Chapter 5 #2
She inhaled sharply, but interestingly enough, didn’t pull back. “I want to be able to do this myself next time,” she said while staring at my mouth.
“Good idea,” my mouth said while wondering what hers would taste like, and how her legs might feel wrapped around my hips?—
“So…show me?” she murmured.
I blinked, for a split second thinking she wanted me to follow through on my fantasies. But then she smirked.
“That’s cruel,” I muttered.
She laughed, the sound contagious, and the way she gestured to the sink, silently demanding I get on with it, made me laugh too. I showed her what to do, how to pull off the bad part and replace it.
She reached into the sink to do the work, our arms brushing, her hair in my face, but neither of us shifted away. Not surprisingly, she followed my instructions to the T, her nose adorably scrunched in fierce concentration.
“How did you learn to do all this stuff ?” she asked, leaning against the counter as I gathered up the tools.
I shrugged. “Growing up, we lived in a lot of places that were…not new. I got good at taking things apart and putting them back together again.” I was pretty sure she was listening, but her eyes were on my mouth again.
“How do you still smell good after a long day at work?” she whispered.
I couldn’t help the grin, and she blinked as if she hadn’t meant to ask that out loud.
I laughed. “You think I smell good.”
Tossing up her hands, she went back to the table.
Knowing now was the perfect time to ask her, I instead gathered my stuff and moved to the door, because I really wished I’d told Nell no so I could do this just for me.
“Ryder.”
I turned to find Penny holding out a baggie of her cookies.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Genuinely. “How much do we owe you?”
I took the baggie. “Consider the debt paid, and thanks for lunch.” Ask her, ask her , a little voice inside my head said.
She tilted her head. “What are you having for dinner?”
I just stared at her. She made a sound that clearly meant I was an idiot before going to the freezer and pulling out a container that she carefully packed into a cold pack–style lunch box.
“Chicken enchiladas. Enough for you and Hank. Warm them up in the oven, not the microwave.”
Two things. One, she’d said Hank, not “your dad,” which meant she’d picked up on my complicated feelings about the man and didn’t seem to judge me for it. And two…I might’ve just fallen in love right then and there.
At war with myself, I didn’t ask her.
The cookies were gone five minutes into the drive to my last stop of the day, one that had my heart aching.
Twenty minutes later, the smile Penny had put on my face was long gone as I navigated the narrow, two-lane road.
I passed through rolling hills and vineyards dotted with pockets of ageless redwood groves, the towering giants piercing the sky.
Above, the last beams of sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, dappling the road in a mosaic of light and shadow.
When I pulled into the parking lot, a gorgeous sunset sat in my rearview, the evening sky now streaked in moody, bruised blue and purple swaths across the horizon.
It matched my state of mind.
I locked the truck, breathing in the earthy scent of redwood and fresh, rained-on dirt before I began walking across the grassy rolling hills.
All too soon, I stood before a gravestone, and as I did every time I’d been here in the past two years, I crouched low and swiped my hands over the granite, dislodging fallen leaves and pollen.
Grief battered me, just as heart-stopping and soul-crushing as ever, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “ Hey, Auggie.”
The trees overhead immediately rustled, and I could’ve sworn I felt a warm breeze. I let out a rough, low laugh, pressing a hand to my aching chest. I wasn’t sure what I believed when it came to the afterlife, but it was hard to deny that I always felt my best friend’s presence here.
We’d met when we were just two punk-ass kids on a Coast Guard base.
Over the years, we’d each moved a lot, but occasionally ended up at the same station, and it was always like no time had passed.
We stayed thick as thieves despite the miles, past rough family lives, through getting into colleges on opposite coasts, becoming business partners, and then brothers-in-law when he married Kiera.
All to have him shockingly die two years ago, on his thirtieth birthday.
I wished Kiera had come with me, but she still couldn’t be here with any of us, only alone.
Alone was her favorite state these days, and we tried to honor that.
Meaning the schedule we’d created to keep an eye on her and the kids was a secret because we enjoyed breathing.
Either myself, Caleb, or Tucker checked in with her every few days, leaving food, filling her gas tank, handling her honey-do list, hanging out with her three-year-old twins Alex and Abi, whatever we could think of to make sure she knew, like it or not, that she wasn’t on her own.
Kiera had gone from resenting the intrusions to being… almost glad she had siblings. We were slowly wearing her down.
Well, Caleb and Tucker were.
She was still mad at me. She never said so—she didn’t have to. And though I didn’t blame her, not after how Auggie had died, it still broke my heart.
“Hey, man, brought you a chair.”
I’d heard the footsteps of two people coming up behind me, but hadn’t turned because I knew who they were, even before the one with the uneven gait had given them away.
Tucker appeared first, the youngest Colburn brother, our rebel and resident rule breaker, and while he was undoubtedly the least serious of us, he was also the most feral and adventurous.
I had lost years of my life trying to rein him in.
Thankfully, he’d left his feral years behind him. Well, mostly.
Caleb was the classic middle child, wild, reckless, fearless, and…enjoyed his role as the family screw-up. I narrowed my eyes at him as he strode unevenly across the grassy knoll thanks to that long-lasting, brutal, career-ending college hockey injury.
“You better not have hacked my phone again to find me,” I said.
Caleb, six foot two, tatted up, both of those things endearingly at odds with his thick-rimmed glasses that he couldn’t see without, rolled his eyes.
“Where’s the trust?”
I turned to Tucker, who didn’t look the least bit apologetic.
“Of course we hacked your phone. If you don’t like it, answer a fucking text once in a while.” He set up the three beach chairs he carried in a semi-circle facing Auggie’s gravestone.
Caleb held out a large pizza box and a six-pack of beer.
I sighed, which they took as permission to stay.