Chapter 5
NATALIE
T he screen door creaked as I stepped onto the porch, the morning air biting at my skin like it held a personal grudge.
I was half human, half bed gremlin, still wearing the leggings and hoodie I’d tossed on after my restless night in the twin bed from hell.
That mattress was a relic of my middle school years, and it felt like it had a personal vendetta.
I was convinced there was a spring in there sharpened to impale dreams.
Or at least that was the excuse I was giving myself for the fact that I hadn’t slept a wink.
I’d stayed in the treehouse for most of the night.
Paige had come out eventually, laughing like it was the best thing she’d ever seen, until I reminded her that I still owed her for the time she cut my hair in my sleep in first grade.
I told her I may not have had scissors right then, but I had adult-level pettiness and access to bleach.
That had shut her up.
Needless to say, I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep last night.
When I finally dragged myself out of bed this morning, I’d tripped over a box of dog toys right out of the gate.
Because apparently this house had become booby-trapped since I’d left it.
Frederick Von Licktenstein’s squeaky pizza slice had launched me face-first into a pile of decorative pillows that hadn’t been decorative in at least ten years.
I would have loved to blame my mother for this chaos, but she had the audacity to text me before I could:
Mom: We’re all headed to the venue! Come when you’re alive.
Thanks for the empathy, Mother. Remind me to nominate you for Humanitarian of the Year.
I made my way to my car, keys in hand. The sooner I got to the B&B, the closer I would be to all this being over.
Had I been tempted to get off in my childhood bedroom thanks to the non stop Easton montage that was going through my head?
Yes.
Had I successfully managed to stop myself from such a thing?
Also yes.
But only because I knew from experience how thin the walls in the house were.
I’d get in my car and drive, blast music that had nothing to do with love or heartbreak, suck down three coffees, pretend I wasn’t two seconds away from a full meltdown…and then I’d hide out in my room until it was time for me to do maid of honor things.
It was a solid plan, I thought. What could go wrong?
Sliding into the driver’s seat, I shoved the key into the ignition and turned.
Nothing.
Not even a sputter. Just dead, lifeless silence.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I muttered, smacking my forehead against the steering wheel.
Again. I turned the key harder, as if that would help.
Still nothing .
It was dead. My car was dead. And the venue? A solid two hours away.
Of course.
Evidently, this was what could go wrong.
I leaned back in the seat, staring up at the sky like the answers might be up there. They weren’t. Just a family of squirrels mocking me from the branches.
This was fine. Everything was fine.
I was still muttering to myself as I popped the hood, more out of habit than hope.
This car—Old Bessie, may she rest in unpredictable peace—had already had a hundred thousand miles on it when I’d inherited her at sixteen.
She’d lived through my Easton heartbreak, two flat tires, a rogue raccoon incident, and exactly one regrettable road trip to Florida.
She was my ride or die.
Until apparently…today.
When she’d decided to die.
As I climbed out of the car and stared at the engine like it might miraculously come back to life, I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching.
I turned just as a shiny, lifted truck pulled into the driveway, tires spitting pebbles from the road. My stomach sank when I saw the driver.
The sexy-beast, gird-your-loins, handcuff-yourself-to-a-pole-so-you-don’t-jump-him, driver.
Easton.
He was wearing a backwards hat and a cocky grin that should be illegal before ten a.m. Something that happened to be an issue for my kind—aka every girl with a freaking pulse.
He stepped out like sin in denim. Worn jeans that clung in all the right places, a thermal shirt that looked spray-painted onto his stupidly sculpted chest, and that hat—fuck, that hat—that made every rational thought I’d ever had do a nose-dive off a cliff.
I wasn’t wearing makeup. Or a bra. I was in leggings that were one sneeze away from betraying me and a hoodie that may or may not have pizza sauce on the front.
How dare he look so hot this morning?
Especially when I didn’t think that my shower had actually gotten all the leaves out from my fall yesterday evening. I was planning on getting super hot once I got to the bed-and-breakfast. I wasn’t ready for this so early in the day.
“Need a ride?” he called, doing some kind of sexy prowl that had me gritting my teeth.
I crossed my arms and glared, pretending my heartbeat wasn’t punching itself in the face. “What are you doing here?”
“You keep asking me that, Trouble,” he said with a smirk, adjusting his hat in a way that made his forearm muscles flex. Not fair. Muscles should not flex like that without warning.
“You keep popping up in places,” I retorted, yanking my gaze away from him and staring at the engine of my car like it held all the secrets to the universe. “And not like a cute groundhog, might I add. Like a mole.”
“Oh, are groundhogs known for being cute? I wasn’t aware of that.” I could hear the stupid smile on his lips.
“Well, now you know,” I said haughtily. Even though I had no idea if they were cute or not.
Easton stepped closer, his presence warming the air around me like he had a personal force field of cologne and body heat. “Regardless, it looks like you might need a lift.”
I could feel his body next to mine, close enough that my brain went offline for a second and started writing poetry I was never going to admit to. There was something about the curve of his jaw and the scent of him that apparently was still calling for my destruction even after all this time…
Ugh, there was my stupid heart again.
It was freaking pining.
I groaned inwardly, swiping a hand down my face. “I’m fine. I was just on my way. ”
Easton tilted his head, looking at my dead car with exaggerated skepticism. “Yeah, sure. Looks like you’re all set.”
I glanced from my sweet, stubborn Old Bessie to his truck. It gleamed in the morning sun, a big upgrade from the beat-up one he’d driven in high school. Figures even his truck would be sexier.
I, evidently, was cursed like that.
Easton leaned against my car, crossing his arms in a way that made the muscles in his forearms flex again. “You can sit here all morning and wait for a tow, or you can hop in and let me save the day.”
“I don’t need saving,” I said, my voice clipped, even as I shivered and immediately regretted not wearing real pants.
Easton raised his eyebrows, his grin widening. “You’re awfully stubborn for someone who’s stranded .”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
“I’m…evaluating my options.”
“Uh-huh.” He scratched his jaw like he was thinking real hard. “Would one of those options be accepting a ride from the guy who’s offering, no strings attached?”
My eyes narrowed. “Do you even know how to do ‘no strings attached,’ Maddox?”
His grin widened, and damn it, it was still the most devastating thing I’d ever seen. “Not when it comes to you.”
Boom. There went my ovaries. I didn’t need them. Not for this trip anyway.
I wanted to argue, but my family was already gone, and asking them to come back and get me with all the wedding stuff going on would just be rude.
I also didn’t have the time to wait around for a tow truck to take my car to the mechanic to get fixed, as the first wedding event was in just a few hours.
Not to mention I didn’t want to have to pay for what a cab ride would cost.
“Fine,” I muttered, stalking toward his truck. “But we are not doing the thing. ”
“What thing?”
“The thing,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “Where we rehash old memories or talk about what we’ve been up to the last couple of years.”
“You mean the last twenty-three months, twenty days, and twelve hours,” he offered casually.
I tripped over my own feet. Literally. Because my brain had short-circuited at his disturbingly accurate math. “That was oddly specific.”
“Mmm,” he said vaguely, winking at me like he was actually trying to kill me. “I like to be precise about the important things.”
Like the date I dumped him. Great.
Why was I like this?
He opened the passenger door like a gentleman—or a man who was secretly trying to ruin my life with his good manners—and I stood there debating if I could vault into the truck without flashing him or tearing something.
Spoiler alert: I could not.
“Ah,” I cried out as Easton’s strong hands gripped my waist, lifted me up like I weighed nothing, and set me in the cab.
“That’s also not allowed, Maddox,” I managed to comment after I finally collapsed in my seat, sparks lighting up my veins from where he’d been touching me.
I took a deep breath. Well, that was a mistake. The truck smelled like new leather and cologne—his cologne—aka my favorite scent in the world.
“What’s not allowed?” he asked, cocking his head, that same smug, hot, annoying smile on his lips as he watched me desperately take in hits of his scent like it was the only oxygen my body recognized.
“Touching,” I said pointedly. “No touching allowed.”
“Phew, I thought you were going to say that I wasn’t allowed to stare at your perfect ass. And then I would have to say no, and it would be this whole thing. ”
He closed the door in my face before I could say anything.
The audacity .
Easton got behind the wheel, a grin on his face like he’d won some kind of competition.
“Natalie?” he asked, sounding amused. It took me a second to realize words had come out of his mouth, I was so entranced watching the muscles in his forearms move as he turned the steering wheel. I blinked and casually wiped my face, making sure no drool had slipped off.