Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (23 page)

Yet somehow, that stupid little email
brought a flood of emotion to the surface, and Caelyn once again had tears
streaming down her cheeks.

“Stop being such a drama queen,” she
whispered, wiping the tears away.

But it was hard.
 
It seemed like years had passed since
she’d been just a normal college student, no different than anybody else,
looking forward to her classes, trying to make friends and maybe find a cute
boy to date.
 
Never had she imagined
that everything could change so quickly, and now she felt like she was on the
outside looking in.

Who could she talk to?
 
Who might understand?

Impulsively, she got her cell phone and
called her roommate, Alicia.
  

After two rings, Alicia picked up the
line.
 
“Wow, I didn’t expect to ever
hear from you again.”

“Don’t be silly,” Caelyn replied, trying
to force humor into her voice.

“Where are you?” Alicia said.
 
“Florida?”

“No, I’m home at my parents’ house in
Massachusetts.”

“That’s a shock.
 
I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

“Alicia!” Caelyn said.
 
“You didn’t think I’d ever come back to
Boston or call you?”

“I’m serious.
 
I thought you’d moved to Siesta Key and
were serving up margaritas and fajitas to the tourists.
 
You seemed happy enough to get away from
everyone and everything at Cambridge.”

“Not everyone.”

“Huh.
 
Could’ve fooled me.”
 
Alicia’s voice was bitter, not her usual
friendly tone.

“Are you mad?”

“No, Caelyn,” she said, sounding
exasperated.
 
“I’m not mad, but I
was studying.
 
Remember
studying?
 
Classes?
 
Tests?
 
Some of us still have them.”

Caelyn was taken aback.
 
She hadn’t expected Alicia to be angry
with her too.
 
But it seemed like
everybody was, so she supposed there was no reason to be shocked by it.
 
“I’m jealous of you,” Caelyn said.

“I don’t really have time for this right
now.”
 
Alicia sighed.
 
“Are you coming back to school?
 
Or are you just going to quit?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well…call me when you figure it out,
Caelyn.”
 
Alicia sighed again.
 
“You know, it really sucks not having
you around.
 
And it would’ve been
nice if you could have warned me.”

“I wanted to.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Caelyn thought about it, but couldn’t
figure out anything she could tell her that would make sense of it all.
 
“Listen, it’s complicated.
 
I wish I could just give you a simple
explanation.”

“Sure, it’s so complicated.
 
I’m too dumb to understand.
 
And yet, somehow I’m still in school and
you’re not.
 
Go figure.”

“Alicia—“

“I’ve got to go.
 
I have work to do.”

Caelyn got off the phone feeling even
worse than she had before.
 
The
comments Alicia had made, stung her badly.
 
But Caelyn understood why her roommate had said those things.
 
She was hurt because Caelyn had just
left school without a word of explanation, and now Alicia felt like Caelyn
didn’t care about her.

She got it.
 
But it was still hard and painful to get
the backlash when everything else seemed to be going wrong at the same time.

Caelyn got off the computer and curled up
under her covers in bed.
 
She was
tired, but her mind was spinning too fast to let her sleep.
 
She was depressed but jittery.
 
It was one of the worst experiences
she’d ever had—knowing she was truly alone, with nobody to talk to or
trust.

She tried thinking of Elijah, because
just the thought of him usually eased her mind, but even he seemed remote and
distant now.
 
Their last
conversation had been a misunderstanding, and he had acted like he wasn’t going
to bother her anymore.

What would happen to him now?
 
Would they let him out of jail since
Jayson had dropped the charges against him, or would they keep him locked up
anyway?
 
If he did get out, would
she ever hear from him again?

Caelyn was sick of crying.
 
She was all cried out.
 
She was just empty.
 
Emptied out of fear and anger and
sadness and betrayal.

She had nothing left.
 

She was floating.

She was floating, and numb, and in a way,
it was a relief.

***

There was a buzzing bee flying around her
head.
 
She heard it and began
swatting at it, sitting up in bed, startled.
 
Then, as she gained her bearings, Caelyn
realized there was no bee—she’d been sleeping and gotten confused.

She’d received a couple of text messages
on her cell phone and that was what the buzzing noise had been coming from.

The texts were from an unknown number
with a Boston area code.

The first one said:

Is your light on?

And then, a minute later:

Second window on the
left?

Her brow furrowed as she read the
texts.
 
It was just after midnight
and they’d both come within the last few minutes.
 
Who would have written that?
 
Was it a joke—someone trying to
scare her?

She wasn’t sure about writing back.
 
Instead, she went to her window and
looked outside.
 
There was a pickup
truck parked by the curb in front of her house.
 
She couldn’t tell who was inside, or if
they’d seen her looking out.

Probably they had.
 

She wondered if it was Jayson, or one of
his friends.

She quickly stepped back from the window
and closed the blinds, her heart racing.
 
Glancing down at her cell phone, Caelyn saw that another text message
had just popped up.

I couldn’t stay away.

She licked her lips, wondering what to
do.
 
Should she wake her parents,
call the cops, write back and tell the person to leave her alone?

Her fingers froze over the touch screen,
not sure what to do.
 
Then yet
another message came through.

Come outside. I want
to talk to you.

Caelyn swallowed, her mouth dry.
 
There was no way she was going to go
outside right now.
 
She was just
going to ignore whoever it was, until they left.

It was simple.
 
Eventually, they would leave.

But what if it’s not
Jayson or one of his friends—what if it’s Elijah?
She wondered.

She didn’t think so.
 
For one thing, he was probably in
jail.
 
And that wasn’t his SUV outside.
 
On top of those factors, Elijah had
seemed intent on not contacting her again because of the way she’d treated him
on the phone.
 
The last thing he
would do was simply show up at her house, especially when he didn’t even know
where she lived.

It had to be someone else, someone she
didn’t want to talk to or see.

She waited, trembling on her bed, out of
sight of her window.
 
Her hands
cradled her phone, watching to see if any more texts came through.

Then she heard the slam of a car door,
and knew that whoever it was, they’d gotten out of the truck.

Caelyn couldn’t resist getting a glimpse
of the person, so she slowly crept to the side of the window and then peaked
through the blinds.

He’d come to stand on the front lawn,
maybe ten feet from the steps.
 
It
was dark, and he was bathed in shadow, but somehow he was familiar to her, even
in the darkness.

Caelyn stifled a cry.
 
It was Elijah, she realized.
 
Even though she couldn’t see his face,
she just knew.
 
Something about the
way he was standing, waiting for her.
 
She knew it had to be him.

Caelyn ran out of her room, pounding down
the stairs, not even caring if anyone heard her, and then bolted out the front
door of her house.

What if you’re wrong
? A small voice
asked.
 
What if it’s somebody else?
 
You could be in danger.

But that voice was almost completely
drowned out by her need to see him again, hear his voice, feel his presence.

As soon as she got out of the house, she
saw that it was Elijah standing on the front lawn.
 
He knew she would be there, knew she
would be coming outside.
 
Somehow
he’d just known.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure whether to
just stand there and awkwardly say hi, or yell at him for freaking her out by
showing up out of nowhere like this.

And then she saw his grin, that grin she’d
been remembering, the look that had given her strength through all of this
mess—and she couldn’t help herself.
 
“Why didn’t you tell me you were here?” she said, throwing her arms
around him and hugging him, feeling his warm body against hers.

“I did,” he replied.

“You didn’t say who you were!”

“I figured you’d know.
 
Besides, I like to keep you guessing.”

She hugged him tightly, and the tears
came flooding down her cheeks.
 
“Of
course, I’m crying again,” she laughed through her tears.

He pulled back a little and looked at
her, concerned.
 
“What’s wrong?” he
said.
 
He put his thumb on her cheek
and wiped some of her tears away.
 
“Tell me what happened.”

“I’m just relieved to see you,” she told
him.

He was wearing jeans, a leather coat, and
a baseball cap.
 
He looked somehow
rougher around the edges than he had when she’d met him a few days ago.
 
Maybe, she thought, it was because he
was back home, back to his old ways.

“I’m happy to see you too, kid.”

She didn’t bother giving him crap for
calling her kid again.
 
“How did you
find where my parents live?”

He chuckled.
 
“It’s not exactly rocket science.
 
Your cell is registered to your dad’s
name, and then it’s a pretty simple Google search to get a street address.”

“When did you get out?” she asked him as she
stepped away, running a hand through her hair.
 
She was still stunned that he was
actually here, in person.

“Just a few hours ago.
 
This is the first place I came when they
let me go free.” He grinned.

“But whose car is that?”

“You’ve got a lot of questions, don’t
you?”
 
He chuckled.
 
“Come on,” he said, taking her
hand.
 
“Let’s talk in the car.”

As they walked to his truck, she reveled
in the feeling of Elijah’s hand wrapped around hers.
 
All of the misery she’d been feeling,
the weight of the world on her shoulders—it was all gone.

She felt light as a feather, light as
air, and the smile she had on her face was totally unrestrained.
 
It was like a dream, and if it was a
dream, she was determined not to wake up from it.

Caelyn got in the passenger side and then
Elijah walked around to the driver’s side.
 
When she got in, Caelyn smelled minty gum, a hint of cigarette smoke,
and old leather.
 
The truck was
clean, but not as clean as the SUV had been.
 
There were papers and envelopes, a
couple of McDonald’s bags on the floor at her feet.

Elijah got inside and turned to look at
her.
 
She wanted to touch his face,
just to feel his skin, to know he was really real.
 
His dark eyes searched hers, as if questioning
the same thing.

And then he smiled back at her.
 
“I know I was acting crazy when we last
talked on the phone.
 
I’d been
cooped up too long and it was getting to me, picturing the next five years of
my life—locked up.
 
Away from
everything.
 
Away from…”