Page 24

24

LOSING GAME

FULTON

I ’m not familiar with loss. I never have been.

Even with my dad out of the picture, I never grieved him like he’s dead—which, don’t get me wrong, he very much is to me. Loss was always something that happened to those around me, and I experienced small doses of it through an objective lens. But now, with my heart on a one-way track to failure, I’m afflicted with the realization that I’ve just lost everything I’ve ever wanted, all because I was too cowardly to chase after the first girl who saw the real me.

I can’t think straight right now. I’ve barely been afforded any time to think at all. I’m running on complete impulse, legs chugging in a record-breaking sprint down to the venue.

Why didn’t I stop her from leaving? Why didn’t I try harder? I just let her walk away from everything we’ve built over the last three weeks. We’re supposed to be in this together, and at the first speed bump of trouble, I showed her just how incapable I am of upholding that promise.

How could I ask her to choose between her family and me? I’m no better than that dickwad who broke her heart all those years ago. Hell, if my mom needed me, there’s nothing in this world that would keep me from going to her.

Shiloh’s work will always be a part of her. If I want to be in her life, I have to accept that she has obligations just like I do. I’m mad at the situation. I’m mad at myself. But the last person I could ever be mad at is Shiloh.

Throughout the awkward elevator ride with four other people, the frantic sprint across the hotel lobby, and the treacle-slow trek through small dunes of sand, my mind’s masticated every single one of my worries beyond comprehension. I just keep spiraling. The anxiety won’t stop, and it’s the first time I’ve felt true, cold-blooded fear since meeting Shiloh. It devours what’s left of me like an ouroboros, governing the infinite cycle of destruction that continues to chip away at my unguarded defenses.

How am I supposed to break the news to Hayes and Aeris? I feel like I’m responsible for all of this. I was the one who brought Shiloh into the friend group. I’m the one who was supposed to keep her here. Everyone’s going to be so disappointed.

Fuck! This isn’t how the day was supposed to go. Shiloh and I were supposed to have a great time, shed a few tears, eat some overly expensive cake, then skip off into the sunset while all our problems just magically disappeared.

The aloofness of her words hangs like a guillotine in the air, and no matter how far I run, I can’t escape the snarling pit of unease in my stomach. I feel sick. I feel like I didn’t just lose my soulmate, but I lost a part of me.

I come careering into the wedding party waiting underneath a vine-twined arch, and I feel two hands shake some sense into me before I realize that I was one step away from tackling my teammates in front of a sizable crowd.

“Hey, whoa. Ful, what’s going on?” Hayes asks, concern dripping from his brow, the rest of my team mirroring his look of confusion.

Safety measures off, my head housing a thousand and one worries about the uncertain dice roll of my future, I blink myself from my stupor. “She’s gone,” I say, my eyes flicking to Hayes’ with a note of desperation to…put me out of my misery? Help me?

“Who’s gone?” Gage follows up.

My heart can’t take this pain. I was never built to endure something like this, much less come out of it stronger. I want to break down. I want to stop feeling. I want to dispel the growing crescendo of voices in my head that trap me in a white, padded room.

The truth fluctuates from my lips with a croak. “Shiloh. She’s gone.”

Murmurs of disbelief break out through my team, and Bristol steps forward like he would during an intermission. “What happened?”

I can see the bridesmaids out of my peripheral, talking amongst themselves in hushed whispers and unified worry. I pray that the guests haven’t caught on to my hyperventilating, because the last thing this wedding needs is a lunatic ruining the mood and sobbing over his girlfriend of three minutes.

“She just…she left. She got a call from her parents about some investor waiting for her in Riverside. He can give them a business loan, and she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

I feel like shit for disclosing her financial situation.

“I didn’t know her business was in trouble,” Kit comments. He’s bouncing baby Eda on his hip, who’s outfitted in an adorable, pastel-pink dress with puffy sleeves.

The girls—with some kind of sixth sense for broken hearts and equally pathetic men—cross the makeshift stage, holding up the hems of their bridesmaid dresses so their heels don’t catch on the ankle-length material .

“You just let her leave?” Cali exclaims, looking like she’s seconds away from taking her bouquet and whacking me over the head with it.

“Why didn’t you go after her?” Lila inquires at the same time.

Ouch. I mean, I deserve the judgement. What idiot lets the love of his life catch an Uber to the airport after she tells him she’s on a one-woman mission to save her family’s business?

The last thing I want to do is try and save my own ass, but everything kind of just expels out of me like a projectile word vomit. The temperature’s already doing nothing for the sweat seeping through my dress shirt, and my pulse is so unhealthily fast that if the heatstroke doesn’t take me out, tachycardia will. And I only know that term because I’m a hypochondriac.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was in shock. And then we got into this fight, and I made things personal, and I didn’t even consider how hard the decision must’ve been for her, and I let her leave thinking that I hate her, and?—”

Hayes baits my attention, practically grabbing me by the scruff. “Dude, I’m saying this to you as one of your best friends: you need to ditch my fucking wedding and chase after the mother of your future children.”

“That’s a little presumptuous…”

He rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Fulton. You know what I mean.”

“But what about the wedding?”

Even with the support from my friends, my anxiety has taken on a form of its own, mutating into a gigantic hive mind that can’t be destroyed without burning the host. Not only am I going to miss my best friend’s wedding, but I’m racing against a countdown clock to catch Shiloh before she boards that fucking plane.

“We’ll halt the wedding. Just go! Before she leaves!”

“You’d halt the entire wedding so that I can chase after the girl I love?” Subsumed in an immeasurable amount of love, it feels like a jar of butterflies has been uncapped in my belly, and if I wasn’t being pulled in all different directions right now, I’d probably allocate enough energy to cry.

I thought that baring my soul was the scariest, most painful thing I could ever do, but the truth is, vulnerability is the gateway to creating something stronger, something lasting, something that transcends time and every obstacle the world could possibly throw at you.

“We’re family, dumbass. We’d wait forever for you.”

Come back to me, Sunshine. I need you.

About thirteen minutes later, after running two red lights and driving Hayes’ rental car like I was in Grand Theft Auto , I pull up to the airport with zero direction and even less confidence. According to the airline’s website, the next flight to Riverside takes off in T-minus four minutes, and Shiloh’s presumably at Gate B15. I bought an insanely expensive ticket just so I could enter the airport and bypass TSA.

I’ve left her about thirty texts and twenty-five voicemails, but she hasn’t answered me—whether it’s due to an external circumstance or a broken heart, I have no idea. The bottom line is getting ahold of her is going to be impossible.

I realize how idiotic this plan is—hell, it isn’t even a plan at all. And that’s not just the pessimism talking. This is one of those grand gestures I see in romance movies all the time, except this isn’t a movie, and the possibility of finding Shiloh and smoothing things over in the next four minutes is peak insanity. I haven’t even rehearsed what I’m going to say to her.

Hayes and Aeris stopped their fucking wedding for me. Me!

As much as it pains me to consider this alternative, I might just have to live with the fact that I’ll be watching my best friend’s wedding through a shoddy recording on some rando’s phone. In some deep, dark, unplumbed part of my conscience, I know that I can’t ask her to come back with me. I just can’t. If that means following her to Riverside to be the support system she’s always been for me, then so be it.

She’s drifting out to sea. Don’t let her get away.

Pushing past people and mumbling short-of-breath apologies like I’m a mother of five reaching for the last pressure cooker on Black Friday, I rush to the elevator, bursting out of those metal doors with a speed I’ve never even reached during hockey games. Shiloh’s name leaps from my tongue and harpoons into the air, roaring above the mindless chatter that weasels through the teeming crowd.

I’m going to run out of time. I’m going to lose her. Fuck! I need to move faster. Come on, Fulton!

Thighs straining, worry runs a similar gauntlet through the self-imposed obstacles in my mind. “Shiloh!” I scream, ignoring the judgmental (and frankly concerned) looks from idling bystanders.

If it wasn’t for the tight security and the fact that public nudity is frowned upon, I would’ve ditched my tux jacket and shirt ten minutes ago with how much I’m sweating. I haven’t stopped for a full breath since I stepped in the airport.

With an unsettled stomach and my exhaustion gauge tipping into the lowest of reds, I maneuver through a particularly congested pack of flight-goers, and I nearly take out a kid in the middle of the walkway. I’m pretty sure his mother cusses me out, but all I can hear is the pounding war drum of blood in my ears.

“Shiloh!”

One ungainly step after another, disappointment falls over me like a dying star hurtling through the cosmos and crashing to earth… and then I see her .

She’s in line to board her plane, lugging her carry-on and shrugging the strap of her backpack higher on her shoulder. Even in my questionable state of mind, she still looks as beautiful as the first day I saw her. Even after I completely wrecked her, she still shines like an event horizon in the pitch-darkness of space.

“Shiloh!” I call out to her, forgoing my manners and shoulder-checking people to get to her.

Her head whips around as her dainty features draw up in confusion, and then I’m colliding into her with enough force to knock over the three other flyers behind her. Her backpack clatters to the ground, and the fact that she doesn’t embrace me immediately makes guilt eat away at my insides like it has a sweet tooth for viscera.

“Fulton? What are you doing here?” she asks, part of her question muffled by my chest.

I don’t stop hugging her, not even when the line begins to filter into the enclosed passageway of the boarding bridge. It’s minimal, but I can feel her body soften against mine as if all the indignation has rolled off her like rain off the waterproof grooves of an awning.

God, I could fucking cry right now. I found her. I found my sunshine.

I pull away to let both of us breathe, my fingers digging into her arms in fear that she’ll become another blurry face in the nebulous landscape of my memory. “I’m so sorry, Shiloh. I’m so sorry that I didn’t support you as soon as you told me the news. I’m so sorry that I didn’t fucking follow you, because I should have. I’d follow you to the ends of the earth if you’d let me. I was a complete dick to dismiss you like I did back at the hotel. I can’t believe I even assumed that this decision wasn’t hard for you to make.”

“It’s okay, Ful?—”

“It’s not. You’ve always been there to support me. You’ve always been there when I needed you. You needed me back there, and I failed you. I’ll never forgive myself for the way I let you down.”

Shiloh hangs her head, and I need a goddamn cheat sheet to read her emotions. Is she mad? Sad? Maybe I’m too late. Maybe she doesn’t want me to come with her. Maybe I’ve ruined the best thing that’s ever happened to me before it even really began.

But then, after a few agonizing seconds, her eyes lift to mine, populated with so many tears that each droplet begins to fall at a steady pace, almost too quickly for me to wipe away.

Almost.

Her throat clicks like a faulty pipe when my thumb brushes over her cheekbone. “You came.”

Long-sought laughter undermines the dread that had nearly hollowed me out. “If you think you can get rid of me that easily, you’re wrong.”

“As soon as I got in the Uber, I knew I made the wrong decision,” she sobs, her mouth slanted in a frown. “I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave you . I always choose work first. And when you needed me to choose you, I didn’t. I hate myself. I hate that I wasn’t there to reassure you. I’m sorry, Fulton. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Shh, Sunshine. You don’t need to apologize. Your family and their legacy are important to you. I shouldn’t have taken your decision so personally. You’ve spent your whole life putting others before yourself, but I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to anymore, because there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to put you first. And that includes taking on some of your responsibilities.”

This time, Shiloh’s the one who initiates the hug, and there’s no rush to catch her flight as the rest of the passengers part into two separate streams around us. She’s got her fists buried in the back of my dress shirt, the occasional wail racking her small frame. I encompass her in my arms, telling myself I’ll never let go. Ever.

“I-I can’t…a-ask you…to do that,” she cries.

I squeeze her tighter, determined to ward off the sadness for as long as I can, and even though she can’t see my face, there’s a smile lifting my cheeks. “You’re not. I want to help you. And there’s nothing you can say that’ll change my mind.”

An unconvincing rebuttal takes flight. “But?—”

“Look, we’re gonna figure this loan thing out as soon as possible. Hell, I’ll invest.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. I believe in you. I want to be your partner in life, and a big part of your life is your family’s shop. So let me be a part of that too. Think of it as a loan. Or think of it as me investing in our future—our family’s future.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”

Shiloh withdraws, giving me the opportunity to clean the smattering of slow-drying moisture on her skin. “I was wrong about you, Fulton. You are my knight in shining armor. You saved me, even when I pushed you away,” she whispers, her tears nothing but remnants of the past now.

“ You’re the one who saved me . And I’ll forever be indebted to you for the rest of my life. For your kindness, your understanding, your patience. You showed me that there’s more to life than just heartbreak.”

“And you showed me that there’s more to life than just work.”

I lean forward to press a kiss to her forehead, and I inhale her scent as if it’s my lifeblood. It still hasn’t dawned on me that my future is packed into five feet of kick-ass and inspiring determination.

“Sounds like we saved each other, Sunshine.”

“I love you,” she says in a small voice, gulping around an incurable lump in her throat. “You’re my family too, just as much as my parents are.”

“I love you more than you’ll ever know, Shiloh Nguyen. My heart was in stasis before I met you. You’re the reason I can breathe easily now. The world doesn’t deserve you, and it never will. You were made to change lives, and I’m honored that I got to be the first. I pity the people who’ll never get the privilege of crossing paths with you, because you’ve given me so many reasons to keep living. I feel like the world left this dwindling fire inside me, but destiny knew that you’d be the oxygen to keep me alight. And I’ll burn for you every day, for the rest of my life.”

Rising to her tiptoes—and taking her platforms with her—she upgrades our forehead kiss to one on the lips, sealing her mouth over mine in a starburst of love. It’s a completely new species of affection, one that’s been bred through every mind-numbing touch and life-altering kiss that we’ve shared in the past. I never want it to end. I could stay here for hours, subsisting on the taste of her, exploring every addictive inch of her body until I can’t even navigate the back of my own hand.

But, to my dismay, Shiloh breaks our kiss. “Wait a second, if you’re here, then…what about the wedding?!”

Now that Gate B15 is nearly vacant, I have no trouble embarrassing myself for the hundredth time today as I take a bow, one arm tucked against my torso and the other outstretched to the side. “Shiloh, would you do me the honor of being my plus-one to Hayes and Aeris’ wedding?”

She brandishes one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen before clamping her hand over my upturned palm. “I thought you’d never ask.”