Real(91)
Yours always,
Brooke
Seattle is rainier than ever
Not even Mel can cheer me up. I talked to my parents and told them things are great, especially when I don’t want to worry them about Nora until I figure out how I’m going to bring her home again. I’ve already researched and the next Underground season will begin in February of next year, and it will begin in Washington D.C.
I’m probably going to accept the job offer from the Military Academy of Seattle with my middle graders to begin in August, but if I do, I might not be able to travel in February in search of my sister. Which I don’t like. And yet, if I do decide to go after Nora, I honestly don’t know if I’m strong enough to see Remington in the Underground again.
Melanie, who’s been stalking Twitter, says all his fans are speculating on whether or not he will return to the fights next year.
“Please,” I tell her now, as we’re running, when she brings the topic up again. “Please don’t talk to me about him anymore.” “Why not? Come on, little nugget. You’ve never had a love interest before and it’s fun talking of a love interest that is finally not mine.”
“Just don’t talk to me about him, please! I love him, Melanie. I love him. He’s not just a star, he’s the whole fucking sky to me. He’s the sun and every planet in this galaxy. It hurts me to think of him, don’t you understand?”
On the verge of tears that finally shut up Melanie, I grab my iPod and stick the buds in my ears, but as I turn it on, even listening to music affects me, because every song I hear makes me wonder if I want to play it to him. Completely distressed over how volatile I’ve become, I shove my music back into my armband and focus on running, tap-tap-tap, on the ground. Now the sun is getting higher, and as we round the corner to my building, we see a black Escalade parked right before my building.
We keep trotting toward it, and as we approach, the doors open and a man in black that looks remarkably like Pete steps out. Followed by another that could be Riley.
And suddenly standing across me, every inch of him beautiful, healthy, and vital, is Remington Tate. I see his gleaming dark hair, his sexy boyish face, his slightly scruffy jaw, and all of his manly tan skin and perfect muscles, and my heart stops.
I stop running.
Stop breathing. Stop existing.
My brain goes blank, my lungs close up, my ears shut off. I look at him. And he looks at me.
And as we stare, my eyes on his, his eyes on mine, my heart resumes with one burst of emotion.
It leaps and runs to him, slams into him, explodes in him, and although it hurts like an open wound to look at this man, all my senses have sizzled to life and I can’t take my eyes off him, even if my life depends on it. A private Fourth of July is happening in my stomach as I feel Melanie’s nudge at my back, and we begin walking toward them at a slower pace.
A nerve-wracking pace.
It feels as though the entire world is in slow motion. Every step of mine takes ages.
Remington looks so … large as we approach. Larger than life itself, and I can’t even believe this striking creature was once a little bit mine.
The bad part is, my body cannot distinguish that he’s no longer mine, and every pore of me seems magnetized by him, like they all still think that he belongs to me. “Holy shit, that man is hot,” Melanie gasps at my side.
I nod helplessly and drink him in several times, head to toe. Something rushes through me as if this is the first sip of water I’ve had in weeks, and every pore in me is dehydrated. A tremor wraps itself around my heart. I know there’s no doubt that I’m every bit in love with him as I was before. And this is nothing, nothing, compared to the instant, the very second, he briefly, almost bored, smiles at me.
“Miss Dumas?” Pete says with a grin, as we approach. “We believe this belongs to you?”
He signals in the direction of Remington who watches me with that bored smile, slowly vanishing as he studies me. My pulse goes so wild I can hear it in my ears, and then, I realize another figure is stepping out of the car. A female figure. That looks like … Nora. I blink, and my heart stops. “Nora?”
“Nora?” Melanie repeats, sounding even more stupid than I’m sure I do. “We just wanted to make sure she got home safe,” Pete says.
“Nora?” I repeat. And now I really sound more stupid than Melanie.
“It’s me!” She looks lively and like her old self as she comes to hug me, and she’s shaking in excitement as she does. “It’s me, big sis! I’m back! I’ve done work in rehab. Pete helped me,” she rushes to explain. “And I got the tattoo off.” She points to her rosy cheekbone. “I felt so little when you looked at me that day, Brooke. I felt so little and so … dirty.”