Chapter 31

“This isn’t happening,” Annie breathed into the phone after Nick filled her in on the happenings within the past two hours. “What is she doing? She’s crazy about you!” Annie hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “How much longer until we get to Cincinnati?”

“About an hour and half. I’m sure she’ll sleep the rest of the way, and it might take an air horn to wake her up once we get there!”

“Sh*t,” Annie said, frustrated with the situation. “I need to talk to her. Those D*mn pain pills!” She continued to curse into phone, something Nick found very amusing. She suddenly became silent and Nick heard nothing on the other end of the phone.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking, hold on a sec.” I wonder if this has anything to do with the conversation we heard earlier? she thought to herself. After a few minutes of silence, with the exception of a few huffs and sighs, she came back on the line. “Okay, when we get to Cincinnati, get Andrea in our car and she and I will drive to Chicago on our own. When she wakes up, I am going to find out what’s going on and we’ll meet up at the hotel in Chicago, okay?”

“I suppose that will have to be okay,” Nick said sadly. He and Annie finished hashing the details of the trip to Chicago, and then he asked for her to put AJ on the phone.

“What’s up man? I guess things are not going so well huh?”

“Well, right now they are because she’s sleeping, but they weren’t going so well about thirty minutes ago. You are singing a different tune though I understand!”

“Oh, you know,” he chided back. “The girl can’t keep her hands off me.” Nick heard a slap and an “ouch” on the other end and started laughing.

“That sounded like it hurt,” he teased his friend. “You can’t say stuff like that in front of that girl; she’s not going to put up with it!” Nick could hardly hold the phone he was laughing so hard.

“Dude, shut up. Besides, I kind of like that she whips me…I mean she’s got me whipped,” he joked back. “I’m going to catch a little shut eye before we get to Cincinnati.”

“A’ight, dude, later.”

Nick closed Andrea’s phone and set it back in her purse. He walked over to the bed and watched her as she was sleeping. He watched her eyes flutter as she dreamed, he watched her chest rise and fall with her every breath, he smiled as he noticed that same curl he constantly brushed off her forehead had fallen back onto it again. He sat down next to her and gently brushed his hand across her temple and onto her forehead, moving the curl aside once more. She stirred slightly, a heavy sigh escaping her beautiful pink lips.

“I know you love me,” he whispered as he continued stroking her hair. “I know you’re lying to me, and to yourself. When I look into your gorgeous green eyes I can see into your soul and it tells me everything you can’t or won’t.” He bent down and kissed her slightly parted lips softly, causing her to stir some more. “You’re the only woman I want to love for the rest of my life, so I’ll be here when you’re ready to stop hiding.”

As he left her there to sleep and walked into the kitchen area to clean up the mess he’d made earlier he reflected on his statement earlier. Should I wait around for her? What if she goes back to Wisconsin and I never hear from her again? I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life.


When she heard Nick tinkering in the kitchen she abruptly opened her eyes, blinking several times in an attempt to keep the tears that were brimming at bay. “Nick, I do love you,” she whispered, crying softly. “But I’m not what you need. You’re not going to understand if I tell you, just the way you didn’t understand when AJ was trying to tell you.”

She had heard what Nick and Alex were saying in the hallway at the hospital while Annie was in her room. Annie had not shut the door all the way when she came in and they both heard Nick and Alex’s conversation about Andrea not being right for Nick in the eyes of the business.

He’s got so much to deal with already; he doesn’t need me adding to it. He’s just too infatuated to see it right now, but when I’m gone and he’s moved on, he’ll thank me. She laid there, mulling over every detail of the plan she was concocting in her mind. She decided that as soon as the bus came to a stop, she was going to sneak out the emergency exit and before anyone realized she wasn’t there, she would be in her car and driving out of the parking lot. Annie can go with Alex then like she wants to and I get back to the company and to my life before Nickolas Gene Carter was more than a dream and wish in it.

She heard footsteps approaching and she quickly closed her eyes and slipped back into the sleep filled state Nick expected to find her in. She heard him walk over to the bed and she could feel him staring at her. He stood there for a good ten minutes, just watching her. Don’t you have something better to do than watch me pretend to sleep, she thought to herself, praying he would leave soon. A second later she heard the bedroom door shut and his footsteps getting further and further away.

From my lips to God’s ears, she joked to herself as she quietly got off the bed and grabbed her cell phone. She looked at the time and realized they should be getting to the hotel shortly. I better get my a$s in gear and start getting stuff ready if I’m going to get out of here.

She started putting her plan in motion. She typed a text message to Annie explaining herself and changed the preference on it from ‘send immediately’ to ‘delay sending’ and decided that ten minutes should be just about perfect. After she double checked that the message would go out in ten minutes, she started to gather her things. Sh*t, my suitcases are not going to fit through the exit, she realized with frustration. Jesus Christ, forget it. I need to go shopping anyway; I’ll just buy new clothes. Besides, I can get away faster without them.

Andrea felt the bus slowing down and she new they were pulling off the interstate. Please God, you didn’t help me lie to him, so you still owe me one. Just let me get off this bus and into my car without getting caught. Before she could finish her prayer, she heard the driver come over the intercom.

“Nick, can you come up by me for a minute? We have a slight situation.” Perfect! A diversion, that’s great! I guess that’s why you are God, because you think of things that other people don’t! She looked out the window and saw that they were right down the street from the hotel.

Wow, that’s a great diversion, she told herself as she continued to look out the window. A car full of girls must have followed them from Pittsburgh, and they were now parked along the side of the road, completely topless, waving signs that read “I’ve got the lotion, all I need is you” and “You don’t want these to burn, do you?” with arrows pointed in the direction of their breast.

The bus slowly made its way past the girls and pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. Andrea spotted her car and was very pleased with where she had decided to park it the other day. It was behind some bushes and she knew as long as she could get off the bus, she could make it to her car unseen. The fact that Nick’s bus was the last in the caravan didn’t hurt her chances either.

She silently walked over to the door to the bedroom and flipped the lock. That will slow them down a bit before they realize I’m not here, she satisfactorily thought. She grabbed her purse, made sure everything she needed was in it, grabbed her car keys out of it, and walked over to the emergency exit and quickly lifted the handle and pushed it open. Without looking back she jumped off the bus and ran like the wind towards her car.

She pressed the remote start button on her keys and heard you car start up as she approached it. She flung open the door and leaped into the driver’s seat, pulling the door shut so quickly it almost closed on her foot. Thank God this car has an automatic transmission, or I’d be screwed, she thought to herself as she slammed the gear stick back to reverse and backed out of the parking stall at what her Driver’s Ed. teacher would have called an “unsafe speed”. This is going to be hard enough driving with only one arm.

As she shifted her car into drive she saw Nick running towards her, waving his arms and yelling, followed by Annie and the rest of the guys. She heard her phone beep, alerting her that the text message to her cousin had been sent. Please understand Annie. Don’t come after me and don’t try and change my mind. Be happy with Alex and leave it at that, she begged her cousin in her mind. It’s better this way. She peeled out of the back entrance to the hotel and sped toward the interstate without looking back into the rearview mirror.