“Morning, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?”
I run a hand through my hair. I can feel the sweat and grease in its lengths; I really need to hop in the shower myself and scrub my body down from head to toe. “Good. Still a little tired, but… but good. Think it’s finally over.”
As I say it, it hits me: if my heat is over, that means it’s time to go back to the real world and face the consequences of our actions. Rourke has said I’ll have the full support of Alabaster Security behind me, but I’d be lying if I said that made me feel any better. I’m not looking forward to seeing my aunt again.
She’s not going to like how things turned out, not one bit.
He grins harder. “I’d say so. That was…” There are so many adjectives he could use to describe the past few days, but I don’t expect him to pick the one he does. “Amazing. It was kind of nice to not have to worry about anything except you.”
His smile is infectious, damn it. The corners of my mouth tug into a slight smile when I say, “Yeah, you three are pretty good at sharing, from what I remember.”
Asher chuckles, the sound an awkward one, which is quite silly when you think about it, considering everything we’ve shared and seen together. Maybe that awkwardness is just a part of his personality that will never fully disappear. “Yeah, we were, huh? Just goes to show how good we work together as a team.”
With a nod, I say, “It does. Where are Rourke and Mason?”
“Mason is taking a shower. Rourke is throwing something in the oven. I don’t know about you, but I am starving for something a bit more filling than protein bars.”
“I should shower, too.” I work on getting up, but Asher is by my side the next second, helping me get to my feet, as if I’m weak. “I can handle getting to the bathroom by myself.” I say that part out of habit, and then I force myself to add, “But thank you.”
Changing habits and ways of thinking isn’t easy. It’s going to take some time before I can accept the fact that these guys are here to stay, that they want me, that they’re in my corner no matter what.
Asher helps me to the bathroom, and he even turns on the shower for me. “I’ll grab you some clean clothes,” he tells me. “And then I’ll start cleaning up the room. We have a lot of laundry to do before we leave.”
Yes, that we do.
While he goes to do just that, I sit on the toilet and wait for the water to heat up. I really do feel like I could go for a nap, but I can’t sleep anymore. There really is so much to do before we leave, and it’s probably best for us if we leave the cabin as quickly as possible. The faster we get back to the city, the sooner this can be put behind us and I can hopefully claim my inheritance and kick my aunt out of my house.
Where will she go? I don’t know. She has family she can turn to, unlike me—a family she never invited me into. Anytime she went to visit them, I was never invited. Even when I was a kid, fresh out of that accident, I was another.
Maybe it makes me cold and a bit of a bitch, but I don’t care where she goes or what she does next.
I get up and move to the shower once I’m certain the water has heated up. I stick a hand in the water’s path to test it out before I fully step inside the walk-in shower. The moment that hot water hits my skin, I let out a slow breath I feel as if I’ve been holding for years and years. The relief that’s in me, I can’t explain it.
Everything I fought for, everything I rallied against; everything is about to come full circle, and I’m ready. I’m so ready for whatever comes next.
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Jess
It takes a full day to clean the heat room from bottom to top. Though I remain adamant the entire time that I don’t need their help with it, they are soldiers in how they execute it. The blankets, the pillows; everything gets washed. Walls get scrubbed down. The floor gets vacuumed and steam-cleaned once it’s cleared of all extra objects.
It is definitely a job, a big job that probably would have taken me a full week if I would have done it myself. So, in that way, I am grateful to the guys for helping out.
I mean, some of the mess is from them, anyway. It’s not all me.
After the room is taken care of, it’s time to pack. It’s late that day, so we decide to leave early the next morning. We take whatever food we can and pack everything up that we won’t use the next morning; the extra food in the refrigerator and the freezer will have to be thrown out once we reach a town. Needless to say, none of us want to create any issues for Asher and Mason’s parents the next time they come up here.
I’ve met them before, the misters and missus. At some school function, way back when. They knew Asher and I were close. They seemed nice, from what little I can remember. I suppose, soon enough, I’ll have to meet them all over again.
Same with Rourke’s mom.
Frankly, I don’t know that I’m confident enough to meet any of them just yet. It’s a lot of pressure, even though I know the guys will stand by me no matter what. Having their parents like me is… it’s important to me in a way I never thought possible. I want their parents to like me, I want their parents’ approval.
Not something I thought I’d ever care about.
But, alas, one thing at a time. One big, momentous event at a time.
Morning comes all too soon, and I’d be lying if I say I slept well. The guys all offered to sleep with me, but I knew if they slept in the same bed, we’d be tempted to dirty the sheets up all over again. Obviously, I didn’t want that. Waking up early without having to wake up even earlier in order to do another load of laundry was bad enough.
I’m too nervous to eat breakfast.
