5. Chapter 5
The brunette in the sundress shoved a piece of paper into Jase’s chest and snubbed the cigar she’d been smoking underneath the toe of her flats.
He was holding a letter in his dad’s handwriting.
“What is—”
A horn blared. His brother’s Volvo pulled up and parked behind the station wagon. Graham got out and shoved his keys into his cargo shorts, leaving the lanyard hanging out of his pocket like a douche bag.
“What’s going on?” Jase asked. “What is this?”
“This is Nadine.” Sundress, who smelled like tobacco and watermelons, with a pair of melons Jase wanted to get his hands on the second he parked his bike and saw her practically plated up on the curb, told his brother. “She’s our ride.”
“Our ride?“ Jase asked.
Graham set a hand on her hip and, with one eye on Jase, kissed her. The quick peck on the lips froze the blood in his veins.
You’re kidding me, Jase thought.
“You’re kidding me,” Graham said.
Sundress plucked the letter from Jase’s hands and gave it to his brother.
“It’s what Whitlock called me over for this morning,” she said.
“You met?” Graham motioned between her and Jase.
“Not officially, no.” She stuck out her hand. “Lindsey.”
“Jase.” He reached for her slowly. The long hair, the cut of her dress—low in the chest, high in the thighs—the classic wagon. Any idiot would’ve been drawn in. Jase closed his fingers around her hand and pulled her a step closer to him. “But you already knew that.”
Her cheeks turned as pink as the gloss on her lips. Graham’s eyes flicked between them.
“Great,” he muttered. “What’s this I’m reading now?”
“Your dad wants us to take this car on the trip,” Lindsey said.
Us. So this was her. The woman who was dating his brother and their dad wrote into the will. Jase had the feeling of being royally fucked and it didn’t have anything to do with the car.
Graham looked up from the letter. “This is a joke.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let me see that again,” Jase said.
Graham handed him the letter and said, “He can’t spring this on us last minute. We’re literally leaving today. Now.”
“Beautiful,” Jase chuffed at his dad’s description as he combed through the instructions. “I knew this old broad looked familiar.”
“Broad?” Lindsey asked.
“Tell me you’re not fine with this,” Graham said.
Jase’s opinion hadn’t made a difference in his father’s world in a long time. “What choice have we got?”
“There’s no way this car makes it five miles,” Graham argued.
Jase considered the Country Squire with fresh, undistracted focus.
It was almost identical to the beast they traveled in as kids.
Same funky, old cloth smell, same explosion of teal from the dash, floor, and seats to the exterior paint around the wood panel.
It would’ve made it around the block for a spin with Sundress—before she was Graham’s girlfriend—but across the state? The country?
“She’s aged well,” Jase offered.
“It has a plaid ceiling,” Graham deadpanned.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, marveling at the patchwork of black, white, and yellow lines crossing a teal backdrop. Definitely not a feature from their first wagon.
“Is that aftermarket too?” Lindsey asked.
Jase flattened his gaze on her cheery smile. “No idea.”
“I’m calling Whitlock,” Graham said.
“He told me to tell you all calls are triple today.”
He squeezed the phone in his fist and pressed his fist to his forehead. “It can never just be easy, can it?”
“It’s going to be okay. You don’t get to drive your car,” Lindsey said, gently lowering his arm. “Jase doesn’t get to ride his bike. He evened the playing field.”
“You didn’t know about this already, did you?”
“Seriously? Of course not.”
Graham’s sigh was deep, and deeply annoyed, as if what any of them wanted mattered with millions at stake.
“I still think this is a bad idea,” he said, shaking his head as he went back to his car, leaving Jase alone with Sundress.
Jase folded the letter, and even though he already knew the answer, he asked, “You knew it was me the whole time?”
“I can’t believe you didn’t,” she said.
“I’ve literally never seen you before.”
“Not even a picture?”
“No.”
“Hm.” She studied the circle of ash on the sidewalk from the snubbed cigar she held between her pink fingernails. “It’s weird we’ve never met until today, don’t you think?”
“How do you open this thing?” Graham called out from the back of the wagon with his suitcase. There was a click, and he said, “Never mind, I got it.”
Graham’s girlfriend was waiting for Jase’s answer. Was it weird they never met? Sure. Did he want to talk to her about it—about anything?
“Not really,” Jase said.
She hummed again, pursing those glossy lips. Her mouth on the cigar was one of the things that drew him over.
“Did you know there are seats back here?” Graham hollered. “You could fit, like, twenty kids.”
“Better get to work, then,” Jase said.
“Right,” Graham muttered. “It stinks. There’s a dead animal or something.”
“Better than how your car smells,” Jase said, pulling his attention from her exposed neck, lower. “Last time you stopped over, my apartment smelled like patchouli for a week.”
“It’s an improvement, believe me.” Graham slammed the rear door and came around to drape an arm around Lindsey’s waist. It was bigger than Jase remembered—Graham’s arm. Actually, his whole body looked beefier. “You ready? I’m dying for a coffee.”
“I know a place,” Jase said. “Give me a minute to grab my stuff.”