Wrecked (Crystal Book Billionaires) (4 page)

Rainy hooked her arm in mine. “Hey. I’m your best friend. Remember? I’m sorry if I was distracted by other things. I’m here for you.”

I smiled weakly. “Even if I’m in North Carolina?”

“Ehh,” she said, pretending to consider the issue.

I poked her in her side. “Bitch.”

*

“I’m going to go,” I announced to my dad as I stood in the doorway of his office at our house.

He gazed up at me, not looking surprised in the slightest.

“What?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

Sighing, he leaned forward and started messing with some papers on the desk. “I can guess why.”

I bit my bottom lip. The phone started ringing, and he glanced at its screen. “I have to take this.”

I turned to go.

“By the way,” he announced. “I already got your ticket. You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Wh-what?” I sputtered.

He picked up the receiver. “Go ahead,” he said into it.

My hands balled into fists. Anger rose in me, but I wasn’t entirely sure what I was the angriest about. Was it that my dad correctly predicted that I would finally go without a fight or that he gave me only twenty-four hours, presumably, to pack my bags?

Either way, I was furious. Or maybe depressed… I wasn’t really sure.

All I knew was my life was getting flipped upside down, and no matter
what
was to come next, there was no way I could prepare for it.

Grace

T
he flight attendant’s voice came over the intercom, and I lifted my sleep mask to peek at the seat in front of me. Slowly, I let the blind up. Sunlight poured through the thick window. The plane was already on the tarmac, parked in position. All around me, people unbuckled their seat belts and stood up. Somehow I’d slept through the previous announcement about arriving at our destination.

“Ugh,” I muttered to myself, reaching underneath the seat for my purse. The trip from LAX to RDU had been my first time flying coach. Apparently my dad had been telling the truth about us being flat broke.

I hadn’t even had enough suitcases to pack everything I wanted to bring, so I’d made my dad promise to put the rest of the stuff in storage. The way I saw it, everything was temporary. He was, after all, going to New York to sort everything out. Sooner or later things would be back to normal. Maybe he wouldn’t have to sell the Hollywood Hills house after all. Hell, maybe we’d get to move into a bigger and more expensive home.
That
would show Madi and the rest of the stupid pack that hung around her.

I pushed my sunglasses on as tight as they would go and thought about Eli. He’d stopped by to see me the night before. I kept to the lie I’d already committed myself to, the one about me going back to school in New York. To keep up with appearances, I told him that, even though it was so late in the year, NYU had made an exception for me. I also let him know that I would likely be pretty busy for the next couple months, but once things got settled, I would love for him to come visit me.

Of course, that meant working things out so I could get up to New York for a weekend. And then I’d have to find some way to keep up the facade…

But I’d figure all of that out when the time came. The point was that the complications were worth it. After years of nothing more than heavy flirting, things were finally moving along with Eli and me, and I wasn’t about to just let him go.

The airport was close to empty, which seemed incredibly odd for a Sunday afternoon.

God, this really is the middle of nowhere.

I found my way to the baggage wheels in no time at all. With only two suitcases, even though they were large ones, I’d brought not even a third of my wardrobe — and that was after setting aside the stuff to go into storage. When I asked my dad to ship the rest to me, he sighed and acted like I was being a burden. In the end — and after a little bit of guilting him — he’d agreed to get LuLu to pack my clothes up.

Taking the two handles, I pulled the bags toward the sliding doors, looking all around for Uncle Joe. Hopefully, he would recognize me on sight because God knew I was going to have trouble finding him. If my memory served me right, he basically looked like almost every other middle aged white guy. Short dark hair. Medium height. A bit of pudge on him.

“Grace!” came a man’s voice from the short row of cars waiting to pick up passengers.

Yep. He really was just as I remembered him.

I breathed a sigh of relief over him recognizing me and lugged my suitcases over to where he stood waving by a red SUV.

“How was your flight?” he asked, opening one of the back doors and setting the suitcases on the seats.

Lame.
“Good,” I lied.

“You must be tired. Let’s get you home.”

I tried not to cringe at his last word. I knew I should have been grateful to Joe for letting me stay with him, but was he seriously suggesting that North Carolina was my new home?

We climbed in the front seat, with him talking the whole time. “You’re going to love Crystal Brook. It’s a lot different from Los Angeles, but it’s a nice place. Aunt Ginger is excited to see you too. It’s been so long.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

He buckled his seat belt and looked at me. “You’re exhausted. Sorry. I’ll stop talking.”

“Thanks.” I attempted a smile. Depressed was more like it, but I would pretend I was tired if that was what it took to avoid a full blown conversation.

The road’s four lanes merged into three and then two as we left the airport behind. Just like inside, the traffic outside of the Raleigh Durham airport was nearly opposite of that back at LAX. Joe took a right onto an interstate, and I stared out the window.

I’d never been to Crystal Brook. With each mile we gained, my chest constricted more and more. Somehow, I didn’t think the town was going to be anything like a smaller version of Hyannis Port, the vacation spot I’d gone to at least once a year for the last decade.

Worst case scenario, it would be a place with one stop light and greasy spoon diners decorated with questionably racist paintings.

Uncle Joe made a bit of small talk on the ride, but not so much that it became unbearable. Mostly, he wanted to know what I’d been up to in California — spending time with friends — and whether or not I followed sports — the Lakers, exclusively.

After taking the exit, we passed an outdoor shopping mall reminiscent of the types of places I faithfully stayed away from in L.A. The chain sandwich shops and dollar stores gave way to fast food restaurants, which gave way to more trees. All of a sudden, brick buildings popped up, squished together behind sidewalks on both sides of the road. Uncle Joe slowed down, and we drove through a square with an ancient looking courthouse in the middle of it.

So far, not too bad.
At least the place had a certain cuteness to it, even if that was the only attribute it seemed to possess. I rolled down my window and sucked in a breath of thick breeze. North Carolina was just as hot as L.A. had been but held one difference: the air was so thick that when it hit me, it felt like a layer of sweat sitting on my face.

A family with several small children walked across the courtyard, and Uncle Joe stopped to let them cross the street. After he hit the gas again, the downtown area was gone in just a few seconds. Tall, mostly white two story houses passed by. In front of about half of them, wooden signs swung, denoting their names and the years they were built. Named after birds and women, they were all picturesque, with lush flower gardens and tons of windows.

I kept my eyes peeled, studying the few people on the sidewalks in order to get a sense of the general populace I would be working with. An elderly couple ambled down the street, two little white dogs walking on leashes at their sides. A young woman who looked barely older than me pushed a baby stroller. I cringed at the thought of having a kid at twenty-two. Was that the norm in North Carolina?

The stroller disappeared, and another person came into view, one with two broad shoulders and a profile chiseled out of stone. I sat up straighter.

The characteristics mentioned belonged to a tall guy with dark blond hair and chiseled forearms. He walked along the sidewalk, his face turned away from the road. I leaned forward so much my head nearly poked out of the open window. By the time we pulled up to him, though, he had pivoted to head up a walkway to a large yellow house.

I kept watching in the rear view mirror, hoping he would turn around. The road took a curve, though, and he disappeared from sight.

At least I know there’s one hot guy in this town,
I told myself, trying desperately to look at the bright side.

The houses became smaller and farther apart. Uncle Joe took a couple turns, and we ended up in a neighborhood that screamed stereotypical small-town America. Each yard was impeccably mowed, and the difference from one plot to the next was excruciatingly minimal.

We pulled into a driveway next to a one story brick house. Rose bushes lined the walkway from the cars to the front door and a flag I didn’t recognize protruded from the front porch to wave in the breeze. I took a second look and saw that it was the North Carolina state flag. The front door opened, and Aunt Ginger appeared on the porch, her silver streaked brown hair in a braid. It occurred to me that it had been so long since I’d seen my aunt and uncle that I wasn’t even really sure how to address them anymore. Were ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’ still okay to use after you came into adulthood?

The uncle in question climbed out of the car and grabbed one of my suitcases. Snatching up my purse, I started for the door.

From the stoop, Aunt Ginger smiled at me and batted her eyelashes. “Grace,” she cooed. “How was your flight?”

I gave the answer she wanted. “Good.”

Bees buzzed around the rose bushes by the front, and I stopped next to them, right below the bottom step. For a second, Aunt Ginger studied my face, and I waited. Finally, she hesitantly stepped down to the ground and wrapped her arms around me for a hug. I tensed at first, but the embrace was surprisingly warm and comforting. Just when I was getting relaxed into it, she pulled back.

“Come inside. I’ll show you your room.”

“Thanks.”

She led the way through the front door. Behind us, Uncle Joe banged around with the suitcases, cursing under his breath.

The living room felt just as typical as the outside of the house. Long, beige wraparound couch? Check. Flat screen TV on wall? Check. Upright, cheap looking piano? Check. Everything else you might expect in a middle class house in the backwoods South? Check, check, and check.

That’s not to say the place wasn’t cozy… I guess. It was just much,
much,
smaller than what I was used to. Already my heart ached for my home. Would I ever get to see it again, or would someone snatch it up off the market before Dad had a chance to get the company flying again?

Aunt Ginger headed down a short, carpeted hallway and I followed, taking off my sunglasses and hooking them on the front of my top so I could peek through the open doorways. We passed a bathroom and a kitchen with a sliding door leading to the backyard. Another door was closed, but at the end of the hall, one opened onto a small bedroom.

The twin size bed had a skirt with a ruffle on it. That was the first thing I noticed.

The only other pieces of furniture in the room were the writing desk and the chair sitting at it. A print of a lavender field painting hung on the wall and in the corner nearest the bed stood a floor length lamp. That was it.

All of a sudden, my throat got dry and constricted. I was trapped. Was this what walking into prison felt like? Quickly, I glanced through the curtained window, which peeked at a wooden fence along the side yard.

“Do you have a pool?”

Aunt Ginger cocked her head. “No, we don’t. The sports center does though.”

“Oh.” I wrinkled my nose at the thought of sharing water with dozens of strangers.

So I’d have to make do with laying out. It was too bad.

“Do you swim a lot?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I took a couple steps into the room and set my purse on the bed. “We have a pool back home.”

“How nice.”

Uncle Joe came down the hallway, the suitcases banging against the wall as he did so. With a final huff, he entered the room and deposited the bags near the wall.

“What do you think?” he asked me.

I forced a grin. “Great. It’s, uh, cute.”

What did I really think? The room looked like a ninety-year-old woman had decorated it. The only things missing were the sewing station and a few portraits of random cats.

Aunt Ginger rubbed her hands together. “Are you hungry? We eat dinner somewhat early.”

“Yeah, I guess I am.” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to check the time. Five-thirty. Yep. I was officially stuck in a retirement home. As if the bed skirt hadn’t been enough to clue me in…

“Your bathroom is the one on this hall,” Aunt Ginger explained. “I’ll go get dinner started and that will give you some time to get settled.”

“Okay.”

They both left the room, and I just stood there, staring around at everything, making sure to give each of the four walls the glare it deserved.

How could it be that only two days ago I had been at Rainy’s house getting ready for one of the best Fourth of July parties in all of history?

A sudden sob racked my chest, and I closed my eyes, pushing the tears back down. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t deserve to be there.

Somehow I was going to get out of this mess. Not only would I find my way back to L.A., I would also find my way back to the social status I belonged in. Madi’s sneering face at The Ivy floated across my vision, and I gritted my teeth. Boy,
she
would be sorry when I showed back up in town.

After taking a few deep breaths to steady myself, I pulled my phone back out and checked my email and Facebook inbox. No messages. I checked Twitter. There were several dozen hate tweets from people I didn’t even know, saying stupid things like, “Oh how the mighty fall” and “bet @GraceWells is living in the dog house now haha.”