“I know,” he says.
I raise my head and stare up at him. “If my brothers promise to come by and check on her more often, I think it will be okay. But I don’t think I can talk to my boss until the morning. If she says yes, I’ll have to be ready to go right away. You said the flight is at three o’clock?”
“That it is.”
I’m blinking back tears. “I’m going to plead my case. I’m going to do what I can.”
“I know you will,” he says. “I have faith in you.”
“So then, this isn’t it,” I tell him. “This can’t be it.”
He closes his eyes and leans in to plant a terribly soft kiss on my lips. It makes me want to weep. My hands grab him tighter. Something inside me is shaking my foundation.
“Go home,” he whispers. “Do what you can. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“And what if you don’t.”
He smiles sadly. “Then at least I had hope.”
Fuck.
I don’t know how I manage to break apart from him but I do. I can barely drive back to my apartment. I’m an emotional wreck, a zombie, yet I’ve never needed to think more clearly in my whole entire life.
I don’t know what to do. I know what I want to do and what I should do, but I don’t think they are the same thing. What I really need to do is discuss it with my mother—even if my work does let me take my three weeks’ vacation completely last minute, she’s the reason I’d have trouble going.
But before I can even bring it up with her, I have to know my plan.
I immediately text Steph and Nicola. When you guys get back, can you get dropped off at my place? This is an emergency. I need to talk to you.
I ponder leaving it at that, but I’m not sure it will be enough so I add, Lachlan asked me to go to Scotland with him. Tomorrow.
They both text immediately with a lot of questions and say they’ll have the guys drop them off.
I pour myself a glass of water from the sink and drink it down in five long gulps. Then I take a half empty bottle of red wine out of the cupboard and have a few swigs straight from the bottle. After all the wine over the weekend, I’m still not tired of it. More than that, I need it. I am flipping the fuck out.
When Nicola and Steph buzz me and I let them up, I haven’t really come up with any decision. I’ve been pacing with a mind so overwhelmed that I can’t figure out anything.
“Kayla,” Steph says as they come inside. “What the hell happened on the ride over here?”
I stop pacing and look at them, flapping my hands like an anxious bird. “Okay. Okay. Well. He missed his flight. The traffic.”
“I know, we were just stuck in it,” Nicola says. “He seriously missed his flight?”
“Yes. He was able to book the next one going out, but it doesn’t leave until tomorrow. And then…and then suddenly he looked at me…”
He looked at me, and it was something I hadn’t seen before in him: hope. I could feel it in my marrow, and I knew, I knew, that something had changed for us.
“And?” Steph coaxes, sitting on the couch and folding her legs underneath her.
“And then he asked if I would go to Scotland with him. He said he’d buy me a seat on the plane.”
“So you said yes?” Nicola asks.
I shake my head. “No. Yes. Maybe? I mean…I don’t know if I can? What if work won’t let me? I’m supposed to stroll into my office tomorrow and ask if I can leave right then and not return for three weeks. And then there’s my mom. I can’t leave her for that long.”
Steph studies me. “Right. All valid. So you’re not going?”
I sigh and flop down on the couch, legs spread out, all my strength drained. “I don’t know. He booked me a seat anyway.”
“Oh my god,” Nicola says softly. “He did that?”
I swallow and nod.
“I told you he was sweet on you,” she says rather smugly.
I’m too frazzled to roll my eyes. “I wasn’t expecting it.”