Page 38 of American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy 1)
And I pushed past her to get to the elevator. My only thought was of escape, my only feeling was the desperate, clawing need to be alone, and so I ignored her concerned voice, the hesitant murmurs of the people around us.
But I could not ignore Ash’s voice. I was almost to the elevator, almost to freedom, when I heard him call my name. “Greer?”
I didn’t want to look back and yet it was the only thing in the world I wanted. My head swiveled of its own accord, and I glanced at him over my shoulder. He was looking back towards Merlin in the far corner, and as he turned back to face me, confusion and a dawning realization were written all over his face. He took a step toward me, his eyes begging me to stop, but I couldn’t. Not even for him would I draw out this public gutting.
I turned around and stabbed at the elevator button several times in quick succession. Luckily, it opened for me right away, and I stepped inside. I refused to look up, kept my eyes only on the door-close button, and jammed it in so hard that the knuckle on my thumb turned white. Out of my periphery, I could see him say something to Jenny and then walk toward me, and panic flared in my chest.
By the grace of God, the elevator doors slid shut then, leaving me all by myself. With a gentle lurch, the elevator started going down, and I slumped against the mirrored wall and finally allowed myself to cry.
When the elevator doors opened to the hotel lobby, I was still crying. In fact, my tears had escalated into very loud, very embarrassing sobs, the kind that leave you sucking for air, the kind that contort your face into something ugly and wrung out. And my phone was buzzing insistently in my coat pocket, and I was fumbling for it as I exited the elevator, trying to hold in my sobs and failing, trying not to make eye contact with any of the hotel guests in the lobby, and then I pulled out my phone and saw texts from Abilene on the screen, coming in almost too fast to read.
Abilene: r u okay?
Abilene: did you just leave the party
Abilene: like, it looked like you were running for the door
Abilene: maxen *is* here but fuck he’s with some girl
Abilene: some lawyer
Abilene: r u coming back up? come back up so we can figure out what do about this lawyer girl with max
Goddammit, Abilene. I tried to wipe at my eyes so I could see the phone’s screen to type an answer, but there were too many tears, and then I was jostling against a stream of people walking into the lobby, and for the third time tonight, I walked right into another person.
“Fuck,” I swore, already swerving to push past him and reach the door.
“My favorite word,” said a smoothly pleasant voice, and that voice was hypnotic in its charm. Almost against my will, I looked up into the face of one of the handsomest men I’d ever seen. Maybe the handsomest on purely looks alone, since so much of Ash’s attractiveness came from who he was as a person. But this man, with his ice-blue eyes and cheekbones even God would be jealous of, he’d be stunning no matter what kind of person he was.
I was halfway to smiling at him through my tears when I realized I’d seen those blue eyes and those cheekbones before, and my smile froze in place.
He was Embry Moore, and he was Ash’s best friend. And that association was enough to jump-start my body again, if not my mind, because the last thing I could handle was a protracted interaction with someone close to Ash.
“Pardon,” I mumbled, the tears coming out thick and hot and garbling the word. I moved around him and reached the wide revolving door that led to the sidewalk outside, and then I was free to the warm evening air and the impatient honks of taxis and the sound of sirens somewhere in the distance.
I took a deep breath, trying to stave off the tears for long enough that I could come up with a cogent plan. There was Abilene to think about, of course, and also questions from my grandfather I wanted to avoid, which he would certainly ask if he came home from his meeting and found me home early, crying into a pillow.
I could fake sleep, though. And there was no way I could stay here.
I would just have to tell Abilene I was going home, and then I would hide until I could find a way to lie about what happened tonight, or at least hide it. But when I reached for my phone, I couldn’t find it anywhere—not in either of my pockets or the inner pocket of my jacket—and that’s when I heard the footsteps.
I turned around to see Embry Moore walking to me, my phone held in his outstretched hand. Like Ash, he wore a fitted button-down shirt, but unlike Ash, he’d layered a gray vest and gray blazer on top—both the shirt and jacket sleeves rolled up to the elbow. With the cuffed sky-blue pants and loafers, he looked like a playboy let loose from his yacht, and even in my current emotional state, I couldn’t help but appreciate his graceful and lanky male form as he strode confidently toward me.
“You dropped this,” he said in that sophisticated purr, a purr that belied money and education and privilege.
“Thanks,” I muttered, taking the phone with one hand as I tried to wipe my face with the other.
“Are you okay?” he asked, ducking his head a little so he could look into my downturned face.
“I’m fine,” I snapped, turning and starting to walk again. It was unbelievably rude to leave him like that, I knew, but I couldn’t help it. It was just a testament to how fucked up tonight had become.
After a few steps, my tears finally started to slow. I had a plan—I had my phone back—and if I could just make it back to Grandpa’s hotel, I could cry until my pain dried up and my body went limp. I just had to make it there was all, and that started with getting a cab.
I swung towards the road, and to my utter shock, Embry Moore was right behind me, his hands jammed into the pockets of his ridiculously blue pants. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, concerned. “I feel constitutionally unable to leave you alone like this.”
“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“But what is anyone’s business, really?” Embry mused philosophically. “That’s the first question man ever asked God, you know. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper’?”
