“Right. Of course,” Dad said. “The papers should be filed in storage. We haven’t had them out since the year of your adoption. I’ll dig around.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, my heart panging with missing them. I loved being here and would never second-guess that choice, but I missed my parents, too. It was one thing to be across the country from them and another to be across the world.
“No problem,” he said as the sliding glass door opened behind me.
“Hey, is Leah in here?” Pax asked. “Oh, you’re—”
I cringed. “Talking to my parents.”
He nodded slowly, and then gave them the wave, clearly in their line of sight. “Mr. Dawson. Mrs. Dawson,” he said with a tight smile. “I’ll…uh…just look for her somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I think she said she was going up top with Penna to watch the departure.”
“Yeah. Okay. Thanks. You good?” Wilder asked, knowing the shit was about to hit the fan.
“Yep,” I answered, offering him a smile.
“I’ll make sure you have some privacy…” he said, backing out of the door and shutting it.
“Rachel Christine Dawson,” my mother snapped.
“Mom.” I turned in my chair with a false smile. “What’s up?”
“Who was that?”
“Leah’s boyfriend,” I said, hoping they hadn’t seen him clearly.
“That was Paxton Wilder,” Dad said. “Damn it. I knew they were off making a documentary, but I didn’t realize it was on your ship.”
“It is on our ship, and he’s dating Leah.”
“After what happened with you?” Mom exclaimed.
“Mom, I hurt Wilder, not the other way around. They’re really good together, and she’s happy. It’s not complicating things at all. They were together before I even got here.”
“And what about the other one?” Dad growled.
I swallowed. “Landon is here, too.”
Mom’s indrawn breath was the shot heard around the world.
“He’d better not come near you,” Dad hissed.
Too late.
“Landon is fine. Don’t worry about me. A lot has changed in the last two years.”
“That boy wrecked you!” Dad was turning a mottled shade of red, something that only arguing over Landon had ever accomplished.
“And I rebuilt. Dad, I know you’re worried, but I’m fine. Landon is…” I sighed.
Dad cursed.
“I’m fine,” I promised. “He’s not getting in the way of my academics, and everything is fine. Sure, it was awkward at first”—like when he stole my clothes out of the bathroom—“but we’re both older now, more mature. Less likely to pull stupid stunts.”
“Like leaving you high and dry and breaking your heart?” Dad asked.
“Yeah, like that,” I said weakly, mostly because I didn’t know. Like Skype had a sense of mercy, I got the poor-signal warning as we pulled out of port. “Look, we’re about to lose signal. We’ll be in New Guinea in a couple days and I’ll try to call again, okay?”
Mom nodded, her face tight. “Just…just be careful, Rachel. You only have one heart.”
And Landon already owns it.
“I know, Mom. I love you guys, and I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Our good-byes were tense but over quickly, and my shoulders sagged in relief as I closed my laptop.
Dad’s job—handling sponsorships at Gremlin—had made it possible for him to make the Renegades’ life way more than difficult after Landon left me, but he’d taken the high road and let them keep their funding. Besides, this trip was fully sponsored by Wilder Enterprises, so it wasn’t like he could hurt them.
I scoffed and rested my head in my hands. A few weeks around Landon and I was already defending him to Dad, who had basically fixed my life when Landon had walked away.
The two sides of me warred, my heart telling me that Landon was the only one I could ever willingly give it to, and my brain warning that there was too much pain in our past for us to ever really work.
I told them both to shut up and concentrated on my stomach. It wanted ice cream, which was the safest of all the options.
…
“Now this is really quite a privilege,” Dr. Messina told us as we lined up against the back of a dark hut in the middle of Papua New Guinea three days later. “This isn’t something average tourists see, so be quiet, be invisible, and be respectful.”
“She sounds like my mother,” Hugo said from next to me.
I smothered a laugh.
Landon rubbed against my right shoulder, no doubt to remind me that he was here. Not that I needed any reminding. He was everywhere—class, Renegade stuff, my suite. Trying to give myself a little space was nearly impossible.
“You’ve been quiet all day. For the last couple days, really,” Landon noted quietly as Dr. Messina walked away.
“I’m speaking to you,” I said without looking up at him.
“If you had tried to get any farther away, you would have had to go to the moon,” he responded.
I shrugged. “I’m fine.” My parents just served me up a hot reminder of what you cost me the first time, and I’m wondering if I’ve lost my mind. Like I was ever going to say that to him.
“You’re not fine. I’m not sure if it was the kiss or talking to your mother—”
“Shh!” I hissed. “That’s not something we’re talking about in…you know…public,” I said, pointing to the camera that had surprisingly been let in.
“Well, if you’d talk to me alone, I wouldn’t have to try in public.”
I finally looked over at where he sat next to me, his elbows casually braced on his knees. The small fire in the middle of the hut threw shadows across his face. He was hot as hell, like bottled sex, and I was the one with the cap.
“I’m not avoiding you or anything.”
“Going to class, minimal conversations revolving around only stunts and homework, and showing up for the excursion doesn’t count. Your mom spooked you,” he guessed.
“My dad made some memorable comments,” I answered. “They didn’t change anything, I just…needed a few minutes.”
“You had a few days,” he retorted. “I’m not in a rush. I’ll wait forever for you to figure out that I’m in this, but I’d rather you come to me when you’re spooked. I can’t stop that little mental fight you’re already in with me if I don’t know it’s going on—if you can’t let me in your head.”
He was completely right. It chafed me to admit it, but he really was. “Okay. You’re right.”
His mouth dropped open.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m just watching hell freeze over.”
“Shut up,” I said, leaning into him. “Talking to my parents was hard. They put me back together when you…” I trailed off. It wasn’t fair to keep shoving our past at him. If I was going to actually be with him, then I couldn’t drag him through that mud over and over.
“When I left you,” he finished. “Look, I fucked that up. It changed us both, and we have to be able to talk about it. Your parents rightfully hate me because they saw the aftermath. If I saw that, I’m sure I’d hate myself a hell of a lot more than I already do.”