All Areas Accessed - Sequel to Access All Areas

Chapter Twenty Nine

"Rhys, Maci is safe. She apparently stayed with a friend near Pasadena yesterday and should be with your mom real soon. I think she was enjoying playing with your heads for a little while, before deciding to surface again after her little walk out from the rehab."

Closing my eyes with sheer relief, I talk with the relief being at the forefront of a very long sigh. "Thanks, Will...thanks for everything." Opening my eyes and promptly ending the call, I seek out Clara with waves of relief still rushing right through me. "Mace has been found. She's okay."

Clara smiles, broad and brightly. "That's great news! Where is she now?"

Knowing that I've neglected Clara far more than I ever intended to during the preoccupied journey back home, I grab her hand and kiss it with tender guilt. "She's on her way to moms." Sidling up closer against her seated body, I just smile. I smile because Clara has put up with all of my quietness and my emotional distance, and I smile because she's now smiling at me. "Thank you."

Clara blinks, still smiling. "What for?"

"For being here." I want to also say 'for putting up with me' and for 'remaining close', even when I've struggled to do the same. But instead, I keep our hands entwined and my smile tattooed on my indebted lips.

As Slam continues to drive us through the San Fernando Valley; en route to my moms place in Porter Ranch, I watch Clara taking in all of the suburban scenery that's breathtakingly bound together with the Transverse Ranges mountains. With her hand in mine, she quietly absorbs the place that I hope she will one day eventually call home.

I remain silent beside her, just because I'm beyond exhausted and just want to peacefully enjoy the quiet solace I have with merely holding Clara's hand.

As the exhaustion and total relief settles itself down, Clara soon turns to me, looking a little awkward. "Maybe I should just wait in the car when you get to your mums?"

Surprised and more than a little confused, I express that right away. "Why?"

"I've never met your family before, Rhys...it's hardly the best time for me to be introduced to them, is it?" She's calm but obviously beginning to feel totally overwhelmed by the prospect of having to meet my family. And I get that, I really do, but I need Clara with me. I need her to navigate me through all the emotional shit that I'm just about to step right into. That's when the guilt hits me like a freight train. I've been distant and detached, and my actions have now made Clara feel like she is in the way.

I have to rectify that.

I have to rectify that, right now!

"Clara, I want you there with me. You've quickly become an important element in my life. Without you in it, things with Maci would have been much harder. Just having you by my side, helps." Maybe I should have told her this earlier, but I'm wholeheartedly telling her it now. Lifting her chin slightly, with the tips of my affectionate fingers, I look deeply into her worried teal eyes. "You make all of this easier, so I want you with me, okay?"

Nodding with a mildly given smile, Clara agrees. "Okay." Then her eyes and her slight smile slide away from me, returning their attention back to the comfort of the passing by scenic views.

I know I am asking a lot of my girl. Not even I can be sure of what we'll be walking into, so to expect Clara to happily want to do it, is a really big ask. And maybe that is wrong of me to ask her to do it? Maybe it is wrong to ask it of her, when I know she will want to do anything to help me. Maybe I'm taking advantage of what Clara feels for me, in order to bolster my ego through a really difficult situation?