Chapter 30 #2
It works. This close, her face is blurry, but I can see her open her eyes. She yelps, jumping from surprise. Unfortunately, this makes her forehead collide with my nose. A splinter of pain shoots through my face.
“Ow, shit!” I exclaim, cupping my nose with my hand.
“Oh my God, Jude, I’m sorry!” She claps her hands to her face and spins around. She’s looking for her glasses. “What happened?”
I grab them from the table, my nose still killing me. “Here,” I manage. “Sleeping. Did your brother play video games or something?”
“What?”
“Your brother—never mind.”
She pulls her gasses on, then freezes, her head tilted. “Is that a helicopter?” She jumps off the bed. I don’t think she realized she was standing on it. What must it be like to spend every night with Nora Albright?
But before she can pull the curtain, there’s an even louder banging on the door. “Madam! Sir!”
The handle rattles and the chair slips easily loose, banging on the floor as the door opens. Sister Carolina comes in, looking frantic, though she’s momentarily confused by the chair on the floor.
I grimace. “Guess that only works in the movies.”
Nora’s cheeks are pink. “Hello, Sister!” Her voice is higher pitched than normal.
But Sister Carolina is staring at me, her jaw wagging but no sound comes out.
I look down. I’m in only my shorts, and those are riding low enough to be nearly indecent.
“Jude!” Nora whispers.
I hitch the shorts up.
She lets out an exasperated sound and takes her sheet, wrapping it around me like a toga, all the while the sound outside is close to deafening.
I love her fussing over me.
Carolina seems able to breathe again because she trains her eyes on Nora. “Madam,” she shouts. “We received a call this morning indicating a transportation will be arriving for you outside. We did not understand this meant now, or that it would be”—she points her hand to the window—“this.”
The helicopter must be landing because it sounds as if it’s in the room with us. I pull open the curtain to see a giant, shiny black bird just lowering itself onto the giant expanse of snow behind the building.
Snow whirls everywhere, flying so high it obscures the craft from sight.
I wonder, inanely, what kind of helicopter that is. Griff would know. Then it hits me, a moment later than it should. “Uh, that’s probably my brother.”
Carolina still won’t look me in the eye. I peek down to see if I’ve got morning wood or something, but everything’s in place.
“We’ll be out in a minute,” Nora assures her.
Carolina nods and lifts the chair back to its feet before slipping from the room.
Somehow, it’s this part—the sister setting my failed door lock back on its feet—that makes me crack.
When I meet Nora’s eyes, we both grin, then we both lose it, falling over each other as we laugh so hard we can’t breathe.
This goes on several seconds before I say, “Guess we better see what Griff wants,” which only makes Nora laugh harder.
Until she sucks in a breath, crying out in almost a shriek. She bends down and picks up the purple vibrator, the one we didn’t use.
She throws it at me. “I can’t believe you brought these!”
Of course it bounces off me and lands on the ground and goes off again, then we’re both wheezing. I pick it up and turn it off. “Want to test it out?”
“Jude,” Nora manages after a moment. “We have to go!”
I nod, then I toss it over my shoulder dramatically and pull her, laughing, into my arms. It’s the most glorious release after the tension, and thank God it shifts the tone from what could have been an awkward-as-fuck morning.
We’re both dressed and out at the entrance of the building a few minutes later, the nuns all tittering as they gather around us. Even Sister Ilsa is there, with a fuzzy orange coat wrapped around her shoulders. She smiles at both of us and laughs when I try to hand her some euros for their trouble.
Nora has her camera out, filming the sisters as they swarm around us and point at the helicopter.
I exchange her information with Sister Carolina so they can stay in contact.
Carolina blushes as she takes the pen and paper I asked her for. “I hope you and Nora have many more happy years between you,” she says over the sound of the rotors. “And many more babies, too!”
My stomach clenches as Nora and I exchange a look.
Carolina looks confused, so I nod. “Thank you. You too.”
“Jude!” Nora exclaims.
Shit. I just wished a woman married to God many babies. “I mean, no kids for you. I hope. Right? Unless you want them?” Can nuns have babies if they want?
Carolina’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind, which I probably have.
“Well, bye!” I say, then wrap my arms around the stunned nun.
When I release her, her face looks so shocked I wonder if I accidentally left the vibrators on in my pockets or something.
Oh shit.
I pat my jacket. My hand claps down on only one additional lump besides my dead phone and wallet.
I lean in and whisper in Nora’s ear. “I forgot the purple rose.”
Nora’s eyes go wide. “We have to get it!” she says between her teeth.
I glance to the chopper, where Griff is leaning out, throwing his hand up at me.
“No time,” I tell Nora. I hold a finger up at Griff, then scan the crowd of women. I don’t see the one I’m looking for.
“Where is the sister with the face like this?” I ask Carolina, scrunching my expression up like an angry raisin.
Carolina pinches her lips. “Sister Ada. I am sorry if she was unkind to you.”
“Nah. She was fine.”
“She’s probably tidying something—she likes to clean better than she likes people.”
“Well, that’s perfect. If she tidies our room, tell her I left her a little present, would you? It might have rolled under the bed.”
Carolina is confused, but readily agrees. “I will.”
Nora’s looking at me with her whole jaw unhinged.
I grin. “Maybe it’ll soften the sourpuss up a little!”
Nora closes her mouth, but I can tell she’s trying not to laugh.
Griff shouts something I can’t hear, but clearly means get the hell on the chopper.
“Thank you!” we call to the sisters as we trudge through the snow to the bird. They all wave and shout their goodbyes.
When we get inside, Griff closes the door and hands us a pair of headsets, which we pull on. “Buckle up.” His voice is crackly over the speaker.
Nora hands him her camera while she gets everything on; he holds it like he might a newborn baby, which is to say like he’s afraid it might poop on him.
“Thanks for coming,” I say once we’re all settled. “It wasn’t necessary, but thanks.”
“It was necessary.” He points to a lump in the snow down below. The sisters are filing back into the convent, looking very tiny now as we rise fast.
“Shit.” He’s right. What would we have done if he hadn’t come to rescue us?
“It’s all right,” Nora says. “Farrah would have waited with Cap back at the hotel.”
She’s read my mind, of course. I feel like an idiot, but Nora’s hand slides over mine. “It was me who wanted to go just as badly as you.”
“And I gave you the information and didn’t warn you off of going. So quit blaming yourself for everything, brother,” Griff says, his voice hard enough that it doesn’t make sense to argue.
I run my hand over my hair. “The car’s a rental.”
“We’ll take care of it.”
I really don’t know what I’d do without Griffin. He’s so rarely around, but when he is, he just…takes care of shit. It’s hard to believe we’re related sometimes.
I nod a thanks, deciding not to question it.
“Where’s your guy?” Nora asks a few minutes later, her lens back on her camera.
“He’s in a safe place,” Griff says. “Classified.”
“They know about Plimpton?” a fourth voice chimes in. The pilot.
“They’re family,” Griff says. “You trust your family with your life, remember?”
The man makes a sound kind of like a grumble, though it’s tough to say with the background static.
“That’s Ford,” Griff says by way of greeting. “He’s got a little sister who’s almost as much of a pain in the ass as you.”
“Half sister. And she’s more of a PITA, I can tell you confidently,” Ford grumbles as he tips us sideways, making me clap my hand against the window.
Nora’s skin looks a little green.
I grip her hand. “You okay?”
“I’ve never been on a helicopter before.”
“Well, shit,” Griff says. “This is a helluva bird to be your first.”
She laughs nervously but grips my hand tighter as Ford does another dip. All around us are jagged white mountain peaks as we loosely follow the path of the highway down below to get through them.
“So? You guys together now or what?” Griff asks.
I could fucking kill him. I give him a look to tell him as much.
“Still up in the air, I see.” He nods, thoughtfully.
“You seeing anyone right now, Griff?” I ask.
The question’s pointed on purpose. Griffin is the only other person in our family besides me who I can’t remember ever actually being in a relationship.
He has women he’s dated, I know that much.
But the guy is allergic to staying in one place for more than a minute, and doesn’t tell anyone anything about his life, ever.
He’s the definition of no commitment. To literally anything.
He doesn’t even deign to answer my question.
“We’re picking up Cap tomorrow,” he says instead. “Gerrard asked as a treat for Cap. That okay?”
I meet his eye, suddenly sorry I reacted that way to his question. “Of course. Thank you,” I say, with all sincerity. “Seriously. You saved the day.”
“I know,” Griff grunts. Then he pulls out a laptop and I know we’ve lost him.
I look over to Nora, who’s still gripping my hand tight. “Sorry about my brother,” I say. “He’s denser than I am about some stuff.”
“You’re not dense,” Griffin and Nora say at the same time.
“So fuckin’ quit it,” Griff adds, without looking up.
My chest feels warm and fuzzy looking over at my big brother. And at Nora.
I pull off my headset and lean in, gently sliding Nora’s aside.
“Thank you,” I whisper in her ear so only she can hear me.
“For what?” she mouths, holding her hand over her mouthpiece.
“For trusting me. For everything. This whole week. For coming with us and hanging out with Cap’s mom and making it somehow not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened.”
She smiles, lifting her hand to my face. But she doesn’t say anything at all.