Happy endings are stories that haven't ended yet. {closed}

[BasicBlonde]

"Are you happy? Are the candles too much?"

Olivia Russo, now Olivia Richardson, turned her blonde head away from the Mexican shore to look back at her husband. God--she'd only gotten just used to calling him her fiance, and she was sure the new title would taken even longer. Her husband.

For years, Olivia Russo had fantasized about a different life. Her past relationship had been nothing short of toxic, unpredictable, and flawed. A younger Olivia craved and adored the adventure and wild ride her ex constantly sent her on, and some of their time together were her favorite memories. But as their time went on, his possessiveness made her feel trapped. Her ex had a way of always getting what he wanted, when he wanted. And she was completely aware that there was something inside of her that usually gave into it, as if she were under his spell.

And it scared the shit out of her.

But Olivia wanted more. She wanted a partner. A husband. Love. Family. Money. Stability. Something healthy.

And Jack Richardson could provide her all of those things.

Even now, hours after their wedding ceremony, he fought desperately to please her, as if it were his only mission in life, to keep her. She'd been spoiled since the moment they met at a charity event she'd volunteered at. Since then, the blonde was constantly showered with gifts; clothing, jewelry, trips, whatever he thought would make her happy. And less than a year later, his latest gift was a diamond ring. Some thought perhaps they were moving too fast. On the outside, he was everything she was looking for. He was gentle and kind, could provide and take care of her, and she couldn't remember ever fighting with him or him trying to control her. Of course, on the outside, she was perfect for him as well; a good heart, beautiful mind, and the body and face to go with his public image. But neither of them knew the other's past. And oddly enough, neither of them asked about it. While Olivia typically appreciated that their talks never strayed too deep in their past, it often made her wonder if he, too, had secrets.

"Stop," She spoke, finally, her lips curving up into a smile. Reaching forward, she gently placed her small hand on top of his. "It's perfect." She assured him, giving his hand a loving squeeze before she placed it back in her lap again. She hadn't been lying. The whole had gone all out for the newlyweds - blankets in the sand, a table with dinner, champagne, and candles to light their space where the glow of the moon could not. And only about twenty feet or so, the calm ocean waters pooled next to them. How could anyone complain?

"You're perfect." He retorted with a grin, reaching for her hand again. It was enough to make anyone likely gag at the sight of the two of them. It had taken her a while to get used to it, herself.

Allowing him her hand, she leaned in to kiss him. He kissed her gently, and slowly, and perhaps he'd only meant it to be a short kiss, because she could feel his weight pulling away again. Unwilling to stop that easily, or quickly, Liv pushed herself forward to continue that kiss, willing to crawl onto his lap to get it.

"Olivia, not here." He protested, quickly reminding her that he wasn't a fan of displaying too much affection in public. It had been different getting used to a man who didn't feel the need to show the whole world what belonged to him. She guessed it had something to do with him keeping up his public image back at him. But they weren't at home, anymore. And there was no one around.

"Then where?" She asked, her voice almost a whisper. This was their honeymoon and while the beaches of Mexico awaited her to lay out on them, she hadn't originally planned to spend too much time outside of the bedroom.

Wordlessly, Jack stood up, pulling her up with him as his hand still held on to hers. Wearing her white cotton dress, her bikini seen through it in the right light, the blonde followed him back up to their room.

-----

Somewhere in the night, Jack's phone lit up beside the bed. After checking his messages, he looked over to his wife beside him who hadn't moved an inch since she'd fallen asleep on his arm. Her blonde hair was spilled across his arm and the pillow beneath her, white sheets covering only the lower half of her naked body. Carefully, and quite masterfully, he managed to escape and dress himself, his footsteps quiet as he moved to the door.

When Olivia awoke in the morning, she blamed her interruption of sleep on the birds she could hear chirping outside the open balcony door, the curtains dancing from the ocean breeze. Letting out a girlish, annoyed groan, she stretched her arms wide and found that nothing touched them. Blue eyes opened, only to find that not only was she alone in an empty bed, but an empty room as well.

"Babe?" She called out, sitting up as if that would help her hear better. No reply. Perhaps he was in the shower. Or getting them breakfast.

Not too concerned, Olivia swung her bare feet over the edge of the bed until they finally touched the ground. Disappointed to not find him in the shower, she decided to take one herself. The rainfall shower in the resort room was far better than anything she had back at home, which kept her in there that much longer. When she was finished getting ready, dressed in a new bikini and a blue sundress, she let her golden locks dry on their own to create their own natural wave. When she exited the bathroom, the steam escaping through the doorway, she looked around, disappointed to find the room still empty.

That's when she noticed his clothes on the floor were gone. She strictly remembered tossing his belt across the room, and hitting a lamp. The lamp was now back in place, evidence of the belt missing. Her damp, blonde head whipped around to where she knew he'd placed his suitca--

"Jack?!" She cried out, more urgently this time, seeing his suitcase was no longer in the corner of the room. Concern finally hitting her, Liv hurried over to her bag where she'd left her phone. Frantically, her nervous fingers could barely dial his number fast enough.

Straight to voicemail.

The blonde spun in a circle, trying to find anything that might belong to Jack. The cheesy sap would have surely left a note!

For hours, Olivia called around the hotel, even waited in the room until she could no longer stand it. She paced the lobby, the beach, anywhere close that he might have gone.

Nothing.

When she'd gotten the authorities involved, she also made a call to her parents. Jack's parents. For now, with it still being 'too soon' and nothing they could do, Olivia's next call was to the last person she thought she would ever call again. The one person who was least likely to want to help her. And yet, in her desperation, she didn't know who else to turn to but her ex, almost out of sheer habit.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

The woman under him had skin a few shades darker than his, and her moans were fake. He knew enough to know when a woman he was with was faking it, and there was no doubt in his mind that she was doing exactly that as he pounded away at her. It was, he supposed, to be expected when you paid for it, but it didn't stop him from growing angry at it nonetheless. Gritting his teeth together, he clamped a hand down over her throat to silence her irritating voice and finished inside her a moment later, the condom he wore catching his seed as he stared back at her wide, frightened eyes.

He held her there a moment longer, his length offering his final twitches of release inside her, then gave her back her breath and pulled out. Moving off of her, he pulled the condom from his cock and dropped it into the trashcan by the bed. Barefoot and naked, he crossed the room to where a bottle of tequila sat, opened and partially emptied, on the small, flimsy hotel table.

"Vete a la verga culero!" the girl behind him spat as she jumped off the bed, grabbed the money off the bedside table, and dressed quickly.

"Shut up and leave," he said with his back to her, his eyes on the plastic cup he was pouring the tequila into.

"Chinga usted!" she shot back, pulling a shirt over her head and fleeing the room. The door was slammed behind her, and he was alone once again. The tequila was downed in a single swallow, and he turned towards the door she'd just closed, his eyes on the long mirror screwed into the back of the door. Moving closer, he examined himself in the mirror, frowning at the couple spots where he'd suffered little cuts. It was nothing too obvious, especially while dressed, but it had been the lone problem in what had otherwise been a flawless trip so far. Now he just had to get back home.

Turning away from his reflecting, he returned to the bottle, downing another shot of tequila and hissing through his teeth at the fire it sent into his belly. Pulling back the covers on the bed the girl just fled from minutes earlier, he slipped between the sheets and flipped off the light, drifting off moments later into a satisfied and dreamless, if a little alcohol- and sex-induced, sleep.


--------------------------


He woke early, and for a moment couldn't remember where he was. The bed was stiff and uncomfortable, the room shabby and unfamiliar. Digging his knuckles into his eyes, he laid in bed for a moment and let his memory filter back to him, despite how happy he would've been to forget some of it. Outside it was still mostly dark, the orange fingers of the sunrise only now reaching into the sky, the ocean not far from his hotel still a deep and impenetrable black.

Throwing off the covers, he swung his feet to the thin carpet and stretched his arms over his head. He was sore, his back and arms mostly, the exertion of the night before taking a bit of a toll on him. Rising from the bed, he stepped on his jeans where she had cast them aside the night before as she knelt between his legs, and he felt the small lump of the phone in the pocket. He retrieved it and carried it with him into the bathroom, popping off the back lid of the flip phone and using his thumbnail to pull the SIM card free. The little card landed in the toilet as he emptied his bladder, and he watched it disappear down the drain after flushing. Opening the phone then, he took one half in each hand and snapped it into two, then set it on the counter next to him.

Quickly, he showered and dressed. Light was filtering through the dingy drapes when he left the room, the pieces of phone stored securely in one of his pockets. Checkout was quick, the hotel didn't seem to be the place for great record keeping, and twenty minutes after he woke up, he was dumping the broken phone in a trash can and stepping into a cab. An hour and a half after waking up, he was showing his ticket to a gate agent and stepping onto a plane. He breathed a sigh of relief as the plane left the ground, let his head hit the back of the seat, and he closed his eyes.

Touchdown came a couple hours later, just past midday where he landed, and he found he'd slept through almost the entirety of the flight. He was more sore than he'd been when the day began, a small groan escaping him as he rose from the airplane seat in the awkward, hunched over fashion one had to adopt to get into the isle. Along with everyone else on the plane, he pulled his phone - his real phone - from his pocket and powered it on, curious to see if he'd have any messages waiting for him. He frowned at the lack of notifications coming through, and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Just off the plane, he handed over his passport and smiled pleasantly at the man behind the counter as he went through the script of questions he had to ask. After answering in the negative for each of them, the man gave him a final look, then stamped the passport and handed it back to him.

"Then Aidan Reed, welcome back home."

He took the offered passport with a nod and made his way into the main terminal without a problem, another step in his plan complete. It was in his second taxi of the day, a half hour later, that his phone buzzed and he saw her name appear on the screen. Dark eyes glanced at the driver in front of him, a man who appeared to have no interest in him or whatever conversation he may be about to have (and, in truth, he seemed to have only a slight interest in the position of the cars around them), and then he touched the screen to connect the call.

"Olivia?" he said after bringing the phone to his ear, surprise mixing easily with curiosity in his voice. "What's going on?"

 

[BasicBlonde]

The phone was still ringing. Olivia could hang up at any moment. She should hang up. Aiden Reed was the last person she should call. The last person who would care. Would she do the same, if the roles were reversed? Probably not. But besides her parents, for a while, he was the only person she'd ever call when she didn't know what to do. When she felt helpless. Of course, she didn't know how he could help her now. He was a couple thousand miles away, and she doubted he even knew she'd gotten married.

Before Olivia could come to her senses, she heard his voice. The way he said her name with such concern and surprise nearly broke her. When was the last time she'd even heard it? She couldn't remember. In efforts to move on after leaving him, she stopped answering his calls and moved out of her apartment. If she hadn't, Liv knew it would have been so easy to go right back to him, and start their vicious circle all over again. Just by simply hearing his voice now, she knew she'd made the right decision to cut herself off from him completely.

She hadn't even realized that the hand that held her cell phone, was trembling violently. Taking in a breath, the screen of her phone wet from the tears on her cheeks, she exhaled slowly.

"I--I don't even know why I called you," She admitted immediately, her free hand pressing to her forehead. Was she insane? Bare feet carried her to the balcony, so she could get some fresh air. The salty wind cooled her face once she was outside, blowing those golden locks away from her neck. It felt nice, but it didn't calm that racing heart of hers.

"Aiden, I got married." She said, finally. Pain returned to her chest, a feeling she was used to, and she took another deep breath. "Me and Jack, we've been in Cabo, but...god, I don't even know. This morning I woke up, and he was gone. Even all of his things...they're gone. It's like he was never here! He wouldn't just leave, I know him. Something's wrong, and I know it. No one here is helping, at least not yet, and I don't know what to do. I'm by myself, and I can't just leave! Something happened to him, Aiden." " As the words left her voice, Olivia choked out a sob. She sounded pathetic, but the only thing that was pathetic was that desperation had led her to call the one person who might've suggested that karma had found her. She deserved a lot of things for the way she'd broken off things with Aiden, but Jack didn't.

Clearing her throat, Olivia's voice changed. This was so wrong.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. I don't even know why I did," She realized, another cry escaping her throat. "I don't know what I thought you could do, honestly. I only know that you're the one person who would always come and get me out of a bind, when no one else would. But it's not fair to ask you anything, not anymore, and I'm sorry, Aiden. I'm sorry for a lot of things, but I'm sorry for this."

Her voice had calmed some, even if her trembling had not. Wiping her pretty face with her small hand, she drew in another deep breath. She needed to be strong, at least until she finished this call.

"Goodbye," She added, lastly, despite knowing how much he hated being hung up on without getting a last word in.