“What was what about?” Again, I sounded innocent.
“What Lola was saying.”
“Oh, I just mentioned to her that I’d like to get a beach house next summer.” Again, he tossed me a look, and this time, that look told me he knew there was more to it. I shrugged and gave him my best puppy dog expression. “She just mentioned she’s been itching for a certain kind of party, and now that she mentioned it… I might have the same itch, too.”
“Do I even want to know what kind of itch that is?”
I grinned hard. “I’m sure you can imagine. I think it would be fun, as long as you’re not a party-pooper like you were that one time Lola and Maddox were going at it and they invited me to watch—”
He groaned. “Are you ever going to let that go?”
“Depends, are you ever going to let me watch?”
All he did was grumble his response, and I couldn’t tell if it was a yes or a no.
“You know, if we get a beach house together, watching might only be the first step…”
Mike shook his head. “You’re going to drive me insane, you know that?”
“But that’s why you love me, isn’t it? I drove you insane from the get-go.”
The sound he made right then told me I wasn’t wrong, which was enough. It was also something that he didn’t immediately shut down the idea of a shared beach house and what we’d possibly do while inside it.
He probably knew by now that when my mind was set on something, he couldn’t do anything to change it, but I’d still take it as a win.
The college was beyond the river, and even though it’d been a while, driving up to that house still felt familiar to me, almost like coming home—but not quite. It was early in the afternoon. All the curtains in the house were drawn. I couldn’t see if anyone was home.
Didn’t matter. I didn’t want to come here to talk to her. Kelly might never be ready to speak with me again, let alone see me. I just wanted to give her a little something, something I hoped would bring closure to us both, even if she never read it.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, getting out of the car, envelope tight in my hand. Two things were inside it. The first was a hand-written letter telling her how sorry I was that she got mixed up in my business, how I wished things were different for us, how I never meant for any of this to happen to her.
It was good to get the words down, to put them out there, even if she never glanced twice at it. Cathartic without being too descriptive.
The second thing was a check, written to her name, meant to help ease her stress since she’d lost her roommate halfway through the semester. Again, whether or not she cashed the check and used the money to help pay rent didn’t matter. As soon as I put this envelope down, Kelly would occupy no more space in my head. Just as I was leaving behind this city, I would leave her and her memory behind, too.
Goodbyes were never easy. I learned that. You’d think they’d be easier when they weren’t done face-to-face, but you’d be wrong. No matter how you spun it, goodbyes were always hard.
I walked up to the front door, alone, well aware Fang, Kieran, and Mike all watched me. A welcome mat rested on the ground near the door, and I bent down to tuck the envelope beneath it, leaving a few inches sticking out.
Straightening up, I gazed at the house one last time before I drew in a deep breath and turned away from it. I didn’t look back once. I marched right toward Mike’s car, got in, buckled my seatbelt, and then said, “Let’s hit the road.” Just like that, the house became just another house to me, nothing special about it.
Cutting ties wasn’t something I was used to, and I didn’t know that I would ever be used to it. I sure as hell hoped I never had to leave a place behind like I was leaving this city.
But, I thought as I glanced at Mike, then at the two cars in the rearview mirror, I wasn’t leaving this city alone. I wasn’t leaving empty-handed, nor was I running. I had my guys, and we were heading toward a new beginning, to join Jason in Montana for a while.
This wasn’t an ending, but a new beginning.
Chapter Thirty – Laina
You’d think road trips would be easy, but a cross-country road trip as your very first one was probably not the easiest way to start out. Driving through the Appalachians was neat. Those mountains were full of trees and dense fog—not to mention some curvy highways that made you feel like you were riding in a roller coaster.
But, past that, once you got through the adjacent states to those, there were so many states that were just… flat. Flat and kind of boring to drive through. Like, so boring you got excited when you saw a tree. Seriously.
And the rest stops? It got to the point where there weren’t that many of them.
We did not drive straight through. Doing so would’ve been stupid and dangerous. Every night, when dusk fell, we hopped off whatever highway we were on and found a hotel with vacancies. Hated to report the front desk worker at each one we stopped at gave us weird looks when we asked for a single room with two beds.
Hey, we weren’t looking to waste a bunch of money on silly hotels in the middle of nowhere.
