Chapter 23
ASHLEY
Dad: Ashley, sweetheart, I’m worried about you. Please think about coming over here for a while? You can defer your study for a semester. I’m sure it can be arranged with the university. Please, baby, I can’t lose you. Just think about it, for your old dad?
I t was about an hour’s drive to get to our destination, and Nate said nothing when I put him on a deep dive through my current obsession K-pop band.
For most of the journey, I suspected he was just tolerating me and enduring my chatter about the various members of the band, but as we pulled into the parking lot of the Parklands, I caught him mouthing the words to one of the songs.
As tempted as I was to call him on it, I kept my mouth shut so as not to ruin the moment. Besides, we had arrived, and I pulled on the hoodie he’d given me before climbing out the truck.
Nate joined me, walking across the wet grass toward the pond in the distance, where we could just make out two figures through the light mist. “You look good in my hoodie,” he murmured as we walked, making me whip a sharp look his way. “What? You do.”
I huffed, tucking my hands into the pockets. “Stop that. You’re making it really hard for me to remember what an irredeemable twatapottamus you’ve been these past six months.”
He gave me one of those heart-stopping lopsided grins of his. “I’ll pick a fight with you later so you can get revenge behind closed doors. Deal?”
I nearly choked on my own breath as I processed what he meant by that, but there was no time to recover as Mom came running toward us with her arms outstretched for a hug.
“Thank goodness you’re okay!” she exclaimed, slamming into me like a professional wrestler and hugging me tight enough to crack my back.
“When Max told me what happened and then explained the plan with our plane?—”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I groaned, patting her back to try and head off the tears already spilling from her eyes. “We’re all fine. Right, Nate? Tell my mom how none of us were anywhere near the blast radius and in absolutely no danger.”
Nate arched a brow at my lies, then sighed. “She’s right, Carina. We were totally safe. The guys are all fine too.” He accepted a quick hug from his dad as well, then the four of us moved toward the duck pond to sit on the park benches there. “Mike delivered the news of your deaths personally.”
Max looked vaguely surprised by that, then nodded. “I suppose I’d have been insulted if he hadn’t. He won’t be pleased when he learns it was all a ruse, but it’s better this way. If Jocelyn thinks we’re dead, hopefully she is satisfied enough to leave you kids alone.”
“Will you leave today?” I asked, letting Mom hold my hand with a tight grip. “Dad texted me to say how worried he is. Are you going to meet up with him?”
Mom nodded, sniffing back her tears. “Yes. We haven’t been in touch since the other day, but we’ll call him once we make it to London. Have you two thought about coming with us?”
Nate and I exchanged a quick look before he replied. “We think it’ll be too suspicious if we all just up and disappear. The whole idea was to make Mom—uh, Jocelyn—believe you’re both dead. So she expects to see us grieving, but if we’re all gone, she might go digging.”
“That makes sense,” Max agreed, “but it doesn’t mean we like it. If she works out that we didn’t get on that plane or this doesn’t satisfy her vendetta, how will you stay safe? Can you hire some security?”
“Carter’s looking into it,” Nate replied. “But we’re hopeful that this…I dunno…stops her, or if nothing else, gives the authorities time to catch her?”
Our parents nodded. They’d already agreed with the plan in the first case. It was just their instinctive parental need to protect us that kept them pushing the issue for us to also get out of danger.
Max asked some questions about the lake explosion and how the Society had handled it, which Nate answered carefully without letting my mom know how close we’d been to getting blown to pieces. I appreciated the hell out of him for that, because she didn’t need the additional worry.
While Nate and his dad talked, Mom handed me a little bag of peas and corn to feed the ducks with her. When I asked why we weren’t feeding them bread, she launched into a lecture about how bread is actually awful for ducks and caused serious illness and deformations of their wings.
Besides, there was no denying how much the ducks loved the peas and corn we tossed onto the water for them. Feral little quackers went bananas trying to get their beaks onto the vegetables.
Eventually, the black-clothed private security team arrived to escort Mom and Max safely out of the state to begin their secretive journey over to the other side of the world. At least they’d be with my dad.
“Hey, you’re not wearing your ring anymore,” Mom commented, inspecting my hand as I was about to let her go. “Are you two no longer…?” She quirked one brow in question, and my gaze shot to my bare ring finger.
“Um…” I couldn’t explain the feeling that filled me as I stared at the spot where Nate’s engagement ring used to sit.
We hadn’t even been engaged for all that long, and it was never real, so why was I so fucking sad now that I’d realized it was gone?
They must have taken it off me at the hospital, so there would be no retrieving it now. That thought was actually devastating.
“It’s getting cleaned,” Nate smoothly lied.
Mom accepted that with a smile of relief, then kissed my cheeks and made us both promise to stay safe before Max ushered her away with their security team.
As we watched them disappear back into the mist, I rubbed an ache in my chest with the heel of my hand. Nate noticed and took that hand in his to stop me doing it.
“They’ll be fine,” he told me firmly. “They’ll be a whole world away, having a dirty little vacation with your dad, while Colonel Mike’s team deals with my mom. It’ll all work out, Ashley, you’ll see.”
I wasn’t so confident but forced a small smile to my lips as we returned to the truck.
Nate turned my K-pop back on without me having to ask, and we listened in silence for the drive back to Nevaeh.
We pulled into the university parking lot with five minutes to spare before my Social Science lecture, and I grinned when I spotted Heath waiting outside the class with my notes.
These guys were too fucking thoughtful sometimes.
Carter was waiting for me when the class finished too, taking my bag from me and slinging it over his shoulder without a care for his image at all. “So I heard we have an appointment with the funeral home this evening?”
“We?” I repeated, fighting my smile. “Nate and I do, yes. Have to plan a funeral, after all.”
He draped his arm over my shoulders, pulling me close as we made our way back out to the parking lot. “Well, I couldn’t get the right security lined up in time, so I’m tagging along instead. Consider me your personal bodyguard, Spark.”
“Oh, I bet Nate will love that blow to his masculinity in hearing he isn’t good enough security alone,” I joked with a little chuckle.
Carter just shrugged. “I think you’ll find, my love, Nate’s ego takes a back seat where your safety is concerned.”
I had nothing to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut.
Carter drove us home, and I changed into a soft, black dress with a square neckline and tied my hair up in a high ponytail.
It felt wrong turning up at a funeral home in my jeans, sneakers, and Nate’s hoodie, even if it was a fake funeral we were planning.
The funeral home that Nate had called earlier to book an appointment with was one of the flashy, expensive-type places. The kind of place that we were undoubtedly going to be seen entering, since it was right on the main strip of Prosper, sandwiched between designer clothing stores.
Because of this, Nate and I both put on a pair of sunglasses when we got out of the car as if to cover up that we’d been crying. It was a lot of silliness and acting, but if it meant never having my boys nearly blown up again, I’d act my absolute tail off.
The actual meeting with the funeral director was very straightforward. It wasn’t easy by any stretch of the word because, despite knowing we were going through the motions to maintain an illusion, the idea of planning my mother’s funeral did awful things to my insides.
When we finished in the director’s office, he took us on a tour of his facility to show us all the options of caskets, urns, floral arrangements, and their multiple on-site chapels available to rent. When we passed a restroom sign, I took it as my chance to take a break.
“I’ll wait for you,” Carter quickly offered. “For security,” he explained to the funeral director with a small headshake. “You go on ahead, Nate. We can catch up.”
Nate shot Carter a sharp glare but followed as the funeral director continued along the corridor.
I ducked into the ladies’ room to splash some water on my face and rub at the headache behind my eyes.
I took my sweet time about it too, sort of hoping Nate could wrap things up without me, so we could just go home.
I hated having to talk about my mom in past tense; it made my skin crawl.
“You okay, Spark?” Carter asked when I eventually emerged. He waited casually with his shoulders against the wall and his hands stuffed in his pockets, but there was no mistaking how alert he was. Carter wasn’t fucking around with his bodyguard role in the least.
I nodded, swiping my wet hand over my ponytail. “Yeah, just want to be done with this.”
He nodded his understanding, and we headed in the direction Nate had gone with the funeral director, only to find ourselves in a huge room full of caskets. Just dozens of caskets all laid out on tables and stacked against the walls, but no sign of Nate or the balding guy in his sharp black suit.
“This is fucking creepy,” I commented with a nervous laugh.