Constructing Us (New Adult Romance) (22 page)

Chapter Forty-two

“Hello,” Emma said, sounding reluctant when Tragan called her back. 

“Emma, thanks for answering,” he said honestly, because she was his only hope at this point.  There was no way Andy’s mother was going to help Tragan see Andy before she left.  He knew
how close Emma and Andy were, though, and he hoped he could persuade her to hear him out. 

“As I told your friend,” she said, sounding somewhat distant, “you should be talking to Andy directly.  Not going through me.”

“I’ve tried!” Tragan said.  “I can’t get a hold of her.  I’ve tried calling and texting, but she won’t respond to me.  Look, I know I hurt Andy--believe me, I know that--and that’s why I have to talk to her.  Emma, I had the best intentions.  I only wanted…”  He struggled with how to phrase the truth without making a bunch of pathetic excuses.  “I didn’t want to hold Andy back from going to London, but I realize now that I made the biggest mistake of my life.  I know she’s going--but I can’t bear for her to leave thinking that there was something wrong with her, or that I stopped loving her.  Because nothing could be more wrong.  Andy is everything to me.  She’s literally the sweetest, coolest girl I’ve ever met in my life, and I just need to make sure she knows that.”

“Well…she’s leaving tomorrow,” Emma told him.

Tragan’s pulse was pounding now, his heart galloping hard. 
Tomorrow?!
Shit, he was almost out of time!  “Please,” he implored, “tell me what time she’s going.  What flight is she on?”

Cautiously, Emma asked, “Wait, a
re you going to try to stop her from leaving?”

Tragan was hesitant to admit that part, for fear that Emma would hold back the information.  So he evaded the question somewhat.  “I just need to make sure she knows that I love her and that I’ve always loved her.  That there was nothing wrong with her and nothing I could ever want more in any other girl.”  Holding his emotions together, he finished, “I can’t let her go thinking that I broke up with her because she’s sick.  Or
any other reason she might imagine.  I need to tell her that
I
fucked up--but that she was perfect.”

When Emma was quiet on the other end, Tragan resisted the sense of defeat that was descending on him, and said: “Will you help me?”

~

Andy
had been at Logan Airport, sitting in a line of hard chairs, for about an hour.  That morning her mom had thrown her an informal goodbye breakfast with a few of her friends, and Emma had taken her to the airport.  Her dominant emotion at the moment was boredom; she had taken out her ipod a few times, but on each attempt, nothing appealed to her and she shoved it back in her pocket.  Now she glanced around, checking the overhead clock out of habit.

Just then
a guy sat down in the chair next to hers.  He was young, probably straight out of college, with slightly shaggy blonde hair.  Barely a minute went by before his knee started bouncing.  When he caught Andy noticing, he gave a deprecating smile.  “Sorry.”

“Nervous flyer?” she said
, her tone sympathetic.

“No, no,” he assured her.  “
I’d never say ‘nervous’ because, you know, I’m a strong, virile man,” he declared with blatantly false confidence.  Now she could tell he was flirting with her.  Flirting despite his fear of flying, which was sort of flattering.  “But I don’t like to fly, let’s put it that way,” he added with a grin.

“I understand,” she told him.

“Oh, you get jumpy, too?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“No.”

“Great, thanks,” he teased her with a laugh.

She surprised herself by giggling.  “Don’t worry.  It
’ll be fine.”

Still looking edgy, he nodded and didn’t question how she could make such a promise.  With his knee still bouncing, he began tapping his thumb on the armrest. 
“Been to London before?” he asked after a moment. 

“Yes, a couple of years ago with my sister.”

“Oh, I’m Dave, by the way,” he added, extending his hand. 

“Andy.”

As she shook Dave’s hand, she heard a male voice call: “Andy!”

Startled, she whipped her head around
.  In her heart and in the back of her mind, she thought it might be…

It was!

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes grew wide as she watched Tragan hurrying toward her.  He was carrying a duffel bag and wore an intense expression on his face.  Andy’s heart jumped so fiercely in her chest, she might have stopped breathing for a second.  Without thinking, she came to her feet. 

“An
dy, thank God I made it…” Tragan breathed when he finally reached her.  Before she could say anything, he dropped his duffel bag on the floor, took her by the waist and pulled her in for a hug.  For an insane, helpless second, she let him--even brought her hands up to grip his jacket--when, abruptly, she regained her senses and pushed back. 

Now she was keeping Tragan at a distance
with her palms on his ribs--and with a deliberate remoteness in her gaze.  Of course her true emotions, buried beneath her fear and pride, were joy, relief, even euphoria…bundled up, looking for an excuse to burst out.  Still, she kept her guard up.  For all she knew, he might only be there to partake in some patronizing, protracted goodbye.  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“
I’m going with you,” Tragan answered, his voice gravelly and intense.

“
What?  You want to…?  Wait.  How did you even know which flight I was on?”

Tragan tried to press closer to her, but she still held him off with her palms. 
“Emma took pity on me and gave me your flight information,” he explained.  “I’m sorry I had to call your sister, but you wouldn’t answer any of my calls or texts and I was desperate to see you again.”

Now Andy’s heart was fluttering wildly in her chest. 
“Fine, so now you’ve seen me,” she said, crossing her arms, glaring up at him.  Yes, he might look breathtakingly handsome right now--with his disheveled hair and unshaven face and red-rimmed, sleepless eyes--but that didn’t mean she could jump into his arms like nothing happened.  Could she? 

No way. 
She still hated him a little.  The kind of hate you could only feel for someone you loved.

“I’m
coming to London with you,” Tragan reiterated, then searched her eyes, silently pleading with her.  “If you’ll let me,” he was quick to add. Unwittingly, Andy’s hands began to slide from his ribs, losing their resistance power, and despite her unapproachable stance, he approached.  He put his hands on her upper arms, cupping them tenderly but with a certain possessiveness that filled her with hope.  “Andy, I’m so sorry for what I did, for…I fucked up so badly.  I was just trying to…”

Without warning, t
ears sprung to her eyes, stinging as she tried to blink them back.  “Trying to
what
?” she said, confused and impatient.

“I thought that I was holding you back from maybe getting better.  I was trying to do the right thing,
but I realize now how fucking stupid I was,” he said, his eyes appearing sad now.  “Obviously the right thing could never be to let you go.”  He edged up even closer.  He lowered his voice a fraction as he said thickly, “I love you, Andy.  I love you so much.”

A tear slid down her cheek, betraying her.  Followed by another, and yet another.  She was always a hot mess for Tragan; why should this moment be any different?  But could she really just forgive and forget after the way
he’d hurt her? 

“
You said it was all ‘too much’ for you,” she sniffed, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, looking toward the floor, not able to handle looking into Tragan’s face right now. 

“
I lied.  I didn’t mean it,” he insisted fervently. “I swear on my life, I never meant any of that, but I couldn’t think of any way to get you to want to leave me and go to London.  It just seemed like Ethan and then your mom…”  He seemed to be grappling with the right words, as Andy thought:
When did he talk to my mom about this?
  “It just seemed like everyone thought this could be a great thing for you,” Tragan went on.  “I didn’t want to be the one keeping you back.  I thought if we took a short break, you’d go, but I never wanted to lose you.  So that’s why I’m coming with you.”  He brought his warm, roughened palms to her cheeks, holding her face gently.  “I told you we’d get through everything, remember?” he added huskily.

Now she was looking up into his emotio
n-ravaged face, and though tears kept slipping from her eyes of their own accord, her heart suddenly felt fuller, healthier again.  Her voice wobbled as she said, “But you let me go.”

“No, I
couldn’t
let you go,” Tragan told her.  “Can’t you see that?  That’s why I’ve been bothering you so much.  That’s why I’m here.  Andy, please.  This whole week has been complete torture.  I just can’t be without you.” 

“
Well…what about your job?  The apartment?  Your life here?”

“You’re my life,” he
replied simply, sounding comfortably resigned to that fact, and brought his mouth closer to hers.  Hesitating for only a second or two, Tragan kissed her.  The kiss was unassuming, a little tentative, and softly romantic.  “Please, I love you…” he whispered against her lips.

With another sniffle, Andy murmured
, “I’m tempted not to say I love you back.  Just to make you feel like crap.”

Tragan gave a solemn nod.  “I understand.”

Almost immediately, she called her own bluff.  “But I love you, too,” she admitted with ardent emotion, losing any interest in concealing the fact.  Wrapping her arms around Tragan’s neck, she let out a weak, thready sigh, as relief overwhelmed her--and Tragan engulfed her in a tight bear hug, holding her like he never planned to let go. 

“Oh, Andy,” he rasped
, gripping her to him.  “We’ll get through everything,” he said again.

“You promise?” she
whispered into the warm, muscled wall of his chest. 

“I promise,
baby,” he murmured against her hair, “I promise.” 

For countless moments, t
hey were both so lost in their own world, their own space, that they almost didn’t hear the final boarding call for their flight.  “Oh, my gosh!” Andy said suddenly, pulling back.  “Tragan, that’s us!”

“Shit, there’s
the line,” he agreed, noticing a cluster of people filing toward the departure gate.  Taking Andy’s hand, he grinned at her.  “Let’s hurry.”

Chapter Forty-three

“Matthew!”

Matt
ducked his head into his dad’s office.  “Yeah?”

“
What the hell is this crap?” Matt’s father, Joe, demanded, holding his work phone up in the air.

“Uh…
what?” Matt said cautiously. 

“I just got a message from Tray
telling me that he’s quitting.  What the hell?  Did you know about this?”  Uncomfortably, Matt admitted that he did.  “Just like that?  He’s quitting?!”

“It was a
last minute situation, Dad.  Literally, last minute.”

“Yeah, I got that from the message.  Still
.  Are you telling me one of my best guys for the past four years is just picking up and quitting on me?  For a ‘personal situation’?” Joe barked, citing the words in Tragan’s message with aggravation. Though he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it, Matt stepped into his dad’s office and explained the whole thing to him--including the gist of Andy’s condition and why she had to leave.  “So he’s going with her?” Matt’s dad asked, looking annoyed.  Yet, his tone had lost some of its initial edge.

“It’s serious with them,”
Matt added.  “Tragan screwed up with her big-time.  But he says she’s the one.”

“Well shit,” his dad
grumbled, before setting his phone on the desk and rubbing a hand over his jaw.  “Young people making young people’s mistakes,” Joe muttered with a shake of his head.  He seemed to be thinking aloud more than trying to elicit a response from his son. 

“Sorry, Dad,”
Matt offered generically.  Calmer now, Joe didn’t bother arguing the logic of Tragan’s actions.  Though he did ask why Tragan hadn’t explained all this in person.  With a shrug, Matt did his best to apologize for his friend.  “He didn’t have time to come in person to tell you.  It was a big mess, and her flight was leaving right away.  As for explaining about Andy in his message…I have to assume he was just trying to respect her privacy.  You know, maybe he didn’t want to get into her whole condition.”  Pensively, Joe nodded, as Matt went on, “But obviously you should know what’s going on, Dad.  And you know Tray wouldn’t leave you hanging unless it was a serious situation.”

“Well, how sick is she?”
Joe asked curiously, now with a pinched brow of fatherly concern.  In the back of his mind, Matt wondered if he would develop that natural paternal sense toward people, too, when he became a dad someday. 

“She seems fine now, but that’s the thing. 
What she’s got can flare up any time.  The doctor she’s going to be working with in London has apparently made a whole study of her symptoms and has some theories about what’s going on.  Tray wants to be with her,” Matt finished simply.

Still r
ubbing his jaw thoughtfully, Joe nodded.  “All right.”

“You’re not mad then?”

With a rumbling noise in his throat, he dismissed the question.  “Look, shit happens.  We’ll just have Thompkins take over the remodel in Southie.  And Parker can jump on the Waltham job.”

On
Matt’s way out, he paused in the doorway and glanced back at his dad.  “Hey, just curious.  Any chance you’d take Tray on again when he comes back?”

“Hell,
yeah,” Joe said.

“Really?”

“Of course.  Like I said, he was one of my best guys.  Screw pride; this is business.  But the question isn’t
when
Tragan comes back--it’s
if
.”

~
 

Once seated on the plane,
Tragan and Andy kissed sweetly and lovingly at first--but it didn’t take long for passion to rise between them.  Soon they broke apart, knowing they were only moments away from making out.  Not a good look on a crowded plane.  Andy squeezed Tragan’s arm as he reached over to snap her seatbelt in place, and then clicked his own.  “I can’t believe you’re really here,” she said softly.  “That you want to come with me.”

“It’ll be great, babe,” Tragan replied
, and kissed her once more.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she
said, touching a hand to his cheek.  “But what about what I said before?  You know, your job?  The apartment?”

With a carefree shrug, Tragan said,
“I quit.”

“Just like that?”
she said, surprised.

“Yep.”

“What will you do then?”

“I’ll find another job, whatever. 
I’ll figure it out.  Nothing’s more important than being with you.  And as far as our apartment goes, I paid out the rest of the lease.  Gave Matt the keys; he’ll look in on it for us and pick up the mail.  It’s usually garbage mail anyway.  But when the renewal comes, we can decide what you want to do.  If you want to hold on to our apartment, or find another place.”

“Oh, but I love our apartment,” she said wistfully, thinking of the reading room he’d made for her, the kitchen where she’d spent so much time and where Tragan had tested all her culinary creations.  Thinking of the sofa where they’d played
Super Mario Bros.
and fallen asleep half on top of each other.

“Don’t worry about any of that for now,” Tragan said, cutting into her reverie.  “For now,
let’s just focus on getting you set up in London and giving this university study a shot.  The future is a wild card for us right now.  Oh--but speaking of the future…”  He reached into his jacket pocket.  “Matt got Chinese food last night, so I saved these for us.”  He pulled out a handful of fortune cookies, still in the wrapping.  “You pick.”

Smiling, Andy felt a surge of joy.  It had everything to do with how much she loved this man.  “Mmm…let me think,” she said, considering her options before she selected one of the five cookies in Tragan’s hand.  “For some reason, that one is calling me.”

After she grabbed hers, Tragan said, “Okay, I’ll take this one.”  Carelessly, he deposited the remaining cookies in the empty drink holder. 

“You open yours first,” Andy said
.

“All right, let’s see here…”  As usual, he tore the wrapper open and smashed the cookie without preamble. 
“‘A bowl of cherries includes the pits.’  Oh man…” he muttered, clearly less than charmed.  “Here we go again.  Where’s the ‘fortune’ part?”  When Andy met his disdain with a giggle, Tragan gave her a wry grin.  “Now you go.”

“Okay.”  Her fingers
hesitated after she peeled off the wrapper, holding the bare cookie in her hand.  “What if it’s bad?” she blurted, surprising herself with the thought. 

“Don’t say that.”  Tragan
brushed a lock of hair out of her face and looked meaningfully into her eyes.  “You’re about to have a winning streak.  I’m a gaming expert, Andy.  I can feel these things.”

“
Hmm, ‘gaming expert’ is what we’re calling it now?” she teased.

Grinning, Tragan waited for her to pull out
the fortune.  And when she did…she let out the tiniest gasp.  “Oh, my gosh.  Look!” Andy said. 

Curious, Tragan
took the slip of paper.  “‘The fog will be lifted,’” he read.  Then he smiled at her, knowingly, and took her hand. 

Lacing her
fingers in his, Andy held her breath and soon their plane ascended into the clouds.