Page 79 of While You're There
For all intents and purposes, he was completely alone.
Unaccounted for.
He wasn’t here.
This wasn’t happening.
He glanced around the brightly lit, bustling terminal, letting the kinetic rush fill in some of the emptiness inside. How was it possible to feel so fucking lonely surrounded by hundreds of people?
He glanced down at his phone again, willing a message from Tori to pop up. But the only information displayed on the lock screen was the time.
9:48 a.m.
Quinn had scheduled the car service to pick him up at 10:30. He had a senior executive meeting he had to attend that afternoon, followed by a debrief with the entire Logistics and Ops Teams to go over everything from the weekend.
Once he stepped into the office, everything would start falling back into place.
Once he stepped into the office, everything would go back to normal.
Once he stepped into the office, it would be like nothing had even happened.
Rhett surveyed the terminal again, this time letting his gaze linger on the restaurants, newsstands, and souvenir kiosks that lined the perimeter. He paused on a nondescript bar, homing in on the mostly empty seats that filled the dimly-lit cavern.
Two other men were sitting at the counter, one drinking a beer, the other grasping a shot.
Good enough.
He grabbed his bag and one-handedly typed out a message to his assistant as he navigated his way through a crush of hurried bodies.
Rhett: Got held up this morning. Please reschedule the car service to pick me up at the airport at 1 pm. I’ll be in for the senior exec meeting at 2.
He didn’t wait for a response. He didn’t allow himself to hope he’d hear from Tori anytime soon. Instead, he saddled up to one of the barstools furthest from the terminal and made eye contact with the middle-aged woman behind the bar.
“A double Jameson on the rocks, please,” he ordered as he stripped off his suit jacket and folded it neatly on top of his luggage.
He positioned himself in the center of the seat, studying the bartender as she reached for the familiar green bottle. He watched with detached coolness as the deep amber liquid cascaded down the ice cubes in the cheap lowball glass. He smiled when she finally set the drink on a thin cardstock coaster in front of him.
“Do you want me to ring you up now, or do you want to start a tab?” she asked, not making eye contact as she wiped down the surface in front of her.
“Oh. Ummm,” he pretended to consider out loud. “I guess I’ll start a tab,” he answered, as if he had just reached the decision in that moment. She nodded once and met his eyes. Rhett stared back for a few seconds, offering a practiced, empty smile. Aloofness was the only emotion he allowed to surface and register on his face. He wasn’t willing to let himself feel anything else.
Not here.
Not now.
Not after everything that had happened.
Not after all the pain he had caused.
It wasn’t until the familiar burn of whiskey coated his tongue that he allowed himself to settle into his seat and exhale. It wasn’t until the familiar burn of whiskey slipped down his throat that he finally felt less alone.
Chapter thirty-three
Tori
“That’sthelastofthem,” Fielding declared as he set down the final stack of canvases next to all the others on the picnic table. They had spent the morning prepping and packing the rest of the canvases she needed for camp, then they used Fielding’s SUV to transport everything in one trip. Tori had picked up the master keys from the volunteer office on their way to the small camp located right on the edge of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Now they were standing in the middle of the outdoor eating area, trying to get everything put away before the threatening gray sky opened up.
“Perfect. I want to put them away by size in the storage shed, then we’re done for the day.”
