Chapter 9

“Madeline,” Blaine said, for the third time.

I had dark shades on, and my hoody was partly covering them up as well. Despite that, I could see and hear Blaine trying to get my attention.

“I know you’re awake,” he said.

“I’m asleep,” I grumbled.

He shook his head, and extended his hand out to me.

“What is that?” I asked, pulling back my hoodie to see what he was holding.

“It’s a sleeping pill. Take it,” he said, offering me a bottle of water.

“I can’t swallow pills,” I said, in a snappy tone.

“You can’t swallow pills?” Blaine repeated, looking surprised.

“It’s not funny,” I told him when I saw a smile tugging on the corner of his lips.

“I didn’t say it was,” he said, going back to his seat.

“You can’t swallow pills, you’re scared of planes, and you think gum is creepy.”

“I could swallow it by accident!”

Blaine sighed, and got comfortable on his seat. “We’re going to be on this plane for a few more hours. Just take the pill and you’ll sleep through it.”

“I survived the flight coming here. I think I’ll survive going back home.”

I was truly having a hard time. The stress of being on the plane was much worse with Blaine staring at me guiltily every once in a while. Blaine had tried to apologize to me the entire time, but I kept cutting him off. He got annoyed with me because every time he opened his mouth, I interrupted him… to shut him up.

That didn’t amuse him, but I could tell he was still trying. He gritted his teeth, he glared at me, but he didn’t snap— not once.

“Come on, it’s over,” Blaine told me.

He was kneeling in front of me. I was fine, but there was a light sheath of sweat coating my nose, my cheeks, and my forehead. Even though I was turning away from Blaine, he kept pulling me so that I was facing him.

When he pulled the sunglasses off, his frown grew deeper.

“You look tired,” he said, running his thumbs under eyes, and slowly sliding them over my cheeks.

“I’m sleepy and that was stressful,” I whined, trying to slap his hands away.

Blaine caught my hands in his, and held them softly. When I tugged on my hands, he tightened his grip on them.

“Come on, let’s go. A car is waiting for us outside,” he said.

Blaine unbuckled my seatbelt, and I slowly got up from the seat on shaky legs. Blaine didn’t let go of my hand, and instead slid his arm around my waist. I didn’t pull away, because I still felt the effect of being up in the air.

It hadn’t been as bad as last time, but that was mainly because I knew Blaine wasn’t going to kill me.

“Whoa…” I said when we stepped off the plane. It was dark outside. Even though Blaine had promised me that we would come back home that same night I woke up, things had changed after I told him what had really happened.

He had made us stay another two days, while he tried to talk to me every which way. It only ended up annoying him because I hardly spoke, and I spent most of my time locked up in the room he’d given me.

“Something wrong?” Blaine asked, quickly turning to me, putting his hand under my chin so that I looked up at him.

“That’s your car?” I asked, staring at the sweet piece of engine parked near the plane we were climbing off.

“You like it?” Blaine asked, immediately relaxing. He was still holding my hand, and he hadn’t allowed me to let go of him.

“It’s cool,” I said, roaming my eyes over it.

“It’s a Maserati, custom made,” he said, sounding proud.

“Yeah, because that means something to me,” I told him, rolling my eyes.

I could tell that Blaine bit back a comment. His grip on my hand tightened, but not enough to be painful.

“Where are they going?”

The people that came with him were already going their own way and taking off. I was surprised that they weren’t fuzzing over Blaine, like they had been doing the entire time we spent in Russia.

“We’re going on our own,” he said.

Blaine opened the door for me, and even helped me get in the car, not that it was necessary. He was acting like if I was going to run away from him any chance I got.

“Where are we anyways? I don’t recognize this place,” I said, checking out my surroundings. It was too quiet for the city.

“It’s a private airport,” Blaine replied, while he buckled in his seatbelt.

When I didn’t do the same thing, he did it for me. I stopped breathing the entire time his hands were over my shoulders and then next to my hip while he buckled me in. He took his sweet time, and then wasted a few more seconds just staring at me.

“Done?” I asked, letting out my breath shakily.

Blaine gave me a half smile, nodded, and finally pulled away from me.

“What’s up with rich people and private airports anyways,” I said, trying to distract myself with something other than how close Blaine was still to me.

“You’ve met a lot of rich people?” He made it sound like it was casual conversation, but I could hear the humor in his voice.

“Just you and the kidnapper, but that’s already two too much for me,” I replied.

Blaine was not amused, but he let it go. He kept doing that— trying really hard not to argue with me.

“Some of my team took a flight in another airport. They are expecting me there. I needed a distraction.”

“Who is expecting you?” I asked, curiously.

“My family, some cameras— nobody of consequence,” he replied.

“You don’t want to see your family?”

“I’ve seen my brother, and he knows I’m fine. I want to check in on my dad, but that can wait. My step-mother and sister were waiting as well.”

“You have a sister?” I always assumed it was just him and his brother. I had never heard he had a sister.

“Step-sister and I can skip out on a family reunion for now.”

Blaine was driving fast, but the lone road ahead of us made it easier to digest. There was nothing on either side of the road.

“Blaine…” I mumbled his name, my eyes stuck to the view I had out my window.

“What?”

“Where are we?” I asked, because what I was seeing was not anywhere near to what was supposed to be my view. Even though it was dark outside, I could see that there was nothing there.

Blaine ran his eyes over me for a while, but turned back to the road when he noticed me glaring at him.

“Where are we?” I said in a firmer tone.

“We’re in the US,” he vaguely replied.

“Where in the US?”

Blaine stayed quiet, but I saw him clenching his jaw, and he was holding the wheel tightly.

“We’re not anywhere near home, are we?” I asked, sighing deeply and trying to calm down.

“We need to talk-” Blaine started to say, but I held my hand up to interrupt him.

“Where are you taking me?”

“I’m taking you home,” Blaine replied.

He grabbed my hand, but I snatched it out of his hold before he could smooth talk me into calming down. “Why didn’t we fly there?”

“We need to talk and you weren’t listening to me. What was I supposed to do? You hardly gave me a choice.”

“What?”

“Madeline, I apologized for what I said to you.”

I didn’t miss the angry look in his eyes or the frown he was shooting my way. “But you’re stubborn. You don’t want to listen, and you’re acting childish.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you always have to use that phrase?” He asked, shaking his head at me.

“You’re so annoying! If according to you I’m being childish, then maybe you should’ve gotten rid of by taking me home!”

“I wanted to apologize!” Blaine said, raising his voice at me as well.

“You already did, a billion times.”

“But you haven’t forgiven me,” he said, speaking softer than he had any time since we’d boarded the plane.

“You called me a gold digger.”

“No, I didn’t,” he quickly defended.

“You thought of it. You had a crazy scheme planned out to get back at me.”

“I thought you ditched me,” Blaine said, in what sounded like an apologetic tone. “I didn’t know you were saving me.”

When he turned to look at me, with his sad grayish blue eyes, very unlike Blaine, I felt bad. I looked away from him, because he was making me want to forget his behavior the entire day after he found me.

“Well now you know,” I muttered.

“We’re going to stop in a hotel, about an hour from here,” Blaine said after a while.

“There’s nothing here. It’s all empty,” I said.

“We’re close to San Antonio. We’re stopping there.”

“San Antonio…?” I said, feeling my heart drop in my chest.

“Texas,” Blaine finished.

“Why are we in Texas?” I snapped.

“I like the state. And it will give us enough time to talk,” he casually replied.

“We’re never going to make it home!”

“It’s just a few hours away,” Blaine said, trying to calm me down.

“No, we’re a few states away! What is wrong with you?”

“Calm down, I already told you why we’re here.”

“Yes, and that still isn’t making any sense!”

“If you keep yelling, I’ll head south instead of going north,” Blaine calmly told me.

“Are you threatening me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

“I am simply telling you to calm down.”

“You’re unbelievable!”

Blaine didn’t try to talk to me for the rest of the way, until we made it to the hotel.

“You didn’t need to stop.”

“I have my laptop and my phone. I still have things I need to take care of,” he replied.

Everything about the hotel we stopped in was fancy. That only annoyed me more than I already was. I didn’t want to be with Blaine, or be reminded of why I really shouldn’t be with him.

 “If you’re so busy, than maybe you shouldn’t have prepared this detour,” I said, sharply.

Blaine ignored me and went on to check us in. Even though it was late, there were still people roaming about in the lobby. The place was nice, so I couldn’t complain about that. I couldn’t really complain about anything, except that Blaine was holding me against my will.

But even that felt forced on my part.

I wanted to be with him, but at the same time I didn’t. I didn’t want to get used to being with Blaine, only to never see him again when we arrived back home. I wasn’t sure I would be able to handle parting from him if we spent too much time together. I was already starting to feel like I needed Blaine around, and I didn’t like that. It scared me.

“You could have told me you were planning this,” I told him on our way up the elevator.

“You would have said no,” he said, not looking bothered at all by what he was doing.

“I don’t have any clothes. How am I supposed to sleep?”

“I have a suitcase for you in the car. Everything is your size,” Blaine said, distractedly.

I hadn’t even realized he was carrying a backpack with him. He looked strange with it, and I hadn’t seen when he picked it up.

“Where did you get that?”

“It has my laptop.”

“What am I supposed to do while you work?”

“You could sleep.”

I didn’t doubt that the suite Blaine had picked was the biggest. I had questioned our sleeping arrangements and his reason for only booking one room, until I saw the ‘room’ we were going to be staying in.

While I settled over the king sized bed, Blaine made camp on a table in the side. I was partly scared of touching anything, in case I broke it. When I brought it up to Blaine, he just gave me a flat look and turned on the TV.

Like he promised, someone came to deliver our suitcases. All of the clothes in my suitcase were new. I didn’t know whether to be happy that I had clothes, or upset with how much money Blaine kept throwing away… just because he could.

I knew he didn’t intend to do that, but every time he bought something for me or paid for something, it only made me see the magnitude of his wealth. It was intimidating and overwhelming.

“I need to call my mom,” I told him after an hour of numbly watching TV.

“It’s one in the morning,” Blaine said, frowning while he looked down at his watch.

It was the same one that he was wearing during the time we spent with Vitaly. I assumed he was attached to it. I had seen him change clothes, sunglasses, cellphones, planes, and even laptops. But he had never taken off the watch.

“She thinks I’m going home,” I reminded him.

“No,” Blaine said, shaking his head. “I warned her we were going on a road trip.”

“A road trip?” I asked, laughing. “I doubt people who don’t get along should be on a road trip together.”

“We get along,” Blaine said, frowning at me.

“Not really, we don’t. We got along a few days and then you had to go and screw it up,” I said, shaking my head disapprovingly at him.

Blaine sighed, and got up to make his way towards me. “What happened while you were with him?” He asked, his voice growing serious.

It had been the most real question he had asked me since he rescued me from the club.

“Nothing too bad,” I shrugged.

“Did he do anything?” Blaine asked, giving me a pressing look.

“He did a lot of things,” I said, laughing humorlessly.

“Like what?” His hands balled into fists. Instead of walking over to me, like he was originally going to do, he walked to the wall farthest away from me.

“Well, for starters, he kept me locked up. And he had something with girly clothes — he forced me to wear them. He didn’t like questions, but he conceded once in a while. I guess I wasn’t locked up with him long enough to see anything else.”

“That day, at the club-”

“Yeah, about that. Were you there all the time?”

“I was,” Blaine nodded.

“So you followed us to the restaurant?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“You knew where I was?”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought he might have left you in Asterly Castle. That’s the name of the first place where he had us.”

“I know, he told me.”

“I had people watching that place too.”

“Why didn’t you go in to get me?” I asked, accusingly.

“I couldn’t,” Blaine replied, sounding guilty. “I wasn’t sure where you were. If I went in and you weren’t there, nothing guaranteed me that he wouldn’t hurt you or move you and make it harder for me to find you. I needed him to take you out so that I could be certain.”

“Why at the club and not the restaurant?”

“There were more people in the club, and it was dark. It was easier to cause a commotion and slip out with you.”

“You scared me that day,” I confessed.

“I was angry. I saw you with him, kissing him…”

Blaine closed his eyes, and slowly shook his head. He was wearing a dark suit, and started undoing the tie, loosening it up.

“He kissed me,” I corrected.

“You let him. You fight with me all the time, about any little thing. You could have pushed him away.”

He wasn’t looking at me, but I could tell he was breathing heavily. He was fully resting his back against the wall. It seemed like he wanted to yell, or punch something.

“Why did you really go back to get me? If you thought so low of me then, why go back? You could have forgotten about me.”

“I couldn’t,” he admitted. “I tried thinking about all the reasons I had to hate you. It even crossed my mind that you had been in on his plan all along. But then I remembered how sad you were those days we were locked up.”

“I guess I’m glad you went back.”

“Vitaly liked you from the beginning,” Blaine said, bitterly. I didn’t know what to say about his comment, so I simply let it go.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, because I still didn’t understand what the point of his road trip was.

“For now, I have work to do and you should go to sleep,” he said.

As if to show that our conversation was over, Blaine turned off the light and muted the TV. There was a small lamp over the table where he was working. It dimmed down the room. He went back to the chair, and started messing with his laptop.

I lied back down on the bed, but it was hard to concentrate on sleeping while Blaine was sitting there looking gorgeous without even trying. It was just not fair.

I woke up the next day to Blaine talking quietly on the phone. He was still sitting down in the same chair from the night before.

“Blaine?” I called out in a croaky voice.

I rubbed my eyes, before sitting up in the bed. Blaine looked up at me, nodded once, and continued on with his call. I thought he was ignoring me, but a few seconds later, he was hanging up and turning back to me.

“Feeling better?” He asked, standing up and making his way over to the bed.

Blaine had showered and changed, but I wasn’t too sure when that had happened. He was wearing dark jeans and a white polo shirt. It was still somewhat formal, but much more casual than what I was used to from him.

“Were you working all night?” I asked, pulling down the covers.

“I slept a few hours.”

“You did?”

He nodded, before picking up the phone on the bedside table. “I’ll order food. I was waiting for you to wake up to eat,” he said.

I pulled on his wrist to check the time, and found out it was almost two in the afternoon. Blaine chuckled when my eyes widened in surprise.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

I still felt sleepy. I had assumed it was because I hadn’t slept enough. I was finding out that I had slept more than I thought I had.

“You needed the sleep. You hardly slept anything these past days.”

“What about you?”

“I went to sleep. I wouldn’t make it through the day if I didn’t sleep at least a few hours.”

“Where did you sleep?”

“Right, there,” he said, pointing at the right side of the bed.

“You… slept, here?” I asked, incredulously.

“There’s only one bed in the suite.”

“But there are plenty of couches!”

“I wanted a bed. Besides, you didn’t complain.”

The smug look on his face made me reach out to slap him, but he stopped my hand before it got anywhere near him.

“I was asleep! I didn’t know!” I snapped.

“That didn’t stop you from snuggling into my arms,” he said, smirking at me. “I’ll order breakfast from the other room.”

I glared at him as I watched him go. He was confidently making his way out of the bedroom area. I grumbled in complaint, but there was little I could do.

I opted for taking a shower to calm down. Since I was still fuming when I went in, I decided to take my sweet time in there.

By the time I got out, the food had arrived. Blaine was sitting on the table, and there was a trolley filled with different trays of food next to it.

I didn’t realize I was hungry until the sight of the food caught my eye. There was a delicious smell of bacon and honey taking over the room.

“I was waiting for you,” he said when he saw me staring at the food.

I had slipped on a pair of dark skinny jeans and a fitted gray and white striped t-shirt. It wasn’t my style, but the shirt was soft so I didn’t mind as much. I hadn’t combed my hair, and I was still barefoot, but I left that for later and decided eating first was probably better.

“Feeding a multitude?” I nodded at all the plates, and turned up to look at him.

“You usually eat whatever you’re given so-”

“That’s rude,” I interrupted, scowling at him. He kept getting annoyed with my interruptions, but I was enjoying it.

“I was going to say that since you hardly complain about the food, I don’t really know what you prefer.”

“Oh, in that case,” I said, eyeing the scrambled eggs and bacon.

I didn’t understand why Blaine had ordered both waffles and pancakes. It seemed like a waste.

“I don’t like anything too sweet in the morning,” I told him.

While I was filling up my plate, Blaine was staring at me. “You’re not hungry?” I asked.

“I’m waiting for you to pick.”

“You ordered a lot of everything. I’m sure I won’t eat it all. Just get whatever you want,” I told him.

The only thing I could really complain about was that I wasn’t fond of orange juice, coffee, water, milk, or tea for breakfast… or any other meal. When Blaine noticed me frowning down at the drinks he’d ordered, he reached out to serve himself coffee.

“We can order something else,” he told me.

“No, it’s fine,” I said, opting for water.

Blaine just shook his head, but he cracked a smile when he saw me pouring myself a glass of iced cold water. I took a long drink, realizing that it had been a long while since I’d drank anything.

“So what are the plans?” I asked, shoving a forkful of eggs into my mouth. Blaine did the same thing, but he was smiling at me for some reason. I gave him a questioning look, but Blaine simply shrugged.

“We can go out into the city.”

I took another drink from my water, before clearing my throat to talk. “Why?”

“Have you been here before?” Blaine asked instead.

“I’ve only left the state two times and always for unfortunate reasons,” I answered.

“Which were?”

“My dad died and my mom forced me to go to his funeral, and one of my mom’s friends got sick so we went to see her. She got better, so that was good,” I shrugged.

“Your dad died?” Blaine asked, sounding shocked.

“It happened a few months ago. I’m fine,” I assured him.

“You didn’t get along with him? He must’ve been young.” I could tell in the way he was looking at me that he was starting to feel bad for me. I regretted even bringing it up, since the thought of my dad was putting a damper in my mood.

“My mom is a single mother. My dad left us when I was young, really young. I had seen him a handful of times before the accident and trust me, each of those times… it was pretty unpleasant.”

“He was still your father, Madeline,” Blaine said.

He reached out to take my hand. I had found myself usually not pushing him away when he tried to hold me or touch me, but I wanted to do so then. My dad and I had had a rocky, unstable relationship. Not only did I avoid talking about him, but whenever my mom was reminded of him, and she got in one of her states, I was reminded of why I hated the man so much.   

“I call him the sperm donor. It’s more fitting. He only brought heartache and headaches to my mom any time he showed up. But he made me, so I guess that’s one good thing he created. And I’m tired of talking about this. What are we going to do today?”

Blaine looked at me weirdly for minutes that seemed to drag on and on. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but his eyes never left me, and he seemed really concentrated on whatever was running through his mind.

“If you tell me that this was all a joke and you want to go home, I’ll pack our bags,” I told him, grinning cheekily.

“We have suitcases. Two of them, and mine is still neatly packed,” he said.

His eyes drifted over to my suitcase on the bed, which had the close he had gotten for me thrown all over the bed.

“I don’t know who shopped for you, but they pick ugly clothes,” I told him, tugging on the collar of the shirt I was wearing.

“We can go to the mall and you can buy some new clothes,” Blaine suggested.

“That sounds like a good idea, but I don’t have any money.”

I continued shoveling down my food when Blaine suddenly gave me a flat look. “I’ll pay for the clothes.”

“No way,” I told him, shaking my head. “I’ve enough with the load of money you already spent on me. I don’t need to owe you anymore favors. Besides, you saved me from Vitaly,” I told him, faintly wondering what Vitaly was up to, and if he was looking at me.

He had kept some of my things, and I was kind of scared that he would go looking for me and drag me back to Russia.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“I do, but it’s not like I have any money to pay you back. So… I hope you’re not counting on that because you will be utterly disappointed,” I told him, shrugging.  

“I am the one who owes you. You were in Russia because of me. Vitaly wouldn’t have taken you if it weren’t for me. You can consider this my payment to you for having to put up with him,” Blaine said.

Again he reached out to take my hand, and this time, I had no intention of pulling away from him.

“Fine,” I said after a while. “But I don’t want you to buy me anything else. I’ll make do with the ugly clothes you already got me,” I told him, smiling teasingly.

“Will you stop complaining about the road trip?”

“I’m not mad anymore,” I said, looking away from him and down on my plate. “I basically told you I stayed with him for his money. You couldn’t have thought anything else was going on.”

Blaine shook his head at me. I had to look up at him when he got up from the chair. He didn’t drop my hand. Instead, he tightened his hold on it, and gave it a small squeeze.

“I won’t take too much of your time with this idea. We will simply drive back home. Amuse me,” he said.

I expected him to be smiling at me, or at least look somewhat excited. But there was a dark look in his eyes. It seemed like something was bugging him.

“Okay,” I said, softly, before looking down at our joined hands.

Blaine cupped my cheek, and made me look up at him. “I should have known something was wrong,” he said in a low voice, his eyes holding an intense look. “You were too good to be true. I wanted to think you weren’t real. But you are. I’m sorry.”

Blaine leaned down and lightly brushed his lips over mine. The kiss was so gentle, and tender, I barely registered he was kissing me.

“I’m sorry, Madeline,” he whispered.

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I'm from Texas... so that's why I picked that state to begin with. Texas is awesome:D