Heart of Dixon(2)

She’s my best friend and the other half of me. I don’t believe in soulmates the way others do. A soulmate to me is not someone who spoils you with chocolate, jewelry, and amazing sex. A soulmate is someone who you feel completes you. Without this person in your life, you feel as if only a part of you is living.

This is how it is with Savannah. She is my other half. My best friend and partner in crime. No matter what life throws our way, our friendship will never falter. We’ve been best friends for almost our entire lives. She knows the good and the bad about me as I do her about her. No matter what crazy ass shit we do, we never judge one another because more than likely we were right by each other’s side doing the same crazy shit.

If she doesn’t pull through this, a piece of me will die. I just simply will not accept that. She promised me the day we moved in together at college that we’d always be best friends. We even pinky promised to be one another’s room buddy when we were old farts in diapers sitting in a nursing home. We’d raise hell together until the day we died. And that day will not be today. We will do all the things we’ve planned on doing.

We’ve lived our lives feeling invisible for so long. Bad things happened to other people. Not us. Well, that whole false safety bullshit flew out the damn window the minute Kayden called Dixon. The harsh reality of it all is there are evil people in this world with evil intentions and they don’t care who you are. They’ll screw you over in a heartbeat.

I hate to say it, but a part of me prays Savannah wakes up with no recollection of what transpired over the last several hours. The horror she must’ve lived and to know you took someone’s life. I can’t even begin to imagine how she’ll cope with that. What makes it so fucked up is the fact that we trusted these people. Savannah is the most kindhearted person on this earth, and they took advantage of that.

Thoughts of guilt have bounced around in my head ever since we boarded the plane. I’ve driven myself almost mad with the ‘what ifs’ I’ve been going over in my head. What if I stayed in Galveston and celebrated New Year’s here in Texas with everyone? What if we’d been more cautious and not so trusting with these people we didn’t know? And the biggest one of all: What if we had never left LA? The whole dealing with Logan BS seems like a walk in the damn park right now compared to this heartache.

I hear Kayden and Dixon talking, but I don’t process what they’re saying. I zone them out as I will my eyes to look at her. I need to talk to Savannah and let her know I’m here. She needs to know I won’t go anywhere until she comes back to us.

Leaning closer to her, I gingerly run my fingers over her cheek and clamp my teeth down on my quivering lip as I breathe slowly through my nose while fighting the tears threatening to escape. My words come out shaky as I finally compose myself enough to talk, “Hey, chick. I just want you to know I’m here. I’m not going anywhere until you’re able to get out of this depressing place and come home with me…”

I inhale deeply and blow through loosely pressed lips a shaky breath before continuing. “You remember the promise we made each other the first day at UCLA? Well, I’m holding you to it. I want to make sure you remember we pinky promised, and you know damn straight we don’t break those. We have a long crazy life to live together and way too many wheelchair races in our far future making it impossible for you to not wake up. I love you, Savannah. You’re the Thelma to my Louise. Don’t you forget that—because without you—I’m just Louise, and that is just wrong. I need my Thelma, my partner in crime.

So take your time healing but promise me you’re going to wake up.” I hook my pinky with hers as a pesky tear escapes and slowly slides down my cheek falling onto her blanket. “We haven’t done this since college but, what can I say, I’m desperate. I know you won’t break a pinky promise. I’ll wait as long as it takes.” I drop my gaze to that spot and stare at it for what feels like forever.

My phone, vibrating in my purse, jerks me from my daze in which I was momentarily lost. Digging my purse out, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it’s a message from Reagan. I sent him about a hundred messages before we left L.A. and after we landed. He was too busy shagging the skank he met at the damn party to answer.

Lifting my eyes from my phone, I settle them on Kayden and Dixon. The moment Dixon’s eyes lock on mine, I feel my heart stammer against my chest. I have too much going on right now to deal with Dixon making my body go all high school crush on him. Sure I’d love nothing more than to curl up in his large sculptured arms that feel as if they were made to hold me in them. But those thoughts alone scream train wreck waiting to happen. I mentally scream at myself to stop the crazy thoughts as I push down the feeling of want I’m consumed with and instead focus on the matter at hand.

“Reagan said he booked a flight. He’ll be boarding within the next hour. I text him the address to the hospital and Savannah’s room number.” Shifting my attention towards Kayden, I try to block out Dixon, “Have you heard from Paisley and Maverick? Were they able to find a flight from New York?”

Kayden’s shoulders sag as he rests against the chair he’s sitting in beside Dixon. He seems as if the weight of everything is weighing him down. He looks as exhausted as I feel.

“They told me they’d be in Houston by early morning.” His voice is low and gruff as exhaustion consumes him.

I let out a soft yawn as I unfold myself from my seat and finally release Savannah’s hand. “I’ll go see if they have any rollaway beds for us to sleep on. We’ll be no help to Savannah if we’re all looking like we just walked off of the set of The Walking Dead tomorrow.”

After almost fifteen minutes, we finally have some weird chair looking things rolled into Savannah’s room. After the nurse demonstrated for us how they opened up into a bed, we set them up and grabbed some blankets.

None of us said a word as we all climbed into the tiny beds and laid in the dark room. The only lighting is from the hallway and the machines around Savannah. Having Dixon lying beside me, feeling so close but at the same time so far away, is complete torture. I’m trying so hard to ignore the feelings he’s bringing out of me, but it’s almost impossible. I’m so confused by it all. I’ve never felt like this, and I don’t know how to deal with it. Right now, I miss Savannah more than ever because I could really use girl time to talk with her about this Dixon mess. But I guess I’ll have to deal with it on my own for now.

I’m not so confident that’s going to go very well because, without Savannah’s sound advice, I’m bound to do something extremely stupid. When it comes to Dixon, I become a completely different person around him. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. For now, I’m leaning towards the latter.





Chapter Two





Dixon




I managed to fall asleep for all of maybe twenty minutes before I was back up and wide awake. I’m tired as all hell, but my brain just won’t shut off and let me sleep. All I can think about is Kayden and Savannah. The security breach at the Beaumont Offices building. And then of course Brooklyn. She has crawled into my damn head and refused to get the hell out.

This is not how I imagined this evening going at all. Who the fuck kidnaps people? I pray those cops find that piece of shit before Kayden does. I know if they don’t, that kid will be leaving in the back of a Hurst and not a cop car.

Now being here with Kayden and Brooklyn, it’s too much. It was hard enough being by Kayden’s side when he was losing Melody. I don’t know if I can stand by and watch the past repeat itself. It’s too hard. I feel like an asshole because all I can think about is how I can get out of here as soon as possible. But I can’t stand by and watch the clock tick by as we all wait for her to wake up or take a turn for the worst.

My plan is to use Kayden being here, and me being needed at the office to get out of here. The other reason I need to get as far away as possible from this hospital room is because of Brooklyn. I don’t even know what the hell I was thinking by flying to Los Angeles to see her. Despite the red flags popping up all over the place, I still fueled-up the jet and flew out there to see her.

I feel it in the pit of my stomach...this guilt twisting inside of me. I knew the minute I gave in and slept with Brooklyn that I making the worst mistake of my life...going against my first instincts to avoid her at all costs. But Brooklyn, like all bad things that we know we shouldn’t want or have, makes me we want her even more. After a hit of her, I was instantly addicted. I tried to ignore the constant cravings I had for her, but they were too intense. So I gave in. The only thing is my plans to fuck her out of my system didn’t go as planned seeing that we had to cut our time together short and fly back to Houston together.

I run my hands over my face and let out a tired yawn. I’m exhausted, but it seems insomnia is my best friend tonight. I don’t know how anyone sleeps with the constant noise of machines. Rolling onto my side, I settle my eyes onto Brooklyn, who looks to be sleeping peacefully beside me.