Chapter Thirty-Five

Olivia eyed the grease-soaked bag of temporary pleasure clutched in her hand and choked down the chocolate shake threatening to reemerge all over the stairs leading to her apartment. The cheeseburger, jumbo fries, and large onion rings had been a great idea at the time. And the jumbo box of peanut M&Ms weighing down her purse had looked like the perfect remedy for her funk. Yet her rewards for surviving yet another hundred-hour week only served as one more reminder of how much she’d been lying to herself for the last five months. She didn’t need chocolate and empty calories. She wasn’t hungry.

She dragged herself onto the first-floor landing and leaned back against the wall to catch her breath. How long had it been since she’d exercised? Hell, how many weeks had it been since she’d spent more than her lunch break outside? The all-too-familiar images and sensations hit her as soon as she closed her eyes.

She tried opening them, but it was too late. Abi’s teasing curses and cackling broke through her defenses, clearing the way for Ryder’s booming laughter. One by one the strangers who’d become family joined the chorus until her head felt as crowded as the dining table that had hosted the best meals she’d eaten in a decade. She could see them all and feel the invisible bond tying them together like leftover puzzle pieces that somehow fit together perfectly.

She shook her head in a desperate attempt to escape the world she’d left behind and found herself wiping sweat from her forehead in Wingarra’s courtyard while the sun baked her exposed skin and the desert breeze caressed her face.

She tightened her grip on the junk food and her laptop bag and willed herself to break free before it was too late. She’d pay for her weakness and stupidity while staring into the darkness tonight. But she needed to see him.

She closed her eyelids tighter and stared out over the nothingness she missed so much. The waiting was always the hardest part. Sometimes he’d come straight away. Other times he’d wait until she cursed him before appearing, but he’d always come. She was vaguely aware of her dinner once again slapping onto the concrete landing and her laptop bag swinging into her hip while she clutched her hands to her chest as a tiny speck emerged on the horizon.

Her racing heart quickened as the tiny black dot emerged from the plume of dust in its wake. She’d fantasized about him so often she could describe every bead of sweat trickling down his skin and every lock of hair fluttering beneath his battered Akubra. And yet she still held her breath.

The dark silhouette on horseback slowly transformed into her man. Clutching the reins with the same tender hands that’d caressed every inch of her, he unleashed the smile that’d destroyed everything she thought she’d known about herself.

After witnessing her parents’ and her sister’s love affairs, she’d thought she had a pretty good idea of love’s symptoms and debilitating side effects. And just like her pathetic self-prognoses over the last five months, and even more desperate reassurances that whatever she felt for him would eventually fade into a naughty memory she could draw on for lonely nights, her diagnosis had been 100 percent w-r-o-n-g, wrong.

And just like that, the peace flowing through her evaporated and left her shivering on a concrete staircase half a world away from where she needed to be. Time wasn’t going to purge the addiction from her bloodstream. Nor was working until she was too exhausted to think. And pretending the four weeks they’d shared had been just a fling was complete bullshit.

Damn logic, damn reality, and damn the stupid-assed agreement she’d forced on him. Slapping away her tears, she wrenched out her phone and checked the time. He’d be up. And if he wasn’t, she’d freaking wake him up. Grabbing her dinner, she scrambled up the stairs with her chest heaving, her heart hammering, and her soul flying. She needed to hear him. She had to stare into those eyes and confess how much she missed him and how much he meant to her.

She cleared the stairs at a dead run only to have her mind shut down and her legs wobble to a stop as her dinner once again hit the concrete. A scream tore through the fingers clamped over her mouth as her brain’s surge protection tripped, rebooted, then shut off completely.

“G’day Doc.”