Chapter 81

• “We don’t have to fix each other. Come over. We don’t have to say forever. Come over.” She hums along with the Kenny Chesney song that is playing softly, ironically, on the speakers of the Range Rover as they drive north along the coast on Pacific Coast Highway. She smiles at the coincidence that Nicholas had texted her this song earlier in the day, and now it is playing on the radio as one of his security staff named Sammy drives her to wherever he is.
• She reaches beside her at her bag, rifling through the change of. clothes and miscellaneous toiletries she presumptuously packed. She pulls out her compact mirror to check her reflection. Her hair is piled on the top of her head in a stylish yet effortless disarray of curls with several wisps hanging loosely around her face and onto her nape. She sets down her compact and brings her hands back to check the tie on her neck where the straps of her blue maxi dress meet, leaving her back bare until just below her shoulder blades. She says a silent thank you to Haddie for her suggestion to wear the dress. Cute, casual, and just enough cleavage to keep him sneaking a peak she had told her over their second glass of wine.
• As they drive north, the lush hills on her right give way to the ocean on their left. She places a hand over her stomach to try and settle the butterflies fluttering there for some odd reason. She shouldn’t be nervous to see Nicholas, but she is. Inexplicably, she feels that tonight is going to be a turning point for whatever “we” are. She leans her head back and looks out the window at the endless sea and hopes that she can handle the repercussions of whatever that turning point may be. She closes her eyes momentarily and wonders how an intelligent woman like her can knowingly walk into foreseeable devastation.