the money. Also, I resigned from Morgan-Beckwith Friday. I spoke with HR and left my letter on your desk.
Hitting send, I feel like I’ve pulled the pin from a grenade and dropped it in Gavin’s lap. I’m so selfish. So cowardly.
Biting my lip, I turn my phone off. I’ve already ignored texts and calls from my friends and even from Zane yesterday and today. I can’t face those yet either.
“Want to talk about it?” Thayden asks.
I swivel to face him. “With you?”
He chuckles. “I deserve that. Based on what you know of me, anyway. But consider this a safe space. What’s said in the sky stays in the sky.”
I laugh, shaking my head. But it does make sense. I barely know Thayden. And if I’m not working for Gavin anymore, it’s not likely that I’ll keep seeing him around, much less his lawyer friend. The thought of not seeing Gavin anymore, of leaving him and leaving Ella makes my stomach twist painfully. Sweat begins beading on my forehead.
“There are just so many complications,” I say finally. “They all started mounting up and … I panicked.”
Thayden nods. “The age difference, the boss thing, and now Gavin has a child. Plus, he’s terrified of getting married—really, of getting hurt—again, and might take over the ranch someday soon if his younger brothers won’t. Anything else?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Probably.”
I turn in my seat slightly to face Thayden, who keeps his gaze trained on the view in front of us and the instruments in the dash, adjusting here or there as necessary. I should feel a little nervous since this is the first time I’ve been in this small of a plane with just one other person, a person I barely know. But he exudes a confidence—that sometimes bleeds into cockiness—I instinctively trust.
“My dad is just a few years older than Gavin,” I say. “He’s going to flip out. The two of them are closer in age than Gavin and I are.”
“I can understand how a father might not like that idea. Especially if you don’t talk to him about it. Have you?”
“No.”
I feel like I’m shrinking. Becoming smaller and smaller until I’ll be the size of a paper doll someone could fold up and put in their pocket. I’ve never mentioned my crush on Gavin. And I didn’t tell Dad I was leaving town for the weekend. Actually, Zane and I were supposed to celebrate our birthday with him tomorrow night, and I’d totally forgotten.
“My father is incredibly controlling,” Thayden says. “To the point that I’ve made a lot of life choices just to spite him.”
“Sounds … mature.”
“If you knew the kinds of things he’s done, you might say that it’s a well-founded mutiny. Anyway, the point is that I’ve learned—am still learning—that forming your life decisions based around the opinion of someone else, even someone as important as a father, is crippling.”
A voice comes over the controls, and Thayden pulls the massive earphones up, talking in code that I only vaguely understand to mean that he and another plane are making active plans to avoid hitting each other. My heartbeat picks up a bit as I hear the sound of another motor nearing us. Not another motor—it’s the roar of an engine. A real plane. And it doesn’t sound nearly far enough away.
I grip the armrests, trying to quell my fear as the sound becomes almost deafening.
“It’s okay,” Thayden says, leaning closer and raising his voice so I can hear him. “We’re nowhere near as close as it sounds.”
I nod quickly, wanting to believe him, but feeling my body tense until the sound dissipates, then disappears. I never even saw the plane, just heard the evidence of it and panicked.
Now, isn’t that just like my life. I panicked without my fears even materializing.
I bark out a short laugh, and Thayden drags the earphones back down around his neck. “What’s funny?”
“I’m just … finding too much meaning in the clouds,” I tell him.
Thayden offers to drive me home, but I give him Dad’s address, not the house with the girls. I’m not ready to face any of them. Other than my text conversation with Sam the night before, I’ve been avoiding everyone. I know when I turn my phone back on, I’ll probably have some from Gavin as well.
I’m so ashamed of myself for leaving. I didn’t say goodbye or even thank you to his sweet mother. Ella has been abandoned so much already—I can’t believe I’m one more person who left her behind with