CHAPTER FIVE
MATTI
“Please tell me you’re about to board a plane.”
Knox chuckles on the other end of the line. “Brother, I’m already on one.”
“And everyone else?”
“Here too.”
I sigh, letting my head roll back on the sofa’s leather cushions. “Thank God.” I lift my head upright again. “What time do you get here?”
“Well, we have to get on and off about six different airplanes with next to no layovers which means we’ll be getting our cardio in along the way, but thanks to the time difference, I do believe we’ll be joining you for breakfast.”
I can hear Jason talking in the background. A second later Knox adds, “Jason wants waffles when he gets there.”
“I’ll have a whole fucking buffet delivered to the cabin for you, promise.
” If by some wild chance, the lodge doesn’t offer it, I’ll have someone else cater breakfast. At this point, I really don’t care what it takes, I’m meeting every frivolous request they make.
After what they’re doing for me, coming here like this, I owe them.
“Any other special orders, just text me and I’ll have it here.
” I stab at some potatoes on my plate. I ordered something called the ‘cowboy grub’ from the room service menu which turned out to be meatloaf, corn on the cob, and roasted potatoes.
I know loads of people adore their meatloaf and all the homecooked vibes it’s supposed to deliver, but I just can’t.
So, my fork continues to swerve around it and go for the spuds.
“Want me to have the lodge send a car and driver for you guys?”
“Nah.” Knox’s voice gets muffled for a moment like he’s turned away to thank someone. “Kenley booked us a car while I was getting the flights. We’re good to go.”
“Cool.” I poke at another piece of potato with the prongs. “Vale doesn’t hate me, by the way.”
“Hey,” Knox laughs. “Things are already looking up.”
I tip my head back and forth while I chew, uncommitted to his declaration of improvement. “We’ll see.”
“Shit, I gotta go,” Knox hisses suddenly, “I guess we’re taking off.”
“See you in the morning,” I pause. “Knox?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“You’d do it for me, brother. We both know you’ve done a hell of a lot more.”
Then he hangs up, leaving me alone with my meatloaf and random chunks of potato.
I’m about to call it quits with my dinner and head to bed when there’s a knock at the door.
Instantly, I sit up.
Who would come here this time of night? Nessa?
No way.
“It’s Vale. Open up.”
Somehow, even more unexpected.
Dropping my plate on the breakfast bar on the way, I meander to the door.
“What are you doing here?” I could have opened with something nicer. Something a little more welcoming. But my nerves are frayed, and I’m sleep-deprived and it’s still fucking Vale, so that’s all I got.
“I’ve thought it over, and I decided I’m going to help you. So that’s what I’m doing here. Fixing your life.”
I respond to that bullshit answer by glaring at him in silence.
“Fine. Your whole life probably isn’t completely jacked,” he concedes, walking right past me back to the living room where he plops himself down on my sofa. “But you can’t deny you might have a real fucking problem if you came here to win Nessa back only to find her standing next to some new dude.”
Admittedly, I wasn’t impressed with that turn of events either. “Look, if I’m too late, that’s on me.
But I won’t know that I am until I have a moment with Ness where we can both be present, and I can lay it all out for her. Tell her the truth about how I feel. And then –”
“You’re not too late.”
“Come again?” I lower myself to the recliner just on the other side of the coffee table.
“I said, you’re not too late,” he repeats. He’s damn near gloating. Vale knows something.
“How can you be so sure?” I lean forward. “What do you know about Oliver that I don’t?”
Vale grins. “You mean Dr. Oliver.”
Come on . “He’s a fucking doctor?”
“What do you care? You’re a fucking rock star.”
“I’m a bass player. Knox is the rock star.” It’s a technicality.
Vale rolls his eyes. “Shut up, man.”
“Fine, whatever. My job is cooler than his job.” My job is cooler than most jobs. “But his job is more like hers than my job.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. He cuts people open for a living. She’s all about wholeness, oneness, vibrations, and shit. They can both pretend they’re working in the same health and wellness field, but they’re not even close to being on the same planet.”
I nod, thinking it over. He’s probably not wrong. Nessa won’t even pop an aspirin when she gets a headache. A medical doctor might not be up her alley after all. “Alright, so maybe they’re not as perfect for each other as first impressions might imply. Anything else I can count in my favor?”
“Well, there’s the fact Nessa lied about him being her boyfriend,” Vale offers with a smirk.
“She what?” I frown. “Dude, no way.” I shake my head. He’s fucking with me. He has to be.
“I swear to God. She panicked when you showed up and lied. Oliver’s only on this trip with us because Roni and Tori arranged for him to come behind her back.
Nessa had no idea she was coming on a couple’s vacation, let alone that she was coming on a blind date.
Well, not until we all met at the airport to come here. ”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
It takes me a moment to piece it all together and have it make sense. Except even once I do, something still sounds off. “I don’t get it. Why would she make up a relationship all of a sudden?”
Vale grins even broader like he’s relishing the drama he’s stirring up here. “Because she thinks you’re in one.”
I laugh out loud. “What?” Then, as fast as the laughter came on, it dies out again. “Wait, did you tell her that I was with someone?”
“No, dude.” Now he’s the one having a laugh. “You did.”
“No, I didn’t.” That would have been a real dumb fucking move considering I’m here to try and get her back. Not that I haven’t made plenty of other really dumb fucking moves since I arrived here.
“Well, you said a name,” Vale says, standing like he’s caught sight of something interesting in the kitchen.
“Kenley.” He starts walking, straight for the breakfast bar and my half-eaten dinner.
“Nessa made up her own stories from there.” He grabs the thick slice of meatloaf and breaks it in half. “You done with this?”
I’m too dumbfounded to do much more than nod. “Uh-huh.”
He drops a large chunk into his gaping mouth before he goes on, “That’s apparently her thing now. Making up stories about fake relationships.”
Not interested in having this conversation from two separate rooms, I get up and join him at the breakfast bar.
“So, you’re saying when I mentioned that Kenley was coming, and didn’t specify that Kenley was with Knox, Nessa concluded I was here with a woman and her first instinct was to lie straight to my face? ”
Vale stops short of jamming another piece of meatloaf in his mouth.
“I don’t know why you’re finding this so hard to believe.
You did the same damn thing.” He follows through on the meatloaf, chuckling.
“Or did you forget how the whole damn band just happened to wind up here on vacation this week? That shit came flying out of your mouth the second you spotted Oliver, and it’s the same level bullshit Nessa spewed when she heard about Kenley.
” He goes for the last piece of meatloaf.
“I swear, you two are so fucking perfect for each other, even when you’re being idiots you manage to keep things on a level playing field. ”
I can’t even argue with him. Hell, I don’t even want to. “I’m going to go talk to her. Tell her everything right now.” I start moving, ready to race out the front door and back to hers, but Vale grabs my arm and stops me.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, dude. Not so fast.”
“What? Why not?” From where I’m standing, none of this has been fast. Two years of being apart. Another day wasted on being so scared of facing the fact we might be moving on with new people we both lied, something we never did when we were married.
“Because she’s not ready to hear it.” Suddenly, Vale doesn’t sound so amused anymore. “Trust me on this.”
“At least let me go tell her that I’m not with Kenley.”
“Why? So, she can be all like, ‘I never thought that, why would I have thought that? And more importantly, why would I care? It’s not my business whom you do or don’t date’,” he mimics her with disturbing accuracy.
“Please, she’ll just go out of her way to make sure you never think she assumed such things.
If anything, it’ll just make her lean into her lie harder to save face.
You know how stubborn she is. And triggering that lovely character flaw into a flare-up won’t help either of you. ”
“Fine.” I’m not saying I totally agree with everything he’s saying, but I can’t deny the woman has a stubborn streak so wide she’d freeze to death rather than admit that maybe she misjudged the weather when she left her coat at home. “I won’t do anything tonight.”
“Good.” He nods.
“But tomorrow all bets are off.”
“Fine by me. Call it a clean slate and run with it.” He wipes his hand on my napkin before dropping it into the now empty plate. Then he starts for the door. “Just drop the games. You two suck at them.”
“Fair point.”
He grins, letting himself out with a last nod in my direction. “Night.”
“Night.”
The door closes.
It’s just me.
Literally. Because there’s no fucking Oliver.
Holy shit. Knox was right. Things are definitely looking up.
NESSA
I’m still smiling at Oliver’s lame joke when I reach the kitchen. When all this is over, I won’t be sorry my sisters dragged him on this vacation with us.