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lostandfoundbook · 6 months ago

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Chapter 39

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Benji found himself rushing to the hotel, speeding, and passing through every red light he possibly could. They tried to stay safe, but safety wasn't important to Alex right now. Oliver was, and she had been a fool. Why did she always run from the people she cared most about? She was so nervous about confronting the reality that Oliver truly loved her, she couldn't stop to realize she didn't love herself?

She shook the thoughts out of her head as she watched the drive towards the hotel. Her scar ached a bit, which it had never done quite like this. Her entire body was sore, if she was being honest. Everything felt like electricity inside her, and nothing could calm the feeling inside of her body. She was on fire, and Oliver was the only thing that could extinguish her.

"What if he doesn't take me back" Alex voiced aloud. "He will. He's an idiot if he doesn't" Benji replied. It had been four days, which honestly wasn't a long time, but Alex's over thinking had gotten the best of her. What if he had come to the same conclusion she had? What he if also thought the relationship was over, and had already mourned the loss? What if his heart had moved on? What if it was too late? What if? She shouldn't stop.

"It would make sense in the end if he didn't, you know. I ran away when I shouldn't have. He probably doesn't understand, because he doesn't get me. How am I supposed to expect him to understand when he literally doesn't know? It's not his fault. I feel like an idiot still, but I accept it, at least." she blurted out, filling the silence in the car. It was about a 30 minute drive from Benji's theatre over to the hotel, and it felt torturous. Half way there.

She wasn't exactly ready to bare her heart out, but she knew that this was what she needed to do. This was the right thing. Life felt useless and devoid of meaning without him in it. The sky needed it's stars to shine bright at night, or else it's just sad. Alex understood now why Oliver didn't like the city, and the way it stole his stars away. It had stolen hers, as well. "He's not going to turn you away, Alex" Benji started out. "You're going to go in there and tell him you're sorry and explain yourself, and you're going to be just fine. You won't even need me."

Alex slunk her body lower into the seat of the car. She really didn't like the idea of having to explain herself to Oliver. It made her skin crawl to imagine the way his eyes would stare at her after he knew how damaged she was. He wouldn't care for her anymore. "I'll always need you" was the selection of words she settled on. Another moment of silence washed over the car as traffic started to ease up. "Finally" Benji muttered under his breaht.

It had been slow going. Alex didn't bring anything but herself and her purse, and she was mentally preparing herself to talk to him. She didn't know what she was going to say, but that didn't matter right now. It might've gone over better had it been planned, but she couldn't think about that. She just needed to fix it, and she needed to fix it, now. "Can't we go any faster?" the blonde girl asked. Benji shook his head in reply. "Not without getting pulled over."

Alex let out a groan. "This was a bad idea. I should've just stayed at the theatre. This is all one big sign that I shouldn't do it. I don't even know what I'm going to stay. This was such a dumb idea, oh my god." The girl pulled her hands up to her eyes and threw her head back into the seat. "Hey.." Benji murmured out, attempting to sooth the girl. "It's just traffic. It's New York City. If there wasn't traffic, that would be more of your sign to not do it. It's just a normal day, and you're doing a normal thing."

"Right. Normal." She replied and stared out the window. "I want to go over what I want to say to him." She could feel her heart string being tugged at as she said that. Realistically, that was the last thing she wanted to do, but it had to be done. She needed, at least, a guideline on what to say to the man. She couldn't get wrapped up in those eyes, and pretend that everything was alright. They needed to talk, and she needed to get it out in the air if she wanted this relationship to survive.

This relationship... it was a finicky thing. It was built off of codependence and necessity. Alex needed Oliver, both physically and metaphorically. When you take away the aspect of one party being better, it all started to slot into place. It felt more real. The connection was already bonded between the two, and maybe there was even a little transference there. He helped her, and she couldn't ignore that. That was a big part of their relationship with each other, was Oliver's ability to provide. It's how he showed his love.

When his mom was sick, hid dad redid her entire wing of the hotel to make her happy. He provided. It runs in the family with them, and it's just Oliver's love language. Alex was the opposite. Her entire life, she was denied love and affection, and the only person she could turn to was her sister. When her brother was born, he was treated as the golden child. The one person who could do no harm.

"I probably need to start with my brother. I haven't told him much about Justin. He just knows he exists. He doesn't know that Evelyn and I practically had to raise him, and that he's the reason why I was so willing to be a mother. He doesn't get it. He knows about my pregnancy, but he doesn't get it, and I don't know how to get that across to him without talking about Justin."

The words hung heavy in her throat. They were only a few miles away from the hotel, and she didn't have much time to think about how it would all tie together. She needed to segue from one topic to the next, because he needed to understand. He could provide so much for her, a room to stay in, food to eat, and clothes on her back, but the one thing she's asking him to provide to her right now is his understanding. It's all she needed.

"I genuinely think he'll understand, Andie. He was always understanding with me.." If Benji could go back in time and take back the words he just said, he would, because the look that Alex was giving him made him want to curl into a ball and hide away in shame. "Why won't you tell me about it?" She eventually asked. She kind of knew the story already, but she'd never heard Benji's side.

"Same reason you won't tell me about what happened between you two. He makes everything.... needlessly complicated when it really doesn't need to be. We were both younger and dumb and nothing made sense. He had a hotel to inherit, and he was trying to work towards it. He didn't just want to take on something like a nepo-baby, and he wanted to earn it. I wasn't apart of his plans, I don't think, but I never talked to him about it. That's why you have to talk to him, Alex, because you can't let life slip through your fingers then it's that close"

She paused as she took in the mans words before her. The were getting closer and closer to the hotel, and she could feel her adrenaline pumping deep in her heart, like a race horse being set off to the track. She was running and running and running and she was so close to meeting that finish line.

"I know, Benji. I'm really sorry it didn't work out between you two, but, don't you think that, someday in the future, it'll be weird? Like, I'll invite him over to dinners and shit, because he'll just.... be there." She couldn't bring herself to say boyfriend. He wasn't her boyfriend, and this could go wrong at any moment. Nothing was predetermined, and it could go multiple ways. She didn't know what he was going to say to her.

"No. I've moved on. I'm almost positive he's moved on multiple times over. We've lived two different lives, and we're just two different people who don't click together. It never would've worked between us, especially with the competitive nature of the scene. One of us would've crashed and burned, and it wasn't going to be him, and I couldn't let myself sacrifice that much just to be with him. It wasn't worth it, but I think it's so much different with you."

He sighed out as he spoke. "I don't see you sacrificing yourself. It's from a distance, but I see you rising in the charts, and your career is doing good, and he doesn't limit you anywhere near as much as Everette or Mason did, and you really really like him. I think those are all really valid reasons to go back to someone." Alex nodded towards him and sat up in her seat. "Yeah... yeah. I agree with you. When I'm with him, It's like everything clicks together in place like a puzzle pieces. He's my missing half, and I feel incomplete without him."

She could see the hotel in the distance. Benji had sped as much as he could through the backstreets while avoiding police and civilians alike. They pulled up to the front of the building and Benji turned the car off. "You can do it." Was all he said as Alex stepped out of the car. She stared up at the enormous building, and consider how weird it was that, a couple of months ago, she was stood up there.

The sunlight reflected off of the windows and shone back down onto the pavement, and Alex was alright with the heat, she could deal with the heat, because in just a minute she would will herself to walk towards the building and into the air conditioned air. She just needed to work up the courage to step in. She gripped her hands together and closed her eyes as she stepped forward, feeling the sweat sliding down her forehead.

She strode across the sidewalk with her palms balled into a fist, and she used one hand to sweep past the revolving doors. She tried to look back towards Benji, but he had already pulled off. It was now or never. Alex had to talk to Oliver, whether she liked it or not, and she really fucking didn't. Being back here, with the smells, and the sights, it made her want to run. Flee, and get far away, because it felt like home. She had returned home.

She walked past the front counter and nodded her head at the woman behind the desk. She waved her hand at Alex as she passed by her, allowing her entry. She eyed down the elevators, and the thoughts came rushing into her head. What if he seriously didn't take her back? What if this was too far for him, and he couldn't deal with somebody who ran? What happens if he says no? How does Alex walk away from this all.

She could see her hands jittering as she pressed the button to go up. She could hear the clanging and clattering of the elevator, and she could hear the busy chatter of the people around her. She could smell the familiar scent of the hotel, the atmosphere, and the way it made her feel. Almost nostalgic. It had only been 4 days and she missed it already. The doors slid open and she carted herself in, pressing the button to go up to Oliver's floor.

She hadn't really thought this through. She didn't know what she was going to say, and she didn't except him to accept her back. Everything was too complicated, like Benji was saying. She expected him to flee, as well, the same way she did. The elevator dinged upward and upward as it rose. There was no possible way he could accept her back. It just didn't make sense in her brain. She was setting herself up for failure.

The doors slid open, and she was met with the familiar red hues of the floral wallpaper, the ones she dreamed of ripping down and replacing for the man. One true act of loving compassion. She could nearly fall to her knees and weep at the sight. She put aside all of her emotions for just one minute longer. 'You just have to make it down the hallway' She thought to herself. It was just one more hallway.

It hit her like a tidal wave as she stepped out of the elevator and looked around. What if he wasn't in his room? What if he was busy at work like all the other days, and this was just a failed mission? What was Alex supposed to do then? She made her way down the familiar hallway and remembered all the times the had roamed through here, both with and without Oliver. All of the times she had explored and gotten to know this building. It was her home through and through, and she couldn't imagine a better place to live.

She steadied her breath as she walked up to the mans door and stood in front of it, analyzing the white wood in front of her. She was nervous as all hell, and she couldn't shake the feeling in her bones that something was wrong. The moment wasn't perfect. This wasn't how she wanted to see him again. She wanted it to be a happy moment, where the two of them took each other into their arms, and place soft kisses across each others lips.

She wanted bliss, and happiness, and she knew she couldn't have it. She took a deep breath in as she reached up and knocked on the door. She could feel the cool wood against her knuckles, and she slunk into herself as she pulled away. She had knocked too hard. Too aggressively. She didn't like how she was already doming off. It made her feel this overwhelming dread inside of her body.

As the door open, Oliver stood before her, wearing a t-shirt and black shorts, and a shocked expression on his face. "Alex" He said out. She didn't know what to say. For the first time in a very long time, she felt small, and inconsequential. She didn't matter. "I'm sorry" was the only thing she could find herself saying. The words blocked up when she tried, and she could feel her emotions crashing over like tidal waves, threatening to drown her city.

"Alex, you don't have to apologize, why don't we just--" He started to say, but she cut him off. "No, because, that's kind of the problem. I do have to apologize. A lot. For a lot of things, because I've done a lot of things to you, Oliver, and I don't know how we could consider starting a relationship if we can't even talk about it." Her tears spilt down her face, and her hair stuck to the sides of her cheeks.

Oliver looked side to side before ushering her to enter his room. "I'm not saying we can't talk about it. I'm saying you don't have to apologize. You've done a lot of things to me, and I've done a lot of things to you. We need to talk about it, but not out here. Please, just come inside." He finished off and looked at her with his pleading eyes. He wasn't trying to hide her away. He was making sure her privacy stayed private.

People in the hotel talked, and they talked a lot. There were a lot of celebrities here, and with that, a lot of journalists. She didn't need her business aired out like dirty laundry. She wiped her cheeks and nodded as she stepped inside. He shut the door behind her, and noticed the recognizable living space as she did so, the black and grey muted colors standing out in her head. It replayed the night they kissed in her head like a movie projector.

"Obviously, I'm sorry for any time that I've hurt you--" And again, Alex cut him off. She was here to make her case, and she needed to be heard. "You've never hurt me." She chewed out. "You made business decisions that I didn't agree with. It was much bigger than anything I could've fathomed, because you're running an entire hotel. I'm just running my career." She wiped the other side of her face as she spoke, and walked over towards the couch with Oliver.

He followed along, politely nodding as he did so to show that he was listening. Another bunch of tears began to leave her eyes and roll down her face. "I just feel like there's so much about me that you don't know, and that you should, because without knowing, you don't really know me. But it feels impossible to talk about, and we never get the chance." She could try to hide her pain, but there was no point anymore. She was wearing it out on her sleeve.

"I'm listening, Alex, and I'll always be listening." There were sympathetic tears beginning to form in his eyes now. "I don't want you to feel like you have to hide away from me, ever. I'm going to accept you no matter what. I don't know why you would think I wouldn't." he said, and pulled her into a hug. It felt like she had imagined it would: Pure bliss igniting her skin on fire. She missed the touch of his skin dancing across hers, and she missed the way he felt in her arms.

She let her tears stain his shirt with a dark stain, showing proof that she was human, and she too relied on other people sometimes. Maybe there was a reason it was so much easier to cry around Oliver than it was to cry around Benji. She thought he didn't, but he did understand her. More than she understood herself, even. Maybe it was because he was a critic, but he knew her every flaw, and accepted her in spite of it.

"I just don't know how you do it." She whined out into his chest. "Do what?" he replied back. She breathed in and sighed out before her own reply. "You just love so unabashedly. You live with no fear. I don't understand how I'm supposed to live my life without the nagging fear that the other shoe is always going to drop?" She pulled away and looked into his eyes, those beautiful ocean blue eyes that capture her soul away, and he stared back at her.

"Alex, I'm always afraid. I have been since my dad died, and my mom got sick. I learned that I can't live my life regretting the things that I've missed. I've missed out on a lot for this hotel, and for my family. But I do it out of love, and I can't regret it, or it'll eat me alive at night. I have to pursue the things I love, like producing, and theatre.. and you."

She looked from his eyes, down to his lips, and back up to his eyes. His lips looked so soft, and so kissable, like they were made just for her. She reached up and placed a small peck onto his lips. He pressed back into it, looking for her in the touch. "I've always been afraid, and when I'm afraid, I run, and I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean to hurt you, but I felt like I was suffocating."

She could feel another tear roll down her cheek. He wiped it away with the knuckle of his finger, and pressed a kiss onto her lips. "You don't have to feel bad for running. I don't hold it against you. You needed space, and you took it. You're human, just like the rest of us, Andie, and I wouldn't ever hold that against you."

She could feel a small laugh escape her lips as she pressed closer into the man. He was so kind, and so understanding. She felt like she could escape into him, and breathing in his scent was so entrapping. Like a good kind of smothering, that she missed. She missed his smothering in particular. "My parents would've. That's the problem. My parents were really really shitty people. They never wanted kids to begin with, they just didn't like the idea of having to actually be adults and protect themselves. When they fell pregnant with twins... they hated us."

She buried her face deeper into his chest. He was so warm, and with the A/C running, it felt nice. Like sitting in front of a campfire. "I'm sorry, Alex. You didn't deserve any of that. Just because they don't value you, doesn't mean that other people don't. There are so many of us who love you, not just me." She continued laughing into his chest. It was a nervous reaction, and she didn't know what else to do.

"It feels like some kind of cosmic joke that you understand. You of all people are supposed to hate me." She chewed on her lower lip as she said it. He squeezed his arms around the girl and drew her closer. "I don't think it's a very good joke, if so. I don't hate you. We both had our own problems going on, and we took it out on each other." She nodded into him. It felt comfortable to just talk to him. Why didn't she do this sooner?

"When my parents had my brother, Justin, that's when everything changed. Evelyn and I were 14, and they were always out doing drugs, or doing to bars, or getting arrested for some reason. When they were gone, we had to raise him. We were just kids ourselves, and we didn't know how to raise a kid. We probably fucked up a million times." Oliver pulled away and looked down at her. It wasn't judgmental like she'd expected it to be, but soothing, and warm. "That must have been difficult. I never knew you had to raise him."

She shrugged underneath his arms. "I don't know. We don't really talk about it. It was just expected of us. I don't know what would've happened to all of us if we didn't. CPS showed up so many times and didn't do anything. Evelyn and I kept the house clean, and everything looked fine on the outside. They were always so good at hiding the drugs."

She pulled back closer to him as she spoke. She didn't want to see him. She felt embarrassed of her past, and she couldn't deal with the staring eyes looking down on her. It made her feel even smaller than she already did, and she didn't like to feel small. Alex let out a sigh. "And then, I met Mason. And he was amazing, and great to me, until he wasn't anymore, and he treated me the same way my parents did, but I thought it was normal. None of it was normal, and then I fell pregnant."

The tears bundled back in her eyes, and she brushed them away. "I think maybe, the stress of it all, and everything, It kind of broke me. I was never the same after that." Oliver took a deep breath of his own, processing everything. "No one can expect you to be normal after something like that. You lost something, someone valuable to you. You said it was the one good thing about the situation."

She scoffed under her own breath. "It would have been. But now, I don't even think I'm the same person. It changed me forever, and I don't think I'll ever get it back." Oliver pulled her closer into a hug. "Yeah, but that's not the Alex I fell in love with. I fell in love with all version of you, not just the version you've created for yourself now. I see you for who you are, Andie."

She could feel her heart swoon. These were all the words she needed to hear. "How did I end up with such a perfect man?" she laughed out before snuggling closer towards him. "Well, first you fell from the ceiling, and then I nursed you back to health. Are you having amnesia again?" He joked out. "No. Obviously, I mean, I was given such a horrible hand in life. I don't understand how I was gifted with somebody like you.

His gaze on her was sweet and affectionate. She could feel her heart tumbling as she leaned back and pressed Oliver into a kiss, deepening it as far as she could go. She wrapped her arms around him, and felt the cloth of his shirt underneath her fingertips. Everything felt so right. So perfect. She wanted to belong with him for the rest of her life. If there was ever a moment she could her herself go, it was right now.

She parted her lips as the raven haired man vied for her, his tongue dancing around hers in a magical sort of way. She pressed her palm against his chest before pulling away. "You know, I have to have the other talk with you." The man in front of her raised his eyebrow as she tumbled back into the kiss. "Never mind." She said, dragging him closer. Nothing mattered right now. It was just the two of them, alone in this world, existing together. It felt like ecstasy being with him.

There was no better high than Oliver Haven, and she wanted to be apart of all of it. All of him. She needed to be tangled up in his arms, and have him grabbing all over her, and pulling her closer. She needed all forms of contact. She pulled him closer and drug is shirt overtop of his head, and deepened the kiss further.

She pressed a hand across his bare chest and felt the skin to skin contact under her fingers. It was enthralling, and it was like lighting a fire in her belly, and she needed more. She reached around under her shirt and unclipped her bra strap, wriggling herself free from the grasp of it. Oliver brushed his hand across her cheeks and onto her chin, placing his hands across her face. "I need to be with you, Oliver" she pleaded out.

She could feel him eyeing her up like a prized possessions before quickly picking her up in her arms, earning a squeal from Alex. "What are you doing!" she giggled out. "Well, I'm not gonna fuck you on the couch, now am I?" He stated out. Alex could feel her entire body light on fire at that comment. She could've write a more perfect ending to the day. This possibility never crossed her mind, once. She watched at Oliver stripped himself of his shorts, and she joined him by removing her top, leaving her chest bare.

She was suddenly overcome with the feeling of shyness. She was so exposed, and it had been so long since she was with someone last. Everette, probably. That was not who she wanted to be thinking about right now. She watched as Oliver analyzed her body, searching the scar across her abdomen, to her breasts, back to her scar. "You're beautiful" He called out before crawling his way onto the bed and kissing her.

"I'd be happier without the scar, you know." She said out. She blushed beneath the mans grasp as he pulled her back onto the bed, kissing and pulled her underneath him. "You're beautiful. You shouldn't think otherwise. Anyone who's made you feel different is blind." He stared down at her body with sultry eyes, and she couldn't help but feel the burning in her gut growing tighter and tighter. She needed to be with him, and she needed to feel him inside her, and she needed to be with him. Now.

She pulled him closer by his neck and re-position herself underneath him. He ran his hands along her body before trailing little kissing down her, first her mouth, and then her collarbone, and then in between her breasts. He continued his trail down towards her stomach before he slowly lowered himself under her legs, and slowly slipped her shorts off. "You're so fucking hot, Alex. I'm so serious. I don't know how I kept myself away from you for as long as I did."

He placed a kiss on the fabric between her underwear and her heat. She could feel how wet she was from his touch alone, and it ramped up her hormone levels. She was through the roof with anticipation when she began to slide her underwear down, and began licking away between the wet folds. Her head shot back as her body was flooded with release of stimulation as he focused away on her little bundle of nerves.

"Oh, my god" she called out, her jaw dropping as she did so. She could feel her body grind and move with the motions of the wetness on her lower regions, and she could feel him working away at herself. It was a blissful feeling, and she forgot how amazing it could be with the right person. "Right there, don't stop" she called out, and moaned and Oliver slid a finger inside of her wet pussy. He pumped slowly at first, before fastening his pace as he flicked his tongue around her clit.

Oliver had worked his own dick out of his boxers and began working away on himself as he continued finger fucking her hole. "Holy fuck" Was the only words she could manage before falling into a bundle of moans and groans, wriggling underneath the mans grasp. He laid one hand across her stomach, as if he was staking his claims across her. He quickened his pace in for a couple seconds. "You're so perfect, Alex. Such a perfect pussy. Are you gonna be a good girl and cum for me?"

She could hear the words, but they didn't register in her head. She was too far gone in the moment. Her stomach twisted and burst like electricity shocking through her veins. She quickly nodded her head, whimpering and moaning out as she did so. "Yes, oh my god, yes please" She cried out, grasping her hand across Oliver's with her left, and the right entangled in the bedsheets. His hands worked faster and faster around himself as he worked himself to the edge.

"I'm gonna-" She began, before she felt the pressure increasing in her body, and releasing again as all her muscles tensed up into an orgasm. "So perfect" He called back, licking up every drop. He pulled his hands out from Alex and dropped his boxers the rest of the way. "And now, I'm gonna fuck you like a gentleman does."

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