InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 9: Subterfuge ❯ Escape ( Chapter 130 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

"Okay, Roka.  You do realize exactly how much trouble you're causing here, right?"

"Give it a rest, Mikey," Evan replied, only paying attention halfway as he attached the flight plan to the email and hit 'send'.  Then he sent the document to the printer.  "When's the last time I had an honest-to-God vacation?"

"You just had one, didn't you?" he parried, grabbing the first page and scanning over it with a marked frown.

"What?  Maine?  Hardly," Evan scoffed, leaning back in the office chair and thrusting his arms over his head as he stretched.  "You've met my family, right?"

Mike wrinkled his nose and pulled the next page.  "They're not nearly as bad as you make them out to be," he pointed out reasonably then sighed and shook his head.  "I cleared your schedule for two weeks—two weeks.  After that, you've got that show in Germany to get ready for."

"Germany," Evan repeated.  "Gotcha."  His grin disappeared suddenly as he stared thoughtfully at Mike.  "Hey, what are the chances I can get a pair of lederhosen?"

Eyeing him to ascertain whether or not he thought Evan was being serious, Mike snorted.  "Slim and none, Roka."

Evan's grin widened.  "I'd totally rock 'em out, you know."

"I'd rather not see it, thanks," Mike retorted dryly.  "Besides, with your luck, they'd think you were poking fun at their heritage and arrest you or chase you out of the country with pitchforks and torches."

"Nah, they love me there," Evan insisted.  "All the women wanna fuck me—and most of the men do, too . . ."

Mike snorted.  "God, don't say that where anyone can hear you," he said.

Evan grinned.   "The men in France want me more, though," he quipped.

Rolling his eyes, Mike chuckled despite himself.  "You really do need a vacation, don't you?"

"In the worst way, Mikey," Evan allowed.  "Nothing but me and the beach and women—lots of women . . ."

"Speaking of women," Mike drawled, setting on the corner of the desk as he continued to look over Evan's flight plan, "you tell V that you're leaving?"

"Nope," Evan said.

Mike blinked and shifted his gaze to the side.  "Nope?"

"Nope," he stated once more.

"Really."

Snorting indelicately, Evan scooted away from the desk and shot to his feet to wander over to the window.  "Yeah, really.  In case you forgot, I don't have to clear every little thing I do with her, and besides, if I told her that I was going down to the island to get some pussy, do you honestly think she'd just let me go?"

"Is that why you're going down there?" Mike challenged mildly.

"Damn straight," Evan insisted.  "She's had me on a leash for a little too long, don't you think?"

Mike wisely held his tongue, but he did chuckle.

"I played her game, didn't I?" he muttered, more to himself than to Mike.  "Didn't get me shit."

"You know, you can't really put your feelings aside that easily," Mike reminded him.

"It's not like that," Evan said, staring out the window at the blanket of snow that covered his back yard.  "It's nothing . . . just a fucked up fixation or something . . ."

The silence was dubious at best, and Evan had the distinct feeling that his business manager wanted to say something.  In the end, though, he sighed, dropping the printouts on the desk.  "Just don't get into too much trouble, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Evan agreed.

Mike started out of the room but stopped on the threshold.  "Hey, Roka?"

"Huh?"

"Have some fun, and try to take it easy.  You've been a little stressed out lately."

Peering over his shoulder, Evan grinned at the obvious concern on Mike's face.  "That's what I plan on doing," he assured him.  "Thanks."

Mike nodded but finally smiled.  Then he turned and disappeared around the corner.

"Exactly what I need," Evan murmured, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that told him over and over that it wouldn't do any good to run away from his problems.  After all, that wasn't what he was doing; not in the least.  He just needed some time to regain his perspective.  The last year of his life had been so crazy that it wasn't any wonder that it had eventually come to this.

'If that's how you really feel, then why not tell V your plan?' his youkai interjected.

'Ri-i-i-ight,' he drawled.  'If I were to tell her, she'd come up with one reason or another why I can't go, and if I tell her I'm going to the Caribbean?  Forget about it.'

'But it wouldn't really be so bad if she wanted to come along.'

'Are you kidding?  That'd be even worse!   Half naked V, lying around on the beach in a string bikini and tanning oil . . . My balls, that'd be all right—and you call me 'stupid'!  No, what I need is a 'V'-less vacation . . .'

His youkai snorted.  'And you're really going to go look for women on your acation.'

Evan blinked and strode over to the desk, fishing a small pad of paper out of a drawer to scrawl, 'tanning lotion' on it.  'Acation?' he echoed with a chuckle.  'What's that?'

Another snort.  'It's your 'V'-less vacation—stupid.'

'I like that,' he decided, taking the notepad as he moved off toward the stairs.

'You would.'


"Evan?"

Valerie frowned as her voice echoed in the quiet house.  Bone hadn't mentioned that Evan was out when she'd pulled up to the gate, and that meant that he had to be in there, but he wasn't answering.

Her footsteps echoed like gunfire as she stepped around the corner to peer into the meditation room.  To her surprise, he wasn't there, and she bit her lip.  Surely he couldn't be sleeping.  Evan never slept in late that she knew of.  "Evan?" she called once more, looking up the staircase and listening for any signs of life.

She sighed.  'Unless he's avoiding me,' she thought glumly.  It was entirely possible.  He'd been doing it for the last two weeks, ever since the day after she'd missed the New Year's concert.  If she'd thought it once, she'd thought it a thousand times.  She needed to say what she'd said to him, sure, but . . .

But even if she did need to say it, she supposed in hindsight that maybe she ought to have been a bit more diplomatic about it.  Still, the very last thing she wanted to do was to hurt him, and she didn't have to be brilliant to realize that she had.  The trouble was, how could she possibly apologize to him when he so obviously didn't want to hear it?

Letting out a deep breath, Valerie turned to leave.

"Oh, hey, V," Evan said as he bounded up the stairs from the basement, tugging earphones out of his ears.  "Didn't hear you come in."

The smile that broke over her features faltered almost instantly when she realized that he'd obviously just finished working out.  Bad enough that the strange pants he wore—she'd seen them before when he was sword fighting with Bone—hung almost sinfully low on his hips, but the way his chest and arms seemed to glow with the sheen of clean sweat was almost impossible to ignore.

"V?"

"Oh, uh, huh?" she stammered, blinking rapidly as she forced her gaze away from the man's bared chest.

If he noticed her reaction, he didn't remark upon it.  "So what's up?" he asked, slinging a towel around his neck as he set the earphones on the table.  She could hear the music pouring out of the little devices.  Aggressive and raw—completely at odds with the seeming ease in Evan's demeanor.

"Oh," she blurted, suddenly aware that she was staring at his stomach again—or more notably, his belly button and wondering whether or not he'd shudder if she were to lick it . . . "I-I had a couple things I need you to sign."

"Hmm, okay," he said, swaggering through the living room toward the kitchen.  "Give me a sec, will you?"

Drawing a deep breath, Valerie scowled at her own wayward thoughts.  Just what in the world had gotten into her lately?  It was as if she had no control anymore, damn it.  The other night, she'd even had a dream about him, not that she'd ever in a million years admit as much to him, especially considering what dream-Evan was doing to her . . .

"Hey, duckie," Bone remarked as he cut Evan off at the pass.  "Bitches just dropped this off for you."

"She did?" Evan asked, taking what looked to be some kind of pamphlet from the security guard.  "Why didn't she come in?"

Bone grinned.  "Said she was on her way to cleanse Jay Robie's chi."

"That little actor twit?  The one who thinks he's the next James Dean?" Evan asked incredulously.

"Yep, I think so."

Evan snorted.  "Aw, damn!  I love it when she cleanses my chi!" he complained.

Valerie snorted, crossing her arms over her chest in her typical no-nonsense fashion since she knew damn well what Bitches liked to do to cleanse one's chi.  He didn't hear it, which just figured.

"She said not to miss those places she circled, ya?" Bone went on.

"She knows I've been down there before, right?" Evan asked.

Bone's grin widened.  "Dunno, duckie, but I'd trust her on this one.  That woman gets around, if you know what I mean."

Evan chuckled.  "I'll take it under advisement."

Bone laughed and nodded at Valerie before ambling out of the house once more.

"Going somewhere?" she asked, following Evan into the kitchen.

He drained two water bottles before he answered her.  "Nowhere big," he admitted, tossing the bottles into the recycling bin.

Her frown deepened when he breezed past her, heading toward the stairs.  "You didn't mention having to go anywhere," she pointed out as she hurried after him.

"Just came up," he told her.  "Not a big deal; I swear."

"Interviews or PR or something?" she pressed as she followed him up the steps.

"Eh, not really," he admitted.  Why did he sound like he was trying to avoid her line of questioning?

"Not really?  Then what, really, is it?"

He grinned.  "Damn, you're nosy today, V," he teased.

She snorted since he still had yet to answer her question.  His suitcase was lying on the bed, and he'd already packed some stuff, and, humming a familiar sounding song that she just couldn't place, he danced off toward the closet while Valerie slowly shook her head.

"Shit," he muttered when he emerged a few minutes later with a black neoprene shorty in his hand.  "The zipper's fucked . . . I forgot about that . . . Ah, well.  I guess I have time to get a new one before I leave . . ."

That got Valerie's attention readily enough.  He was going somewhere that he'd need a wetsuit . . .?  But . . . "Evan?" she said, her voice lowered, smooth as honey.

"Hmm?" he intoned, not actually paying much attention as he tugged on the zipper, only to discover that it wasn't going to budge.

"Where did you say you were going again?"

"On acation, V," he replied in the same absent tone of voice.

"Vacation," she repeated, nodding slowly.  "Where are you going on vacation?"

He blinked and finally looked up at her as he dropped the ruined wetsuit on the bed and reached for the notepad on the nightstand.  "Nowhere special," he insisted.  "Just a little R and R; that's all."

"Is that right?" she challenged.

Evan nodded very slowly and without taking his eyes off her.

"Then why won't you tell me where you're going?"

"Because," he said quite simply, "you're not invited.  That's why."

She snorted indelicately, cheeks warming at the blatant set-down.  "Oh, please!" she scoffed, tossing in a pronounced snort for good measure, "As if I want to go along!"

"Of course not," he told her, his smile taking on a hard little edge.  "We're just friends, right, and I gotta tell you, V, I don't usually have to clear my plans with my friends in advance," he went on, crooking the index and middle fingers on each hand to add special emphasis to the word, 'friend'.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Valerie snorted once more, only this time, she rolled her eyes, too.  "Don't you use those air-quotes on me, Roka," she shot back.

He chuckled and headed back toward the closet once more.  "Then don't be so nosy, woman."

Letting out a deep breath as she narrowed her gaze on his retreating form, Valerie's scowl darkened.  A wetsuit?  A wetsuit . . . Where the hell was he going?  California?  Florida?  "Big deal!" she muttered to herself.

Evan was humming—and dancing—again when he stepped out of the closet this time.  A few thin cotton button down shirts and . . . shorts. Valerie ground her teeth together as he slipped the clothes into the suitcase along with the other stuff he'd packed.

"What are you humming?" she asked since she wasn't getting any answers out of him on the vacation front.

"Eh, it's an old Beach Boys song," he told her over his shoulder as he shuffled back to the closet once again.

Picking through the suitcase, Valerie's frown deepened.  "You really need to tell me where you're going," she tried again.  No pants, whatsoever—wait!  There was one pair of jeans, way at the bottom.  Not surprising, though, given that he'd been ready to pack a wetsuit . . .

With a frustrated sigh, she snatched up a black folder that sat next to the suitcase, hoping that it'd say something about his ultimate destination.  It only served to deepen her confusion, though, since everything on the papers seemed to be written in some kind of coding.  "What's this?" she asked when he stuffed a couple pairs of shoes into the suitcase.

He glanced over her shoulder and shrugged.  "My flight plan," he said simply.

"Flight plan?  You're going on a private plane?"

"Sure," he said with a wolfish grin.  "Brevie X280.  I haven't flown it too much yet—only a couple times, actually—but it handles a lot like the Cessna I used to have.  Makes sense, I guess, given that the guy who designed the Brevie used to work for Cessna . . ."

"You—You're flying yourself?" she asked, her eyebrows lifting in surprise.

"Of course," he said with a chuckle.  "Rockstars never fly commercial, V."

"MYG," she read off the document.  "Is that your final destination."

"By plane, yes," he said.

"So where's MYG?"

"That's on a need to know basis," he told her with a cocky shake of his head.  "'Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya—not you, though—Bermuda, Bahamas, come on, pretty mama,'" he sang as he grabbed a pair of jeans and a clean tee shirt and wiggled his butt off toward the bathroom.  "'Key Largo, Montego, baby, why don't we go down to Kokomo—without V . . .'"

"Jerk," she called after him.

His laughter was cut off when he closed the bathroom door.

"Hrumph," she snorted, setting the flight plan aside.  He could tell her where he was going, after all.  What if he got arrested or something?  It was entirely possible.  It was Evan, for God's sake.  Knowing him, he'd flash a group of tourists and end up stuck in jail, expecting her to drop everything and fly down to save his sorry hide, and it would serve him right if she left him there to rot . . .

Glancing down at the bed once more, she caught sight of the pamphlet that Bone had given him from Bitches, and after a quick peek over at the bathroom door, she reached for it.

It wasn't a pamphlet at all.  It was a map.

Valerie's eyes widened as she stared at it a little closer.  'Nassau and surrounding islands,' she read, her brain slowing to a crawl.  'Nassau . . .?  The Bahamas . . .'

She gasped, her mouth falling open as she re-read the paper once more.  He was going to the Bahamas?  Really?  And that was why he hadn't wanted to tell her . . .

"Roka!" she growled as she stomped into the bathroom.  "You're going to the Bahamas?"

Peering over the top of the shower, Evan raised an eyebrow at her sudden intrusion.  "Yes, I am," he admitted.

"The Bahamas?" she repeated, her voice rising in pitch to the point that it squeaked.  "Really?"

"Yes," he stated once more.

Plopping down on the closed toilet seat, she heaved a wistful sigh.  "Oh, my God!  I've never been anywhere like that!" she went on.  "I've only seen pictures!  One of the guys from the office took his wife down there for their honeymoon, but he said that it was so-o-o-o beautiful . . ."

"Hmm, I don't think I like where this is headed," Evan grumbled as he shut off the shower tap and pulled a towel that he'd slung over the back of the glass wall down.  "Forget it, V; you're not going on my acation."

She blinked, and sat up a little straighter.  Evan sighed.  "I . . . I have a passport," she ventured innocently.

"Good for you," he replied.  "I hope you'll get to use it someday."

"Oh, come on, Evan!  You're not taking anyone else down there with you, are you?"

"I don't think that has much to do with it," he told her, pushing open the shower door and stepping out of the enclosure with the towel slung loosely around his hips.

"But you have room on your plane, right?"

He strode past her and out of the bathroom.  "See?  This is why I didn't tell you, in the first place."

She got up and hurried after him.  "But why?  Why do you want to go down there alone?  It'd be fun if we went together—like Hawaii!"

"I'm not going down there to dress like a woman," he snorted, planting his hands on his hips as he whipped around to face her, but he kept his head turned, glowering at the window instead.  "I'm going down there to undress women."

His statement gave her a moment's pause, and she frowned.  He didn't see it.  "But I've never been out of the States before," she muttered.  "And . . . And . . . And you owe me!"

"I do not!" he insisted hotly.

Somehow, the idea that he really did owe her bolstered her courage, and when she spoke again, it was in a much steadier tone of voice.  "Yes, you do," she insisted.

"How do you figure?"

"You don't remember that eyesore you had installed in my office as my 'Christmas present'?" she challenged.

He snorted.  "So I'll buy you tickets to Hawaii or something," he shot back.  "Besides, you taped another poster over that one, or so you said.  Face it, V: it's my acation, and you're not coming!"

She opened her mouth to argue with him, but closed it once more when it finally dawned on her.  "Acation?" she repeated, looking a little confused.  "What does that mean?"

Evan sighed, tossing the towel aside and reaching for the nearest pair of jeans he could find.  "It means just what I said," he informed her.

"And what's that?"

His answer, however, came as more of a grumble than anything.  "It's a vacation—without the 'V'."

Valerie stared at him for several long moments, her cheeks pinking at the implications of his statement.  "That's so not funny, Roka," she bit out then grimaced.  "That's just mean."

"Look," he said as she followed him out of his room and down the hallway toward the stairs, "if you came with me, there'd be no point in going, in the first place."

"How do you figure that?" she demanded, running down the steps behind him.

"Because you've made it your life's mission to keep me from having fun," he retorted, "and that's what I'm going down there to do—have fun."

"We have fun!" she insisted.

He snorted as he hit the landing and kept moving straight through the living room.  "Not the kind of fun I want to have on my acation."

"We had fun on your mini-tour, didn't we?"

He shook his head.  "I'm only going to be gone for two weeks.  We can have that kind of fun after I get back."

"Do you know how cold it is here?" she countered.  "It's really cold, and you're telling me you're going somewhere really, really warm?"

"You'd hate it, V," he told her.  "There's only one bedroom—"

"So I can get a separate hotel room," she said.

He shook his head.  "There're no hotels where I'm going."

"There are hotels all over down there!  It's a tourist haven, you know!"

"Not on my island, there aren't," he corrected.  "The only thing on my island is my house—if you can call it that—and there are only two rooms, one of which is the bathroom."

Valerie frowned.  "You own an island?"

"Yeah," he said with a shrug.  "Won it from Chase Courtney in a poker game a couple years ago."

She rolled her eyes.  Leave it to rock stars to bet something as big as an island in a stupid poker game.  "He didn't try to get it back?"

Evan shrugged again.  "Chase won it from Manny Felix."

She snorted.  "Well, I still don't see why you won't take me with you," she pouted.

"I just told you: it's a one-room shack with a bathroom hut attached."

"So?"

He gave her a look designed to let her know just how dense he thought she was being.  "And where do you think you'd sleep if I agreed to take you which I'm not, but if I did?"

She made a face.  "I can sleep on the floor," she insisted.

"Oh, right, you would," he agreed sarcastically.

"I would!" she argued.  He narrowed his eyes.  "No, really, I would!"

"One night on the floor, and you'll be whining at me to let you sleep on the bed; I know it," he predicted.

She wrinkled her nose.  "If I promised not to?"

"Forget it, V.  You're not going," he stated once more.

"How can you be so mean?" she whined, grabbing his arm to stop him.  "I just wanted to lie in the warm sand, under the warm sun, looking at the blue water . . ."

He didn't respond, but he did snort very loudly.

"I've never seen blue water, Evan," she went on.

That got his attention quickly enough.  Pinning her with an inscrutable look, he stared at her for several seconds before grabbing a glass off the shelf and filling it with water.  A couple drops of blue food coloring later, and he handed her the glass with what could only be described as a triumphant smirk on his face.  "Now you have," he told her flatly.

"Please?" she begged, biting back the retort that would avail her nothing as she set the glass aside and tightened her grip on his arm.  "I promise—I swear—you . . . You won't even know I'm there!"

He snorted.  Loudly.

"No, I mean it!  I'll—I'll even help you, if you want!"

He snorted again, just as loudly—maybe louder.  "I highly doubt that."

"What?  I can . . . can help you figure out which . . . girls . . . You want to . . . Well, whatever you want to do," she grumbled.  She'd tried to keep the irritation out of her voice.  She really had.

She'd failed, too, if the look on Evan's face meant anything at all.  "You'll go to hell for lying."

"I'll go to hell if I have to stay here in the freezing cold while you're down there, lying on beaches and sucking up the sun," she mumbled.  "Please?" she tried again.

This time, he sighed, a long, drawn out sigh.  "No, no, no, a thousand times, no.  I'd rather eat dirt than take you with me—do you hear me?"

She bit her lip.  "But—"

Evan cut her off before she could argue it some more.  "For the last time, no!  It's my acation, woman, and I'm not taking you with me, and you can pout about it all night because it's just not going to change my mind—absolutely, positively, unequivocally no."