I shushed him again and flung open the back door. The others looked confused as we climbed inside.
“Please,” I whispered, without even thinking. “We need to go.”
Carter’s brow furrowed as I climbed all the way back, into the bench seat. Bodie turned to look back at us.
“Go?”
“Justdrive,” I pleaded. “NOW.”
There was confusion in their eyes as we pulled away. Carter spent the whole time looking at me in the rear-view mirror, his expression laced with deep concern. Bodie was staring at Sawyer, who only shrugged.
Was it really him?My mind rejected the whole idea, suddenly.Could it really have been Cole, though? This many miles away?
It certainly looked and sounded like him. From the back, anyway. And that was definitely his stupid car: the 60’s era Mustang he was so proud of, that he could barely squeeze his giant ass into. A cool car in theory, but not when the steering wheel is practically in your chest.
Of course, other people had old Mustangs. Even some people in Maine. Not to mention Cole had no earthly idea where I was, or how to find me. The sheer amount of messages he’d left could attest to that.
“Hayden…” Carter eventually ventured. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, a little too quickly. “I just… I want to go home. I need to go home.”
Sawyer climbed into the back with me. He took my hand in his and squeezed it reassuringly.
“Alright, no big deal. There’s still a few drinks and snacks back at the cabin. We can just—”
“No, I want to gohomehome,” I interjected. “Back to New York.”
Bodie lifted an eyebrow. “Right now?”
“Yes,” I muttered glumly. “Please.”
An uncomfortable silence blanketed the interior of the vehicle. I could see the struggle in their eyes, just beyond the disappointment. They wanted desperately to ask me what happened. They wanted to know what could’ve possibly changed in the last few minutes.
But all three of them were afraid to open their mouths.
You could just tell them, you know.
No, no way. Not after all the trouble Cole had already caused them. If God forbid it actually turned out to be him, and the psychohaddriven all the way up here? Who knows what the hell he might do? Not to mention whattheymight do, in the event of a confrontation.
No, the idea of telling them was out the window. I’d caused them more than enough trouble. From here on out, my problems were my own.
“Alright then,” Carter sighed finally, working hard to keep a reassuring tone. “New York it is. Nothing wrong with leaving tonight, we’ll beat the traffic.”
“Thank you,” I sighed in relief. “I really appreciate it.”
With that I scrunched down in the sanctity of the big Yukon, letting the heated leather rise up around me. The bench seat felt soothing as I settled into it. It felt even more soothing when Sawyer pulled me into his two big arms and wrapped them around me, calming all ten thousand of my racing, conflicting thoughts.
I was asleep in minutes.
~ 18 ~
BODIE
The Refuge looked different in the rain: more cozy, less cold. Maybe it was the red-tinted windows that were original to the bar, even if half of them were gone. It was still enough, though. Those windows beckoned you in from the street on a gloomy afternoon like this, with their warm, fuzzy glow.
I found Carter exactly where I expected to; standing behind the bar, bent over two giant piles of mail. The larger of the two stacks had those cellophane windows, that looked like bills. And that’s because they were bills, if we were being honest.
“It never stops, does it?” I smiled.
