I was not going to cry. I was going to walk out of here and drive home. I was not upset. I was not even surprised. How did you think it was going to turn out? I mean, what possible outcome did you expect, you stupid whore? To let yourself fall in love, and with a racer? Have you learned nothing from life, from your parents?
I gave my ticket to the valet. He tried to explain that they were backed up, and it’d be an hour before they could find my car. I gave him a look of pure fury, and he decided he’d bring my car right back. It was not fast enough, though, because James came out of the hotel before my Mustang appeared. Damn him. I was sure my eyeliner was running down my cheeks. He looked around and spotted me, then rushed over.
“Summer, let me explain…” he started, but I cut him off.
“Go on, then! Explain!” I was pretty much shouting at him. “The date on that film was from last night. Explain how you didn’t mean to put your penis in those girls’ mouths!” A couple of bystanders looked at me, a little shocked, but I didn’t give a fuck. James seemed to be lost for an answer. I lowered my voice. “I’m sorry, baby. I forgot it was just a fling. It’s a good thing I didn’t decide last night that it could be something more. That would make me really dumb, wouldn’t it?” My Mustang roared up, and I quickly switched places with the valet. “Go ahead, fuck whoever you want,” I shouted at him. “It’s no surprise to me!”
I gunned the car out of the hotel courtyard and roared off, watching his hunched form retreat rapidly in my rearview mirror.
James
“Go ahead, fuck whoever you want,” Summer yelled at me. “It’s no surprise to me!”
She roared off and I just stood there, breathless, feeling like my heart was falling out of my chest. How could I have been so stupid? I looked around at the guests and staff pretending not to notice what had just happened, and there was Suzi.
“And you can be sure you won’t be getting any more of this,” she sang, indicating her body, loud enough for everyone to hear. Using all my restraint, I ignored her. Any sort of scene would not have done any good, so I signaled the valet over. I gave him a hundred dollar bill and told him he could have another if he got my car here in two minutes and had the hotel ship my luggage home for me. He raced off to bring my Maserati, and in one minute and fifty-seven seconds, I was on the road away from the Four Seasons. I felt like I might be staying at the Hyatt next year.
It was almost exactly 1700 miles between Austin and Monterey. That’s about twenty-four to twenty-five hours. Longer if I stopped for the night, which I planned to do, probably in Tucson. That was a lot of time to think. I was going to leave it all at that, but within fifty miles, I’d changed my mind. I wasn’t going to let us end like that. I couldn’t believe I’d hurt her so badly. I couldn’t believe she had come to find me, to give us a chance to be together, and I had blown it. I couldn’t just stop caring about her, wanting to be with her. I couldn’t let it end without fighting for her, so I made some phone calls from the road and managed to get Summer’s cell number. It took a few tries before she answered, and she hung up as soon as she realized it was me. I kept blowing up her phone until she actually picked up to talk to me.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Summer, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was being filmed.” Damn, that was a really lame-ass excuse. “I didn’t choose to be with them.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I just wanted to go to bed by myself. They were waiting for me.” I paused to give her a chance to say something. I took her silence as permission to continue. “Look, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I didn’t invite those girls into my room. I was tempted, but I couldn’t go through with it. They left really pissed off. Why do you think she showed you that video?”
“It didn’t look like you couldn’t go through with it,” she said quietly.
“If you’d watched for another few seconds, you’d have seen me walk out.”
The line was silent for a while. “How did she know to show it to me?” asked Summer eventually.
“I don’t know.” I really had no idea. “I told Suzi I couldn’t be with them because I thought I was in love with someone else, so maybe when you showed up looking for me, she put two and two together…”
“You think you’re in love with me?”
I didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone while I was doing ninety on the I-10.
“Listen, I’m heading back to California,” I told her. “I’ll be home in a couple of days. Can I fly you out there?”
There was another long pause. I had to fight to stay silent. “I don’t know, James. I have a lot to think about.”
“How about I call you when I get home?”
“I guess,” she said. She sounded so sad, and it hurt to hear that in her voice. She hung up, and I felt I should leave her alone for a while.