I stand by myself between our doors. My head is still dizzy, now filled with questions I desperately need answers to.
What just happened?
FOURTEEN
AUGUST
“I can’t wait to go home and get back to work at the bakery,” Ellie says as we board the plane.
“Did you let yourself relax on this vacation?” I ask. “Mentally?”
She puts her bag in the overhead bin that’s a seat in front of mine. I watch her struggle on the tips of her toes before Rowan leans over her and pushes the bag inside.
“Yeah, a couple days is plenty of time.” She sits in the seat next to the window, and I follow suit behind her. “I’m just excited to get back to work and get us closer to opening up the bakery.”
“I wish I could say the same,” I mutter and fasten my seatbelt.
Beau and James take a seat up front together. Addie and Hailey are on the opposite side of them. I unbuckle my seatbelt and hover over my sister's seat.
“I thought I was sitting next to Beau?” I ask.
“Did he know that?” Rowan asks, scrolling through emails on his phone.
“We booked our tickets together.” I sit back down and pull out my phone.
Me: Did you forget to book your seat next to mine?
Beau: Shit, sorry man. I messed up when I booked them online.
I leftBeau in charge of our tickets while I was busy at work and didn’t have time to handle them. I figured I could trust him to choose the best seats and keep us together. I’m not a fan of having to sit next to a stranger, especially on a plane where space is limited.
Me: Great, I’m gonna sit next to a stranger the entire time? You know how I feel about people being in my space if I don’t know them.
Beau: You’ll survive. Riley’s sitting with you.
My eyes go wide.How in the hell did it come to the point where Riley is sitting next to me? People are still boarding, and I take the opportunity to bug my sister again.
“Hey, who booked Riley’s ticket?” I whisper.
She turns to me with a cocked eyebrow. “I did, why?”
I grip the back of her chair while keeping my face neutral. “She didn’t do it herself?”
“Well, I wanted points on my credit card, so she said I could buy her ticket and then she’d pay me back. I asked everyone if they already had seats, and they said yes, but you didn’t. I know how you are with your personal space in tiny places.” She shrugs. “Is there a problem?”
I swear the corner of her mouth twitches like she’s up to no good. Scheming. Plotting.
“Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” Riley says, standing over the chair. “You really paired me with August?”
Unfortunately, the plane is a two-seater.
“You two are grown-ass adults, deal with it.” Ellie points at us, her voice stern.
Riley lets out an exaggerated sigh, stuffing her bag in the overhead bin and sitting down. Her hair is pulled back in a very, very tiny ponytail, her skin bare and dewy like she just moisturized, and she’s in sweatpants and a sweater.
We hadn’t spoken to each other since last night, after the unexpected, body-tingling kiss that I dreamt about. I knocked on her door this morning after I packed up my suitcase and was heading downstairs, but there was no answer.
Riley was already in the lobby, standing close to the girls, and she didn’t give me any attention. It stayed that way up until now. Now she’s sitting next to me. She’s stuck with me, and maybe this is the only chance I’ll get to talk to her about what we did.
