Page 50 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

ADRIAN

M y phone beeps on Sunday afternoon, and I look at it out of habit. It’s a text from Brody.

Stuart will be outside your front door at six. The plane’s fueled, and it’s going to Vermont. Get on it.

Vermont.

Where it all began.

Where Sandy took a curve just a shade too quickly, lost control and died.

It’s a state I’ve avoided for two years. Brody and I own a cabin there, a small one, not much bigger than the one in Maryland. I haven’t been there since that fateful day. It just sits there, empty and unused, collecting cobwebs and gathering dust. Like my heart.

There’s a car waiting for me when the plane touches down in Burlington, keys in the ignition. Brody can be subtle if he wants, but he hasn’t bothered this time. There’s a small envelope on the passenger seat. I open it, and a key falls out, along with a note.

Adrian, I love you like a brother, but you need to get your head straight. Go to the cabin and confront your fucking demons, and don’t come back to DC until you’re done.

The words are uncharacteristically blunt but do nothing to thaw the cold numbness in my heart.

But he’s right about one thing. I don’t want to be back in DC. In Georgetown, Fiona Clarke works in the same building as me. There are a thousand places to run into her, a thousand places that remind me of her.

The cabin seems as good a place to hide away as any. On auto-pilot, I start the car and drive the ninety-five miles to Killington.

The cabin is spotless, and as a bonus, stocked with food and drink. Brody rarely misses the details. I ignore the food and head to the booze, pouring myself a generous slug of Glenfiddich.

Sitting on my couch, I close my eyes, and I’m yanked back to the past.

“How did she die?” Diane asks, her eyes red and her face blotchy. “Was it quick?”

Brody replies. “It was instantaneous,” he says quietly. “She didn’t suffer.”

Diane smiles faintly. “That’s a blessing. That’s all she wanted, you know.”

“What do you mean?” My voice is harsh with grief, hoarse with too many unshed tears.

“Mom’s battle with cancer… it took a toll on all of us. Sandy took the brunt of it. I was in Japan, and she was the one who drove her to all the chemo appointments. At mom’s funeral, I remember what Sandy said to me. She wanted to live a full life and die without pain.”

I can’t answer.

“She loved the two of you very much,” Diane continues softly.

“After mum died, she stopped smiling for a while. You guys made her smile again. When she first told me she was dating two men, I was ready to talk her out of it. I thought she was crazy. Then we all went out to lunch, remember? When you walked through the door, her face lit up, and I knew, right then, that this was it. She would be happy for the rest of her life.”

The rest of her life was too short. Sandy was twenty-seven when she died.

My fault.

I down my drink and pour myself another. The familiar litany of self-loathing runs through me. I should have never suggested the ski-trip. Sandy had been working too hard. I should have guessed that she wasn’t ready for the black diamond slopes.

How could you have known? A voice asks, blunt and brutal. It sounds like Brody. Sandy was on her college ski team. Had her mother not got ill, she might have competed at a professional level. How could you have guessed that this would happen?

I had no way of knowing. I can’t predict the future.

I brace myself for sharp anguish. I wait for the debilitating grief that has been my constant companion for two years.

But today, when I reach for that familiar pain, it doesn’t come. Instead, I see Fiona’s tear-filled face. I see her hands reaching out to me, begging me to stay. I hear her stricken voice. Adrian, please…

One bottle of Scotch isn’t going to cut it tonight.