4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Aiden
I paced behind the truck, breathing into my cupped hands to warm my fingers. The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour, and the March morning felt more like January than the cusp of spring. As much as I was looking forward to a long weekend in the tropics, my stomach bunched in knots. Part of it was guilt, but that I could manage. I’d figure out Cammie’s dream vacation somehow and pay for it. Probably somewhere that didn’t involve flying. When I called Cammie to apologize for being the dumbass who created this mess, she admitted she was relieved she had a good excuse not to fly. I believed her. I’d still be buying her a kick-ass vacation package. The knots in my gut were because any minute now, Lauren would be settling into my life for the next four days like a nasty virus.
Cal leaned casually against my truck while I wore a hole in the pavement. “You OK, A?”
Asshole knew I wasn’t. He played wide receiver to my quarterback, and despite having the emotional intelligence of a gnat sometimes, he always knew when I was nervous before a game. Back then, he’d suggest some ridiculous prank to take my mind off the nerves, and we’d spend the pre-game minutes planning its execution. Half the time, we never enacted our idea. But the other half were some of my best memories from high school. Whether we were stealing the opposing team’s mascot costume or setting off a stink bomb in their locker room, Logan and Theo always joined us, mostly to keep Cal and me from getting our asses kicked off the team or arrested.
“You want me to drive, so you can sit in the back?” he asked.
“You couldn’t handle my truck.”
“Bet I could handle it better than you could handle Lauren,” he said with a smirk.
“Bet you don’t want me cuddling with your fiancée.” Cause no way in hell was I sitting next to Lauren if Cal doubled down on his dare.
That wiped the smirk from his face. Rowan might as well be one of my sisters at this point, which I figured he knew. Still, Cal and I loved a good competition and spent most of our twenties chasing the same women who were down for a good time and nothing more. If we ever compared lists, I’m sure we shared a few, but Cal has always been a gentleman.
“I get this is awkward for you,” Cal said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “But can you please try to be civil with Lauren? For me.”
“When have you ever known me to be civil?”
Cal shoved my shoulder. “You know what I mean. Try not to goad her.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, which could either be taken as a promise to leave her alone or take my jabs to the next level.
Karma’s backdoor opened with an irritating creak and Rowan stepped out, dragging a suitcase behind her. Cal ran over and grabbed it before looping his arm in hers and helping her to the truck like she was made of glass. I’d have done the same. It was cold enough for black ice, and one fall would probably move up the spinal surgery she had scheduled after their wedding.
“Lauren’s coming,” Rowan said, smiling. “She’s just grabbing a few things.”
Cal looked relieved. The knot in my stomach tightened.
“Give me that,” I said, motioning for the bag.
“Be careful with it,” Rowan said as the back door creaked again.
“Princess Lauren doesn’t want her suitcase scuffed?” Good thing I hadn’t promised Cal I’d behave. Truth was, I enjoyed getting Lauren riled up, especially since I seemed to be the only person who could.
Rowan glared at me, which was kind of adorable and scary at the same time. With her red hair and small features, she looked like one of the fairies from my gram’s stories, but I’d seen firsthand how feisty Rowan could be while defending someone she loved.
“She just knows you’re an oaf,” Lauren said behind me.
Rowan turned her glare toward her best friend while I carefully lifted the suitcase into the truck bed and secured it. “Good enough for you?” I asked, finally turning around to face her. And fuck me. Even at this hour, standing in a dirty alley under crummy street lighting, she looked radiant.
Her long brown hair was in the thick braid she always wore while working. It’d grown since the one time I wrapped it around my wrist and took her from behind. Her full lips were set in the frown she always aimed at me. Her usually warm eyes narrowed to steely slits like they always did whenever she looked my direction.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’d have driven myself, but Rowan and Chris hid my keys.”
“Sorry to hear it. Hope you don’t mind the back seat.”
She glanced at my truck, which was brand new, top of the line, and the largest on the market. I’d needed more seats to haul my guys to and from job sites, so Sam started driving my old truck, and I found a six-seater large enough to fit three full-grown men in the back. Yeah, it got dirty from time to time, but I’d had the entire cab detailed before the trip. She’d be more comfortable in my back seat than driving her piece-of-shit sedan.
“It’s fine,” she said, walking to the rear driver’s-side door and climbing in. Of course, she’d chosen the seat where I couldn’t see her unless I leaned into the middle to look in the rearview mirror.
“Your best sucks,” Cal said, fighting a laugh. He put his arm around Rowan’s waist and pulled her close for the walk to the rear passenger side.
I yanked a tarp over the entire truck bed and secured it while I took a few calming breaths. Lauren and I would ruin this trip for everyone if we didn’t at least attempt to play nice. I needed to get a grip. We both did.
I climbed into the driver’s seat and couldn’t help smiling. Poppy and Theo were curled into each other on the front bench like a pair of emo kittens, fast asleep. I closed the door as softly as I could. Theo and Poppy were both night owls, and everyone would be better off if they got a few more hours of sleep on the way to the airport. I questioned whether Poppy would even remember climbing into the truck. I half expected her to jolt up at some point during the drive, confused why she and Theo weren’t in bed.
Rowan and Lauren chatted quietly as I drove to the interstate, but once I merged onto the highway and hit seventy miles an hour, even their murmurs disappeared. There’s a stillness to the blackest hour before dawn that I’ve always appreciated. Working construction, I’m often awake before sunrise, savoring the calm before another hectic day of pounding hammers and power tools. But the quiet today felt odd, heavy. It wasn’t often I was surrounded by other people, yet completely alone.
Twenty minutes into the three-hour drive, after the sky had lightened behind the dark mountains, I glanced in the rearview mirror to check if anyone was still awake. Lauren glared at me.
“Eyes on the road,” she said, loud enough for me to hear.
Poppy let out a disgruntled huff and burrowed closer to Theo. He tightened his inked arm around her, and she settled back to sleep.
“Try not to wake Hell Cat,” I said, only slightly softer than Lauren had spoken. “I’m not in the mood to get scratched.”
Lauren gripped my headrest and leaned close enough for her breath to caress my neck. “Stop calling her that.”
I turned toward her voice, wishing there wasn’t a seat between us, so I could bury my face in her hair and whisper in her ear. “Jealous I haven’t given you a nickname?”
“You’re a jerk,” she said. “That name’s offensive and Poppy is more sensitive than she lets on.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I asked, my voice far too loud.
Poppy let out another groan and flung a large straw hat over her face like it would protect her from noise.
Lauren stuck her arm through the space between my seat and the door and pulled herself closer. Too close. “You don’t strike me as—”
“Sit back,” I yelled. “Buckle your fucking seatbelt.”
Theo shot awake, his breathing loud enough for me to hear. We both waited in tense silence until we heard the click of Lauren’s belt.
“Never do that again,” I yelled.
“I need to tinkle,” Poppy said, breaking the tension that had settled like molasses inside the truck. “Mind pulling over, Stud Man?”
If I wasn’t so pissed, I would have chuckled at the nickname she’d given me just this week when I hung a shelf at her bakery. Instead, I put on my signal and moved to the right lane to take the next exit.
As the truck slowed on the ramp, Poppy reached over and rubbed my arm. I loosened my death grip on the steering wheel and blew out a breath.
So I guess Theo had told Poppy everything about the accident. How I’d unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed into the front seat to show Cal something on my phone moments before Theo wrapped the car around a tree while trying to avoid a deer. How seconds before the crash, Logan had unbuckled his seatbelt to pull me back into my seat and buckled me in, saving my life and costing him his own. Logan was dead and Theo spent a year in prison because of my stupid mistake.
I wondered if Cal had told Rowan. If so, had she told her best friend or was Lauren fuming in the backseat, pissed that I’d yelled at her without understanding how terrified I’d been when I realized she wasn’t buckled in. I decided she didn’t know. Lauren didn’t like me, but she’d never be carelessly cruel.
When we pulled into a gas station parking lot, Poppy twisted around and said, “Lauren, Rowan, you’re coming with me.”
Doors opened. Theo and Poppy slid out. The door behind me slammed shut.
“Shit,” I said, resting my head on the steering wheel.
Theo walked around the front of the truck, opened my door, and motioned for me to get out.
“I’m fine,” I said, sitting back in my seat.
“I’m not,” he said. “I need to drive.”
“Let him,” Cal said from the back seat.
I glared at him. “You know I will.” Because I’d show Theo, any chance I could, that I trusted him to drive me despite the accident that wrecked my shoulder and ended my football career.
I climbed from the driver’s seat, and Theo pulled me into a one-armed hug. I pounded his back twice and crossed over to the passenger side. Cal launched into a conversation about the different hiking trails on St. John, and by the time Rowan, Poppy, and Lauren returned to the truck, most of the tension had left my body.
I stepped out for Poppy to slide into the middle, but before I could climb back in, Lauren grabbed my hand. I hadn’t touched her since that night. Despite the years of venom between us, my chest ached when she curled her fingers around mine.
“I didn’t know,” she said in a voice so gentle I wanted to kiss the words from her lips.
I pulled my hand from hers and held it up. “We’re good.”
She nodded but looked so close to tears it took everything in me not to reach for her.
“Truce,” I said, holding up my pinkie like we were third graders in a playground spat. “At least for the rest of the trip.”
She stared at my pinkie a moment before finally aiming those kind eyes at me. “Truce,” she said, twisting her slim finger with mine.
The truce lasted all the way to the airport and through the flight, where Lauren and I somehow ended up seated together and where she immediately fell asleep after takeoff and drifted onto my shoulder. I tortured myself with her ginger and coffee scent for a good hour before I eased her against the window and told my dick to calm down since no way in hell was I jacking it in a tiny plane bathroom to thoughts of a woman who hated me.