Hold My Breath (21 page)

Her eyebrows lift, and I think fast. Probably not the best lead in on an airplane where you’ve already triggered more than a half-dozen security flags.

“No, I mean…I ask because Will? He has. A bad one. Like…the kind that make you swear to yourself you will never set foot on an airplane ever again. Not. Ever.”

I wait for her to register my words. She swallows and leans back on her heels, her hand gripping my armrest for balance. I move close and bring my voice just over a whisper.

“We’re traveling with his nephew,” I nod over her shoulder. Sandra glances and meets Tanya’s gaze, and they both nod. “It’s an incredibly important trip that Will didn’t want to miss. He isn’t in distress. He’s terrified. His heart is beating so fast that he may pass out from it. I can feel it…every time I hold his hand. But you know what keeps him from falling apart completely? Tearing up your shitty magazine. So rather than make us move and add fire to the flame sitting next to me, how about you take my five dollars, bring
me
a drink, and let my friend here have his way with your high-gloss propaganda.”

Her eyes shift from mine to Will’s hands, and I move my five-dollar bill into her line of sight. She takes it from my hand and stands, holding it at her hip, her mouth a straight line, and her lips puckered enough that I see the small lines along them that lead me to believe she smokes like a chimney.

“Wine is six dollars, ma’am,” she says.

Funny, her accent seems to have vanished.

I tilt my head to one side and let my top lip lift on the right.

“I think you’ll spot me that buck,” I say.

We face off for a few silent seconds, but eventually she runs my five between her fingers, folding it in half and rolling her eyes in the opposite direction her hips sway before she leaves.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, leaning into Will. His hands continue to work the magazine, rolling and twisting it while pages tear. I settle into my seat and turn my wrist, checking the time on my watch. Seven more minutes have passed, so we’re almost to the hump.

“She’s totally going to spit in your wine.” I don’t look up, but I feel Will’s arm leaning into mine, and I smile.

“I would,” I shrug, and when I feel his arm twitch lightly with his laugh, I smile.

I never look him in the eye, but I keep the pressure of his arm next to mine for the rest of the flight. I drink my wine fast, too. It makes me a little buzzed, but it was also the best way to blow the last five dollars I had to my name.

* * *

* * *

I
t’s
like a switch flips the moment the plane tires skid across the runway. I know it isn’t possible, but I feel as though I’ve held my breath for an hour in the air. My uncle told me that each time I flew it would get better. I didn’t get threatened with a Taser this time, so I suppose, yeah…it was better…
ish.

We hit the ground with little time to spare. Tanya manages Dylan, Maddy finds our luggage, and I do my best not to punch the obnoxious vehicle-registration man between the eyes. I’m starting to think we’re having two conversations—the one he’s in, where a midsize will work fine for our needs, especially since he just gave away our van—which I reserved—to a family of five who arrived right before us. And then there’s the conversation I’m in, where I’m trying not to punch him between his bloodshot,
it’s not allergies, douchebag
eyes.

“David,” I say, reading the name on his tag and running my hands along the smooth counter. It’s void of fingerprints. I bet that’s all David does is wipe down this counter all day. He clearly doesn’t check paperwork and registrations, otherwise the fuckin’ asshole would not have given away our van. I breathe through my nose and flip my head up to face him, mouth tight, tongue held, jaw locked while I resolve myself to be civil. “I appreciate that you’re offering a discount. Really, I do. Or actually, no…fuck your discount.”

So much for civil.

“I mean, we’ll take it, but it should really be bigger since you have just massively inconvenienced a family traveling with a disabled child who—I don’t care what you seem to believe, will not fit comfortably in a Jetta. Nobody fits comfortably in a Jetta, David. Have you actually ever
seen
a Jetta? It’s small. The seats are miserable. I’m six-four. Me, traveling alone, would not fit in your fucking Jetta…”

“Hey, oh…okay…so, what’s going on here?” Maddy glides up next to me and weaves her arm through mine, placing her other hand on my bicep in an effort to calm me down. I jerk from her hold and twist to face her, drumming my fingers on the counter.

“David gave away our fucking van.”

Mouth tight, I stare at her. While I grit my teeth she does her best to be my opposite. Moving her hands to mine slowly, running her fingers down my arms to my wrists and exhaling deliberately.

“Okay, well…let me handle this, okay?” she says.

“Have at it,” I say, rolling my eyes.

Maddy chuckles then turns to the counter, and the dumbass, leaning forward and resting her elbows on top of the paperwork for the Jetta, clasping her hands in front of her and bringing her knuckles to her lips.

“I’m not gonna lie here, David. This isn’t good,” she says.

David starts to explain, just as he did with me, but a few words in and Maddy cuts him off again.

“Here’s what needs to happen. You need to consult with your manager, quickly, and then you need to either find us the van we reserved, or you will give us two cars for the same price we agreed on for the van.”

“Ma’am, it doesn’t work that way…”

“Ah…thing is, David, we tried to do things your way. And your way kinda sucked and left us in this situation we’re in now. So now, we’re going to try
our
way…unless you would like me to go the way of explaining all of the ways you are breaking ADA compliance. I’m sure your local news would
love
to hear about that. Oh, and I could start talking about it real loud right here, too. You know, to make sure that all of the people in line to get their rental vehicles know about how you don’t accommodate for disabilities, and in fact go out of your way to make life harder…”

“I’ll override the charge,” David spits out quickly, swiping his employee card along his computer screen and typing manically, his eyes shifting side-to-side, his mouth twitching in a frown when he sees that the people standing next to us have heard Maddy’s speech.

Within minutes, we have two sets of keys, neither for a Jetta, and we’re making our way out to the lot toward two matching Buicks. I unlock mine and jog to the curb where Tanya and Dylan are waiting and I help them to the car. It takes a few tries to figure out the best way to fit Dylan’s chair along with his and Tanya’s bags, but the fit is easier than it would have been in Maddy’s car.

I close the trunk and get the address for the Cleveland Clinic from Tanya, then dash around the front to the car Maddy’s waiting in. She’s already put my small bag in the back and has the engine running.

“We probably could have fit in the Jetta,” I say as I get in and pull my safety belt over my chest.

“Probably,” she says, her eyes moving around to check the positions of the mirrors and her seat. She twists, resting her elbow on the center console, and her eyes settle on me when she’s done. “And you know my car’s a Jetta. You fit fine in it.”

Her eyes narrow and my smirk grows. I did know that. I also recall how cramped it was when I climbed on top of her in that front seat. I can tell she’s thinking about that, too, but I’m not sure I’m supposed to mention things like that with her now—now that Evan’s story is out, and Tanya and Dylan are part of the equation. I’m not sure if that means Maddy and I go back to the way things were before, when I was just her friend and the brother of the guy she used to love.

Her eyes blink once when she looks down, then again as she turns to face the steering wheel, shifting into reverse and pulling us out of the parking lot and onto the roadway behind Tanya. I watch her drive; she’s chewing at her nails while she concentrates, reacting to my directions, and doing her best to stay close to Tanya’s car. I know her dad is pissed that she’s gone on this trip. I know him too well, and no matter what Maddy says about promising him a record and him understanding, he thinks his little girl is losing her way. I’m sure there’s a part of him that’s scared she’s following a path that leads her to me, too. Curtis likes me well enough as a family friend from the past, but I’m not stupid. I know why he let me come here to compete. I’m the gimmick—
the comeback story.
Maddy is the champion, and I’m the guy getting in her way.

But she is here. She came more than willingly. Hell, she bullied her way right into the center of this mess. And I can’t help but love her a little bit for being so selfless.

“In case I forgot to say it…you know…when I was super manic and crazy on the plane,” I pause, breathing out a laugh. Just the sound makes my chest hurt, and it hits me how exhausted I am from surviving the day. Maddy tilts her head and flashes me a soft smile before glancing back to the road. “Thank you for doing this, for…for helping Tanya and Dylan. For helping me. I’m just…I’m just really glad you’re here.”

She flits her gaze to me briefly, but keeps her eyes mostly on the road. Her lip lifts in a crooked smile as she raises one shoulder.

“I’m happy to help, Will,” she says. “Tanya…she’s…she seems like a pretty great woman.”

She doesn’t say anything more, and I know how hard those words were to get out, so I let them be. I flip through my phone apps, bringing up the map so I can guide Maddy the rest of the way in case we lose Tanya on the road. I never mention that I thought I was the reason she came. I sorta feel selfish.

* * *

I
t’s almost
eight at night, and Tanya and Dylan are finally settled in at the Pediatric Wing. The doctors wanted to be able to monitor Dylan through the night, which is why it was so important for us to get here on time. We have three days—two, really, because I doubt they’ll do little more than check us out and fill our arms with brochures and more questions on Saturday.

Tanya is staying at the hospital, which means Maddy and I need to check in at the hotel down the road…which means—
I have no clue what this means.

We park the car and walk in to the hotel’s lobby. I found the place online a few days ago and picked it because it had a decent rating for the price. I reserved two rooms because Tanya and I hadn’t planned to room together, and we didn’t know if she would have Dylan with her the whole time or not, but now that it’s just me and Maddy, I wish like hell this place was booked up with only one room to spare.

Given that we were one of six cars I counted out front, I’m guessing that’s not the case. People don’t exactly flock to Cleveland to start of their summers. And people here for the hospital are usually booking at the five-star tower across the street. This place does come with free breakfast though, and I notice the leftover bagels and muffins still out for the taking as we walk to the front desk. Maddy grabs something that looks like a blueberry muffin and bites into it, and I stop in my tracks, flinching.

“Did you seriously just eat, like…half of that?” I ask.

“I was hun…” she pauses to swallow, wiping her arm across her mouth, “gry.”

I twist my lips, but internally, I’m waiting to watch her reaction—to see if she doubles over or spits out the rest. When nothing happens, I shrug and give in to the growl bubbling in my stomach and grab what I think is a bran muffin, and carry it to the desk. I turn to Maddy while the young girl about to check us in is on the phone.

“Look,” I whisper. “I don’t want this to be weird. I booked two rooms when we planned this trip. Let’s just use them. I’m sure we’re near each other.”

Still chewing the other half of her muffin, Maddy looks me in the eyes, eventually nodding with a slight movement. The fact that she isn’t talking, isn’t nodding bigger, or exhaling in relief makes me wish I’d lied, pushed her a little to see how she’d take sharing a room with me. But I don’t lie to Maddy—except for that one, awful, horrible big one. This is a fresh start, and friend or more, there will be no more lies from now on.

Once our front desk girl, Clair, is off the phone, she checks us in and swipes my card for the entire cost. I catch Maddy’s eyes on the receipt, and I notice the small tick in her lips. Even a budget motel in this part of the city runs two hundred a night, and two rooms over three nights is a small family vacation.

I hand Maddy a key card and lead her toward the elevators. I packed a few of Tanya’s things in my bag for her, so when we reach the third floor, I follow her to her room first.

“Three sixteen,” I say, gesturing over my shoulder. “Looks like I’m across the hall in three nineteen.”

“Oh…” she starts, her brow bunching briefly. She covers it by nodding and folding her arms over her chest, blocking my full entrance into her room behind her. “Good, we’re close then.”

I lift my bag at my side.

“Your clothes…I could just pull them out real quick, or…do you want them in a drawer?” It’s clear she doesn’t want me to follow her into her room.

“I think I’ll just stick with this,” she says, tugging her thin blue T-shirt out from her stomach. “I’m beat from the day, so I think I’ll just probably crash, maybe shower in the morning.”

“Right,” I nod, my mouth closed tight. “Probably a good idea. You want me to just call you or something to wake you up in the morning?”

I’m asking more because I still don’t have Maddy’s phone number, and regardless of this awkward relationship purgatory we’ve landed in, I still want it.

“No, I’ll be good. Just let me know what time to set the alarm for.”

Shit.

“Right…okay, well let’s plan on seven? Maybe eight? Let’s live a little…sleep in,” I say, pulling the right side of my mouth high. Maddy’s mouth matches mine, and I want to kiss it.

“Split the difference, seven-thirty,” she says, wrinkling her nose when she says the time, like she’s telling a secret or being bad.

I chuckle and point my key card at her.

“Deal,” I say, tapping the card against the palm of my other hand a few times before nodding and turning to face my door. “This is me,” I say over my shoulder, as if it weren’t obvious where I was going, and I hadn’t just told her my number.

“Good night, Will,” she says, and I wait long enough to watch her mouth stretch into the kind of smile that hits her cheeks and holds on to her giggle. Of all of Maddy’s smiles, this one has always been my favorite.

My chest warms from seeing a genuine look of happiness stretch across her face, I do my best to smile back. “Good night, Maddy,” I say, turning and pressing my card against the reader at the same time she does behind me.

Our doors
beep
in unison, and we both push the handles down and our doors click open. My heart is kicking me from the inside, telling me to wake up and quit being, as my uncle would say, a chicken shit.

“Hey, Maddy?” The words rush out of me before I really have time to decide what comes next. She turns to face me quickly, her eyebrows raised and her body already in her room while I have yet to cross over my threshold. She’s trying to speed away while I’m trying to draw things out, but fuck it. No more lies.

“Just then, when I asked if you wanted a wake-up call? It was really just a lame attempt to get your phone number,” I shrug.

The same smile from before touches her lips, but this time it makes her blush. She looks down slightly, then peers at me through her lashes.

“Good night, Will,” she says.

“Good night, Maddy,” I repeat, at least satisfied that I went down swinging.

Her door sounds with a
click
before I finish closing mine, so I give up for the night and twist and hook the latch at the top. Unable to help myself, I rest my head against the door and count to five, then look through the peephole with one last dash of hope in my belly. It bursts quickly when the hallway is empty on the other side.

I turn to face my room—two double beds, a white wooden chest of drawers and entertainment center, a table with a coffeemaker on top, and a window with a view of the Fourth Street parking garage. I laugh to myself, wondering if Maddy’s sizing her room up right now, too, then I toss my bag on the far bed and step into the equally plain bathroom to run water over my face. The shower looks tall enough that I might not have to hunch, so I push the curtain back and twist the knob, happy when I feel the water turn hot.

I tug my shirt over my head and walk out to the room, tossing my shirt, along with my jeans, over the arm of one of the wooden chairs near the table. As I turn to walk back to the bathroom, a quick movement under my door catches my eye. A small square of paper, folded in quarters, is flicked underneath, and I hear the sound of the keycard registering and a door clicking closed a second later.

My mouth starts to curve as I step closer to the paper, and my hopeful suspicion is confirmed as I kneel down and pick it up. I see the first three numbers before I completely have it unfolded, and when I flatten it against my chest and hold it out to read, I fist pump with my other hand.

“Still got it,” I say, celebrating to no one. I have a weird feeling Duncan can hear me though, and I chuckle at the thought of him eating his nightly bowl of cereal and holding up his hand to give me an air high five.

I carry the note that reads
call me
with a series of beautiful numbers underneath into the bathroom, and I lay it on the counter next to the small bar of soap shaped like a leaf, then I strip off my boxers and climb in for the greatest hot shower of my life.

* * *

* * *

I
gave
a boy my number once, in junior high. My parents’ number, actually. He told me he wanted to invite me to his birthday party, and almost as much as I wanted a call from a boy, I wanted to go to the birthday party. It was at an amusement park, and all of the coolest kids were already invited. The call never came, and I was devastated. I decided to hate the boy for the rest of my life—
Colton Churchfield; I’ll never forget.
He works at a gas station now—management. I saw him once when I pulled in to get a coffee and fill up on gas. He looked miserable, and I was overjoyed.

This time, there is no party. There are no hopes of running into Will years later, in a dead-end job. There’s just a man. With my phone number. Fifty feet and two doors away from me.

I keep getting up and looking through the peephole, excited at the thought that maybe he’s just coming over instead. Part of me wants that.
Most
of me wants that.

My phone in my palm, I leave the comfort of my hotel bed, shoes dumped by the dresser and socks still on my feet, and shuffle back to the door to look again. I stand on the tips of my toes and let my head rest against the wood, pressing my phone between my hand and the door. When it buzzes, I drop it, fumbling as it bangs against the door on the way to the floor, bouncing end-over-end and eventually landing behind the trashcan just outside the bathroom. I pick it up quickly, but stay near the door, pulling my legs in to sit crisscrossed with my back to the hallway just on the other side.

His text is on the screen.

There is something to be said about unlimited hot water.

My lips curl into my cheeks as I read, and I bring my hand to my face to feel my expression, proof that this smile is happening automatically—an instant reaction to the smallest note from him.

Will makes me happy.

I write him back.

I was thinking the same thing about expensive sheets and a comforter as thick as a mattress.

I wait while he types, bringing my knees up and cupping my phone in my hands, like I want to keep his messages a secret for only me. When my phone buzzes with his call instead, I feel my cheeks grow warm, and I scrunch my legs in tighter as I bring the phone to my ear.

“Hey,” I say.

“How’d you know it was me?” he chuckles.

“I already gave you a special ring,” I lie. “A Fat Elvis song.”

“Wow, Fat Elvis. I don’t even warrant skinny, movie-star Elvis,” he says.

“Fat Elvis is better,” I say, stretching my legs out and crossing my ankles as he laughs.

“I think we need to explore this more,” he says.

“There really is no debate. His music meant more when he was older. More emotion,” I reply.

“You mean more drugs,” he fires back.

“Better clothes.” That response makes him laugh hard, and I love the way I hear it coming from his chest, like it’s deep—
genuine.

“I liken myself to more of a
Jail House Rock
kinda guy, is all,” he says, finally.

“Hmmm,” I hum, lowering myself so my head is propped against the door, and I’m now lying on the floor, as close to him as I can be without leaving my room.