Chapter 1252: A Get Away For Two

Phei and Melissa did not exchange a single meaningful word for most of the drive.

And silence usually became uncomfortable when two people knew there were too many things sitting between them and neither possessed the courage, patience or cruelty necessary to drag the first one into daylight.

Yet Melissa had always possessed a peculiar talent for making silence feel inhabited rather than empty, and somewhere between Infinity Chaos disappearing behind them and the great morning avenues of Paradise opening ahead, Phei realized she had absolutely no intention of asking him anything.

She did not ask where he had been... what he had seen... why he had remained inside the car when Elena, her mother and Damien were waiting outside... what was wrong with him.

She simply drove.

The car slipped through the broad avenues with a low predatory growl beneath its polished body, sunlight racing over the hood whenever the road curved between towers. Melissa sat comfortably behind the wheel, one hand guiding the machine while the other eventually abandoned the steering wheel altogether and found Phei’s.

She smiled without looking at him.

Then she drew his hand closer, threaded her fingers through his and continued driving one-handed as though there were nothing particularly impressive about handling a car that looked eager to devour several kilometers of asphalt before breakfast.

Phei watched from the corner of his eye.

Her hand looked almost absurd there with her slender fingers, smooth skin, neatly cared-for nails, the delicate wrist disappearing beneath the sleeve of her clothes.

Everything about Melissa’s hands suggested softness until one remembered how many times those same hands had protected him, dragged him away from danger without him looking, held him when he broke in his sleep, struck people who deserved considerably worse and somehow kept an entire family from collapsing while half the people around her were busy making increasingly creative contributions to the collapse.

Even the way she held the steering wheel looked elegant.

Gods.

It was kind of cool.

The car was sleek, powerful and almost predatory in the way it moved, yet Melissa handled it with the casual ease like she was guiding a ribbon through her fingers. No unnecessary movements, no tension through her shoulders, nothing hurried.

Just that deceptive gentleness she carried into almost everything.

Perhaps that was why people underestimated her?

Melissa never looked like she needed to conquer a room; she smiled, she listened and she spoke warmly. Her beauty carried maturity rather than intimidation, and there was something so naturally feminine about the softness of her expressions that people occasionally forgot the steel buried underneath.

Phei knew better.

That same delicacy had shaped him the past months more than anything else in his life.

When the System first came to him, some ugly little part of Phei had imagined what kind of man he might become if power truly started answering his wishes; he had imagined women, freedom, revenge, money, strength, all the wonderfully irresponsible things a seventeen-year-old boy could imagine when someone suddenly handed him the keys to a life without ordinary limits.

He had never considered how easily that road could have made him unbearable.

Perhaps cruel.

Perhaps one of those men who began measuring people entirely by usefulness because everything else had become too easy.

Melissa had never lectured him into becoming better:

She had simply loved him in ways that quietly established boundaries inside him long before he realized they existed. She had taught him that tenderness did not make strength smaller, that protecting someone did not require owning them, that family could remain family even when anger made forgiveness feel impossible.

Half of the morality Phei still possessed had probably entered him through meals, forehead kisses, annoying questions about whether he had slept enough and Melissa refusing to let him become an asshole simply because he was handsome enough to occasionally get away with it.

His fingers tightened faintly around hers.

Melissa squeezed back.

Neither looked at the other.

Phei rested his head against the cool window and watched Paradise slide past, pretending the reflections in the glass were more interesting than the woman beside him. Towers slowly gave way to quieter districts, then enormous private properties, forests and stretches of road where civilization began loosening its grip upon the island.

Every few minutes his eyes betrayed him anyway.

He looked at Melissa; at the soft concentration in her face and the little smile that appeared whenever she caught him through the reflection looking at her and politely chose not to expose him.

Gods, he loved this woman.

Phei had heard people say things like I can’t live without you his entire life and had always considered the phrase ridiculous. Movies loved it and television dramas practically survived on it.

Some handsome bastard would stand in the rain outside a woman’s house, soaked enough to develop pneumonia, and announce that breathing itself had apparently become impossible without her. Singers turned it into choruses. Men used it during arguments. Teenagers posted it underneath anniversary photographs after dating for three months and then deleted the entire account when somebody cheated before summer.

Phei had always thought it sounded excessive.

Sometimes dishonest too...

And, if he was being particularly cynical, occasionally like something a man said because he expected the declaration to dramatically improve his chances of getting into a woman’s pants before midnight.

I cannot live without you. Sure, buddy.

Very moving... take your jacket off.

Yet now Phei sat beside someone and understood the stupidity of the sentence in a way he hated.

Of course he could live without Melissa in the biological sense. His heart would presumably continue beating. He would wake up, eat, breathe, walk around and perform all the boring little tasks the human body considered proof of existence.

That was not what people meant.

They meant that there were certain people who became so deeply threaded through your life that imagining the future without them felt like imagining your house after someone removed an entire wall. Technically, much of it might remain standing.

You simply would not call it home anymore.

Phei stared through the window, throat tightening unexpectedly.

’That’s how I feel... I can’t imagine a life without you, Mels.

He looked at her again.

Melissa noticed this time. "What?" Her voice was soft, amused.

Phei shook his head. "Nothing."

"Mhm."

"What?"

"I didn’t say anything."

"Your ’mhm’ said several things."

Melissa laughed beneath her breath and lifted their joined hands slightly before pressing a small kiss against his knuckles.

The simple affection almost wrecked him more efficiently than anything else that morning.

Phei looked away before she could see too much.

’I love you, Melissa.’ The words remained inside him. ’And whatever happens, I’m making damn sure we live together and not just tomorrow or for fifty years from now but Eternity if I can bully eternity into cooperating.’

He imagined telling her that and almost smiled.

Melissa would probably kiss him, call him dramatic and then secretly remember the exact sentence for the rest of her life.

The car left the main avenue sometime later.

Paradise’s enormous road fell behind them as Melissa turned onto a narrower ribbon of dark asphalt that climbed steadily between trees. The city disappeared quickly. Great trunks rose on either side of the road, their crowns meeting high overhead and breaking the sunlight into moving pieces that slipped across the windshield. Ferns crowded the lower slopes, wildflowers appeared between moss-covered stones and the occasional opening in the forest revealed glimpses of water shining somewhere beyond the trees.

Phei finally looked toward her properly. "Where are we going?"

Melissa’s smile deepened. "You survived almost an hour before asking."

"I was being respectful."

"You were sulking beautifully against my window."

"I don’t sulk."

"Of course not."

"Melissa."

"Almost there." The road curved once more around the hillside, descended through a grove of enormous old trees and finally opened.

Phei sat straighter.

The villa rested beside the water as though someone had built it specifically for disappearing from the world.

Dark timber formed most of the structure, rich brown warmed beneath the sun and broken by broad panes of glass that reflected trees, sky and water until parts of the building almost vanished into the landscape surrounding it. A steep wooden roof sheltered deep balconies overlooking the lake, while stone foundations descended naturally into the slope beneath the house.

Wide steps led from the upper entrance toward a lower terrace and farther still toward a long wooden deck reaching over the water.

There were no neighboring buildings... only forest gathered thickly around the property, the lake stretching beyond it in quiet blue, and a narrow strip of pale shore where the water gently disturbed smooth stones.

Phei stared.

Melissa parked beneath a cedar shelter beside the villa and finally released his hand.

"Come."

He looked at her suspiciously. "You planned this."

"Obviously."

"Since when?"

"Long enough."

"That’s disturbingly vague."

"Get out of the car, Phei."

He obeyed.

Mostly because arguing with Melissa when she used that particular tone had historically produced very little return on investment.

The morning became afternoon without Phei quite realizing where the hours had gone.

Melissa never turned the day into therapy.

That might have been the greatest kindness she gave him.

She never sat him down and asked how he felt. Never told him he needed to talk. Never waited with that careful expression adults wore when they had already decided someone was damaged and merely wanted permission to inspect the pieces.

She simply gave him things to do.

Small things.

Stupid things...

...wonderful things.