front of me and thanks to the crowd I couldn’t easily just blow past her. “Image suicide, though. You get that, right? Making a scene at an event like this?” She tsked.
“Not now, Cindy.” I stepped to the side and so did she.
“I’m just looking out for you.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t pretend like you want to make nice.”
“You can choose to believe it or not, but it’s true. I still care about you.”
“You only care about people and things that can do something for you.”
“Oh, come on, you’re making me out to be some sort of monster, but you and I were a team not so long ago. We wanted the same things.”
“Yeah, until we didn’t. I don’t remember wanting you to go behind my back with my teammate.”
“I’ve been trying to apologize for months, but you won’t listen.”
“Because I don’t need it. I don’t care what you have to say. It doesn’t matter. The guy you want to apologize to is gone. I’m not the same person anymore. You can make it up to me by never speaking to me again.” She had the audacity to look offended. “I’m serious. I know we’re going to run into one another, and I can do civil, but I want no part of us acting like it never happened and being friends or some bullshit.”
“That’s really what you want?”
“It’s one hundred percent what I want.”
I waited for confirmation that she understood, and this was the last god-awful time we were going to have this conversation. All I got was a nod, but it was acknowledgment enough. Any unresolved shit I had with her seemed like pebbles in my shoe by comparison to my need to find Adele.
“Well, that looked painful.” Foster cut me off as I tried to flee the room. Goddamn was there no escape?
“It was.”
“You can’t leave. We’ve been waiting for you to do a team picture in the new space.”
“I don’t care about that. I need to go to Adele. She left.”
“Can’t say that I blame her, man. That was hard to watch. She looked pretty crushed by your calling it out in front of everyone.”
The same PR lady who’d come after me outside, tapped Foster on the arm and motioned for us to follow with an exasperated look.
“Come on. Let’s get this over with and then I’ll help you make it right. Whatever it takes.” His sincerity was the only reason I followed.
It was an hour before I could leave. I thanked Foster for the offer, but I knew it was something I needed to do on my own. I called her as I climbed into my truck, unsurprised when it went straight to voicemail. As I drove to my place, I thought through the night and tried to see it through her eyes. God, I’d really fucked up. Chance had warned me, and I hadn’t fucking listened.
I was supposed to keep her safe and I’d failed. Not only had I failed, I didn’t know what I could have done differently and that scared me.
I’d hoped she’d be at my place when I got there, if only to grab her stuff. Any excuse to see her and try and explain. I went straight for my room and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw her suitcase. But no Adele.
Where would she go?
The answer was so obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to go there first. I scribbled a note and put it on the bed just in case she came back and then headed to Chance’s house.
Aubrey opened the door before I could knock. “Hey, Finn.”
“Hey, Aubrey. Is she here?”
Chance pulled the door wide and stepped in front of his wife. “Come in.”
He didn’t speak as he led me out the back of the house to the deck. He took a seat, but I wasn’t interested in sitting around talking. I needed to find Adele.
“Sit. She isn’t here.”
“Where is she?”
“On a plane back to New York. You won’t catch her, she was already boarding when I talked to her, so sit down and tell me what happened.”
She must have gone straight to LAX. Defeated, I sat and undid my bowtie. “I screwed up.”
“Gathered that.”
“I didn’t realize what it would be like for me or her. Sometimes, I swear, I forget she’s an addict altogether, but tonight? Fuck, everything that could go wrong, did. And now, God, as I look back. What an idiot I was. I have to talk to her.”
“She does a good job of hiding her struggle, mostly by not talking about it and living a pretty simple life. Since she met you, she’s pushed herself more and I thought it was good for her, but I think she reached her limit tonight. If you’d seen her five years ago, you’d understand why I have to tell you I think the best thing for her is to be with someone not so… you.”
“You can’t mean that. I refuse to accept that there’s anyone better for her than me.”
He shrugged. “Look, Adele called here an hour ago sobbing so hard I could barely understand her. I feel like it’s the only thing I can say.”
I nodded. What now? I respected Chance, but he was wrong. I’d have to figure this out on my own.
He stood and I followed suit. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly.
“One last thing.”
“Yeah?”
We stood just outside the back door. I wasn’t expecting it so when he swung a fist at my jaw, I felt the impact in slow motion. He hadn’t hit me hard enough to land me on my ass, but damn near close. I put a hand to my already tender face.
Chance smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that, mate, but I did warn you I’d have to punch you if you hurt her.”
Finn
The smell of Adele on my sheets was the first thing to grab my attention when I woke. Or maybe the second, someone was banging on my front door.
I stumbled out of bed and through the house, rubbing my eyes and wondering what time it was. By the sun coming in through the windows, I’d slept later than usual.