Push the Envelope (17 page)

“Go ahead. I can always call you if I need a ride.”

“Are you sure? I can hang out downstairs just in case,” she
offered.

“I’m not sure about anything right now, Aubrey,” I admitted.
“The only thing I know for certain is that I need to find out what happened.
Why Drake would believe that about me.”

“I don’t feel right leaving you alone yet. I’ll pack up the car,
make sure Drake shows up like he said he would, and then I’ll wait until you
text me that it’s okay for me to leave. Okay?”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best. If you don’t want to be
here when he gets here, then you better move fast because he didn’t give me a
chance to say much before he was already on his way. You’ve only got a couple
minutes left.”

“Then it’s a good thing I packed light,” she said as she threw
our stuff back into her bag. “Don’t forget to let me know if you need me to
come up or if you want me to go. If I don’t hear from you in thirty minutes,
I’m coming back up.”

I gave her a quick hug and ran into the bathroom to make sure I
looked decent. I didn’t really. Two days spent agonizing over what I thought
was the end of our relationship, crying, and having nightmares that kept waking
me up didn’t leave me looking my best. The shower helped a lot, but nothing was
going to get rid of the red-rimmed eyes and dark circles. My hands trembled as
I played with my hair. I was so nervous about what would happen next.

After a couple minutes, there was a knock on the door. I went to
answer, and there he was. He looked as tired as I felt. He had a black eye and
a puffy, bruised lip from his fight with Jackson. I wanted to reach out and hug
him close, but I stood there with my arms wrapped around myself instead. I was
unsure of how to act because everything seemed so awkward. I took a step
backwards to let him inside the room. He grabbed one of my hands as he walked
past and pulled me along with him. We sat down on the edge of the bed and just
looked at each other for a couple minutes. Drake hadn’t let go of my hand and
couldn’t seem to look away from me.

“Why, Drake? What could I possibly have done to deserve your
accusation?” I finally asked.

He looked down at our hands and shook his head. “Fuck, Alexa.
This wasn’t your fault. I never should have yelled at you the way I did. Don’t
talk like that.”

I pulled my hands away and folded them in my lap. “If that’s
true, then what the hell happened?”

He clenched the hand I’d let go of into a fist and stared me in
the eyes, like he was willing me to listen to him. “I woke up Friday morning to
a phone call from my dad. He had some questions for me. Questions about you.
Concerns about how you were paying for school based on a rumor my mom had
heard.”

“What?” I gasped. “Your parents think that I’m prostituting
myself to pay for school? Where in the world would they get an idea like that?”

“I promise that I’ll get to that part in a minute, but I want
you to understand why I listened to the story at all. If it had been anyone but
my dad, I swear to you that I wouldn’t have considered for a second that it
could be true. But he’d asked the security consultant at his company to run a
quick check on your dad’s finances before he called me. And the guy told him
there were some red flags, money coming in more quickly than ever before
starting this past summer. My dad should have waited for more information
before calling me, but he was concerned. Hell, I should have asked more questions,
but I was crushed by the idea that it could be true.”

“Your dad had mine investigated?” I asked. “What the hell?”

“I know it sounds bad, and I’ve already had it out with my dad
after I talked to Jackson. He feels horrible about the trouble he caused, and
he wants to apologize to both you and your dad. We both handled this badly, in
part because neither of us knew that the source of the bad information was
Sasha.”

“Sasha? You’re going to sit there and blame this on her?” I
asked in a disbelieving tone of voice.

“That’s not what I’m saying. Most of this was my doing. If I had
just waited instead of flying off the handle, things wouldn’t have gone down
the way they did. That’s on me, and I learned my lesson when I couldn’t reach
you to apologize and explain for two fucking days. Trust me, it’s not a mistake
I’m gonna repeat ever again.”

“I still don’t understand. What happened exactly and how was
Sasha involved?”

“I haven’t talked to her about it, but Jackson and I think we
figured out what happened after talking to my mom. She got a call a few days
ago from Sasha’s mom, who told her that she was worried about how quickly our
relationship moved and if I knew what I was getting into with you. They may be
best friends, but my mom wasn’t going to listen to her bad-mouth you without
cause. And that’s when she dropped the bombshell that started the ball rolling
on this mess. She told my mom that there was a rumor going around the school
that you were selling sex to pay for college. She didn’t have any details, but
she thought my mom should know because where there’s smoke there’s usually a
fire. Sasha had approached her mom and supposedly asked for advice on whether
or not to ask me if I’d heard the rumor yet or not.”

“Yeah, right. Like she needs advice to figure out a way to try
to tear me down with you,” I scoffed, finding the idea ridiculous.

“I think Sasha knew exactly what she was doing. She had to know
that her mom would come to mine with her concerns and eventually it would
filter down to me. This way, it wasn’t coming from her and I would be more
likely to listen. Of course my mom mentioned the conversation to my dad, and he
thought it was too risky not to check into the story. She played all of us
perfectly, and it almost worked.”

“Not almost. It did work. You believed the rumor,” I said
accusingly.

“Baby, no. I didn’t, not really. If I had waited at all before
confronting you, I never would have handled it the way I did. I know that’s not
the type of person you are. There isn’t a chance in hell that you would ever do
that, but I let my jealousy at the thought of anyone else getting close to you
fuck with my head. I swear to God that I would have realized what the hell I
was saying if you had just stayed a little longer and talked to me.”

“No way! Why would I stay and listen to that bullshit? You would
never put up with that kind of crap from me, but you expect me to do it?” I
argued.

He shook his head and raised his hands in the air in a gesture
of mock surrender. “That’s not what I’m saying. I get why you left. I don’t
blame you for it, but we have to figure out this talking thing. I refuse to
lose you over some stupid story that I shouldn’t have listened to in the first
place.”

“Then why did you listen?”

“Because it was my dad. How could I not listen to him, even just
a little? I didn’t know about the flights you offered. What the hell was I
supposed to think?” he asked, frustrated, as he stood and started to pace the
floor. “I wasn’t even thinking, not really. It wasn’t until you were gone and
Jackson nailed me with a punch that I started to think clearly. He knocked some
sense back into me, and I tried to find you to explain even though I was still
a little pissed off. We needed to talk, but you were gone. Disappeared into
thin air. You wouldn’t answer my calls or texts
—
nothing. I still couldn’t figure out what
the fuck was going on, and then Jackson found me outside your dorm. He calmed
down and wanted to know what happened. So I told him, and his reaction was to
laugh his ass off. I swear to God, I almost killed him right then and there. I
couldn’t figure out what the hell was so funny until he told me about your Mile
High Club flights.”

“That’s what this was about? My tours?”

“Yeah, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Jackson told me
that Aubrey likes to tease you about them sometimes. We figure Sasha overheard
something and that’s what she told her mom about. Some stupid inside joke she
didn’t understand that got all twisted up by the time my dad called me.” He
knelt down on the floor in front of me. “Please try to understand why I freaked
out. You know how I am about you. I don’t even like other guys looking at you.
The idea of someone touching what’s mine… I lost it.”

I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to brush his hair from his
forehead. As soon as my fingers touched him, he leaned forward to wrap his arms
around me and rested his head in my lap. It felt so good to have him close to
me again. My phone beeped, and I realized that it was Aubrey checking to make
sure I was okay. “Will you take me back to campus when we’re done talking?” I
asked.

He squeezed me even tighter. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to
go. Just don’t leave yet.”

I tapped out a quick reply to Aubrey, letting her know she could
leave. “Okay.”

He sat back down on the floor and looked up at me with so much
love in his eyes that tears started to leak from my eyes again. I hated the
distance between us right now.

“After Jackson and I talked, I called my dad back to explain,
but he had already figured it out. He pulled up your dad’s website and saw the
link for the Mile High Club. He had tried calling me to tell me what he’d
found, but I wasn’t picking up because we had already fought. I was focused on
finding you and getting you to talk to me.”

I was horrified by the idea of his parents knowing about the
flights. “Your parents must think I’m horrible,” I cried out.

“No, baby. My dad thinks you’re brilliant. He’s a businessman,
and there’s nothing he respects more than good business decisions. When he
finally got me on the phone, he raved about your idea and how you should
franchise it.”

“And your mom?” I asked. I hadn’t gotten to know his dad very
well yet, but I really liked his mom. I hoped she wasn’t disappointed in me.

He chuckled under his breath at my question, his eyes twinkling
with humor again. “My mom told me that if it wasn’t so damn awkward to think
about you flying the plane she’d book one of the flights herself so she and dad
could join the club.”

I giggled at the thought of his mom as one of my customers.
“Really?”

“Yes, really. She also told me that I’m an idiot if I let you
get away from me because we’re perfect for each other.”

I beamed down at him, happy that his parents still approved of
me. “Are you?” I asked.

He looked confused by my question. “Am I an idiot?”

“Are you going to let me get away?” I asked.

A look of such relief crossed his face. “Do you want me to?” he
asked.

“No, I really don’t,” I sobbed out, starting to cry as a rush of
emotions hit me.

Drake held me close as I broke down. “Fuck, Alexa. I’m sorry I
messed up. I never meant to hurt you like this. You’ve gotta know that, baby.”

I nodded my head and burrowed even closer to him. “I’m sorry,
too. I shouldn’t have stormed out the way I did. It just hurt so much to think
that you’d really believe those things about me.”

He lay back onto the bed, cradling me against his chest. “No,
you were right to leave. I don’t want you to take shit from anyone, not even
me. Wish I didn’t have to lose two days with you to learn that lesson, but it’s
true just the same.”

“I should have at least told you about the Mile High Club stuff.
Maybe if you had known, this wouldn’t have happened,” I admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I was kind of embarrassed. They really aren’t as bad as they
sound. Most of my customers are bored wives looking to spice up their
marriages. I don’t hear or see a thing. To me, it’s just more time up in the
air. And they pay really well for it, too. But how do I bring it up in
conversation? ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve got to be at the airport early tonight
because my sightseeing tour wants to make sure they have plenty of time to
screw’?”

Drake laughed at my crass question. “You had more than three
months to figure it out. Gotta admit I didn’t like that Jackson had to explain
to me what was going on in your life. I’m your boyfriend, Alexa. There
shouldn’t be secrets like that between us. Especially not stupid shit. You’ve
got to fucking know that I would understand about this.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I hate that my avoiding telling you
about the flights caused this.”