Page 45 of The Getaway
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My body jolts upright and I’m immediately on edge as I scan the dark room, searching for whatever woke me while trying to slow my breath. It takes longer than it should, and between the haze of sleep and the waves softly crashing outside the bungalow, I almost miss it.
Once it clicks in my head what I heard, I hurriedly shove out of bed and cross the room with a silent curse.
I make it to the dresser across the room just as my phone screen goes black. I’m yanking the cord out and leaving the room just as it lights back up in my hands.
Quickly, I slip out the door and onto the back deck as I answer the phone.
“What’s wrong?” I say as a way of greeting to my brother, unease swirling and twisting my gut.
“Noah,” Connor sighs on the other end. I immediately know the answer to my question.
“How long?” I question, glancing over my shoulder in the direction of where Bri sleeps peacefully.
“They’re taking him into surgery now but it’s not looking good. I already checked flights and there’s one leaving in two and a half hours. If I update your flight, you think you can make it in time?”
I suck in a shuttering breath, running a hand through my hair as all the dread and worry I had been suppressing this week hits me tenfold. My answer isn’t one I have to think over long though.
“Yeah, I’m leaving now. I’ll text you before my flight takes off.”
We say our goodbyes and I move on autopilot to the bedroom; grateful Bri had the thought for me to bring all my stuff back here.
It isn’t until I’m fully dressed, my bag sitting by the door while I stand beside the bed and stare down at Bri, memorizing every beautiful detail, that I finally falter.
My chest tightens, an ache so deep spreading through me as I trace my fingers lightly over her cheek and push the stray hair away. I need to leave. I need to make it onto that flight and make it home in time to see my dad once more. Yet I can’t get my feet to move as I stare down at the most captivating woman I have ever met.
Bri wasn’t supposed to make me feel like this.
She was only meant to be someone fun to distract me while on vacation. Someone to keep me busy and here, yet she became so much more. She made me realize that, before this trip, I was alive, but I wasn’t living.
The thought of her being just a memory, of returning to a life where she’s not around makes my stomach drop.
I have to leave now.
My heart cracks at the thought, and I wonder if I should wake her or leave silently.
Bri and I only ever spoke about us in terms of the past five days. Agreeing that we would have fun and enjoy the chemistry between us before going our separate ways. But my feelings for her run so much deeper than just five days of sex. If I leave like this, knowing I did nothing to ensure that I would hear her laugh or see her smile again, I will regret it for the rest of my life.
I didn’t even want to come on this trip, fought my brother tooth and nail to try to get out of it. But somehow, this forced vacation turned out to be the getaway that I never knew I needed.
And now I’m here, dreading the fact that it’s time for me to go, all because I’m not ready to leave her.
There’s so much I don’t know about Bri, but there’s this deep-rooted feeling that if I walk out the door right now, she would be my one that got away.
With that thought, I know that I need to at least try.
Fear of rejection, that Bri might not be on the same page, is the only thing keeping me from waking her up. My emotions war inside me, mixing with the ache of knowing my brother is waiting for me as my father fights to hold on. But all these feelings do is leave me frozen in place.
That’s when I spot the book Bri had been attempting to read the other day on her nightstand.
Without thinking, I quietly find a notepad and pen. My hand shakes as I write her the note and sign it with my name and phone number at the bottom. Folding it in half, and then in half once more, I write her name on the front before going back and pick up her copy of Always, Madly by Whitney West.
I flip through until I find her bookmark and tuck the note in that page before setting it back on the nightstand.
Maybe this is for the better, the ball officially in her court. She was the one who said no commitments, that this was just sex and fun. So, while I might be falling for this woman at an alarming rate, she could just be ready to go home and act like this never happened.
My chest tightens at the idea of never seeing her again and it takes all my resolve to not wake her and figure this all out now.