Staying On Top(70)
Once the plates had been cleared, Blair cleared her throat. “There is one more thing, Uncle Xander.”
“There’s always one more thing with you, girl. Out with it.”
“If you talk to my father, please don’t tell him I was here. He might be upset with me for missing the last couple weeks of school.”
“Aw, you know I never rat you out to your pops. What he don’t know won’t hurt him, and your daddy knows everything he needs to know about you.”
We all got up and Blair gave him a hug. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll meet you at the docks in the morning with your cash, and get the keys for the car, too.”
“Can you meet us there in an hour? We were hoping to catch the last boat to Athens tonight so we can grab a flight to Jamaica tomorrow.”
My eyebrows went up before I could stop them. We had been planning to go back to the beach, to spend one more night in our pretend world before moving forward, but apparently she’d changed her mind at some point. I didn’t know when, but I could guess: somewhere between that mysterious phone call and Xander talking too much about her relationship with her father.
“I can send one of my boys. No way I’m running anywhere after that feast. Delicious, as usual.” He tossed a few extra coins down on the table, even though he’d already left a generous tip, then kissed Blair on the side of the head. “You guys be safe.”
He walked off, guffawing at his own double entendre all the way out the front of the restaurant. Blair and I stood until the sound of his laughter faded, then I glanced down to find her looking up at me.
“We’re leaving tonight?”
“I think we should get going. It’s too easy here to forget why we’re together.”
She started to walk off, but I grabbed her hand to make her stop. “Why are we together, Blair? I thought it was because we were enjoying it.”
Her eyes closed, then opened. Just like that, she was the detached girl who had come to get me in Melbourne. But, as with her expression at the table, there was something else trying to push out from underneath. It said she had changed, but wasn’t ready to admit it yet. Or perhaps that was what I wanted to see.
“I’m enjoying it, Sam. I am. I just . . . we set out to accomplish something, and longer we sit around soaking up the sun and having sex on the beach, the farther we are from reaching our goal.” Her eyes pleaded with me to understand. “We need to find my dad. So we can get your money back, and so I can get my life back.”
“You said that you wanted to find your dad so you could turn him in, so you could put all of that out of your head and get on with your life.” My gut tightened at the question bubbling up from the depths. “Are you still part of your father’s schemes? Is that what Xander meant by you keeping in practice? Is that why you really want the authorities to put a stop to him?” I hated that she wouldn’t look at me. “It’s wrong of him to ask you to do that, if it’s true. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
She snorted, then walked away, tracing Xander’s path out the front door of the restaurant. I followed her onto the street and down the steps to the water, until we were both sweaty and out of breath. Only then did she turn and look me in the eye. “You don’t have to worry about me, Sam. We’re having fun together. This is easy. Don’t make it hard.”
“Don’t make it hard by trying to actually be your friend, you mean? It’s okay if you let me between your legs, but the rest of your insides are off-limits?” The crude comment made me cringe the moment it left my lips, but it was too late to take it back. I didn’t think I wanted to, anyway.
“That’s about the size of things. Take it or leave it.” She stuck her chin out, challenging me.
We both knew I would take it. Somewhere along this road she had wriggled her way under my skin, and even though it had always seemed certain that we would part ways at the end of our adventure, I wasn’t ready for that day to be today.
But no matter what Blair thought, no matter how much distance she thought she’d kept between us, there were holes in her armor that, for some reason, I could see through.
I sensed her fear—I just didn’t know what scared her.
“Okay, Blair. Let’s go to Athens tonight. And then we’re flying to . . . ?”
“Jamaica,” she said, looking me in the eye hard enough for me to catch a flicker of relief.
Our next, and maybe last, destination had to be at least two days away. Two more days for me to try to make the holes bigger, until I could see enough to figure out whether or not Blair’s mysterious fear was unfounded, or whether it would make me feel better about the inevitable end.