Chapter 19
CHARLIE
Apologising once again for waking them up, I end the call with my parents before pulling up my emails to inform work of my resignation, effective immediately. It’ll undoubtedly piss them off and I can kiss a good reference from them goodbye, but honestly? I couldn’t care less so I hit send.
Once that’s done, I do a quick walkthrough of the house while Jace takes the trash out, to make sure all of the windows are closed, the lights are off, and no power points have been left on.
I grab our bags and put them in the RV before helping Jace place the wheelie bins on the curb and climb into my car, following Jace in the RV to Ariana’s.
Knocking on their front door, we don’t wait long before it’s swinging open with a very excited Eric filling the doorway. He gives us a big smile before calling over his shoulder, “They found her!”
“How-” I start to ask how he could possibly know that, but before I get a word out he’s tossing me over his shoulder, which is actually pretty impressive. I may not be some big bulky bloke, but I’m not small by any means.
“What the fuck?” I huff out as he bounces me and when I look to Jace for help, he just shrugs his shoulders looking as though he’s three seconds away from falling on his arse and pissing himself laughing. I hope he does, then he’ll never hear the end of it from Ethan.
“I know these things,” Eric says by way of explanation before spinning around and heading deeper into the house, slapping me on the arse as he goes.
“You seriously not going to help me?” I eye Jace as he kicks off his shoes and puts on a pair of house slippers that Ethan insists everyone wear indoors.
Without warning, Eric tosses me off his shoulder onto a nearby couch and I let out a grunt. Before I can right myself, Max is jumping up from his spot on the floor and plants himself across my torso.
“Jeez!” I breathe out, trying to shove the giant Alaskan Malamute off me. “Isn’t he supposed to be a service animal? Get him off me.”
“He’s not working right now,” Ethan explains as he walks into the room making no move to get the dog off me. When I look up, he’s sitting beside Ariana, his eyes fixed firmly on my feet, his eye twitching.
Before he can go on some tangent about wearing outdoor shoes in the house, I throw Eric under the bus without hesitation. “It’s his fault.”
Ethan has changed a lot since our uni days. Gone is the shy, lanky boy with wildly curly brown hair I met years ago. In his place, is a more confident man who has filled out and now keeps his hair cropped short, making him look more mature.
But some things don’t chance, like his over-the-top aversion to germs but at least he isn’t losing his shit, so there’s that.
Without words, Eric walks out of the room, returning a few seconds later and covering my shoes with disposable boot covers that they keep on hand for situations where guests don’t want to remove their shoes or they don’t have enough slippers for everyone.
Not that that’s ever happened, Eric may not be as shy as he used to be, but he still gets pretty uncomfortable around anyone he doesn’t consider friend or family.
“I’d say thanks, but that was your doing not mine.
” I shrug, finally sitting up now that Max has climbed off me.
Righting my shirt, I wonder for a moment if that dog is smarter than we give him credit for.
Surely it’s a coincidence he refused to move, not letting me up, until my shoes were covered, right? There's no way that was intentional…
“As amusing as this is,” Ariana injects, her long red hair falling over her shoulder as she leans forward. “I really doubt you guys came here at two in the morning for this.” She gestures toward my feet then Eric.
“It’s two in the morning?” Jace echoes my thoughts, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Looking over his shoulder, I see it is in fact two in the morning. “Shit. Sorry guys.”
“It’s fine.” Ari waves him off, “We were still up.”
“Why?”
“It’s Friday night. How old do you think we are?” Eric asks incredulously at my question, but as I open my mouth to retort, Ari quickly interrupts.
“Guys, off topic.”
“Right,” I say, clearing my throat before looking at my best friends. “Well, you know how Mia sent us the link to those posts earlier this week?”
Eric looks like he’s seconds away from bursting, whilst the others shuffle closer to the edge of their seats, barely breathing by the looks of it as they wait for me to confirm Eric’s earlier guess.
I can’t fight the smile anymore, so I nod my head. “We know where she is.”
A loud pitched squeal like noise has me covering my ears and glaring at Eric who is throwing his fists in the air and jumping around like a kid. “Seriously dude?”
“I knew it. I fucking knew it. I told you!” he shouts, pointing to me with a massive grin.
“How the fuck could you have known?” Jace shakes his head but he’s smiling at our friend.
“I know these things.” He gives us the same explanation as earlier, as though it’s all the answer we need, and I throw a pillow at his face. He’s quick to catch it and throw it back, this time in Elias’ direction as he leaves the room.
“Seriously? How?”
“You two haven’t been able to wipe the smiles off your faces since before you knocked on the door.” I look at Jace and sure enough, there’s a lightness to him that I haven’t seen since we were teenagers.
The door swings open and Elias walks in carrying a tray of sandwiches which he puts down on the coffee table before demanding we eat. “You didn’t have to do th-”
“When was the last time either of you ate?” he cuts me off and when neither of us answer, he simply nods his head and sits back down.
“That’s what I thought. I’m guessing you guys practically got straight in the car to come here after figuring out where she is and plan to get straight on the road, so eat up. ”
“What?” Ethan sits forward, looking very serious and I prepare for the lecture we’re about to receive.
“It’s past two in the morning. You can’t drive now.
You do know more than 20 percent of all car accidents happen because the driver is tired, right?
” I have no idea where he gets his statistics from in situations like this and feel like that’s not an accurate number, but I’m also not prepared to argue with him.
Ariana places a hand on his bouncing knee and leans into his side, calming him somewhat. “Ethan, they’ve been waiting for a very long time for this. It’s been over a decade. Short of chaining them down, you aren’t going to convince-”
“That could be arranged,” Eric mutters excitedly and I eye my friend a little warily, grabbing another pillow and pegging it at him.
“There is no way in hell are you chaining-”
“You know we’d do the same if it was Ari, Ethan,” Elias says, ignoring Eric’s comment.
“Hell yeah, we would!” Eric shouts, jumping to his feet. “Right. Hurry up and eat your sandwiches, then get out,” he says to Jace and me.
“What?” I choke on my sandwich.
“You heard me. Hurry up and get the fuck out of my house, so I can screw my woman, and you can go find yours.” Eric holds his hands out expectantly for my keys and I hand them over, shoving the last of my sandwich in my mouth.
“Ow,” Eric exclaims, rubbing the back of his head as Ariana whacks him with a pillow whilst he’s distracted.
“What Eric meant to say was we love you, but you guys have waited long enough. Go find out if she’s still yours.” She places a hand on his shoulder, giving him a pointed look but he ignores it, pulling her into his lap and resting his chin on the top of her head.
“She is. I know these things. I was right about us, and I was right about those two finally getting together too.” I throw my hands up as he points to us.
Neither Jace nor I have told anyone that we finally slept together, not because we’re hiding it or anything, it’s just a lot has happened since then.
“And here I was worried your dads had the place bugged,” Jace jokes quietly so only I can hear. “You do know you’re kind of a stalker, right?” he says louder to Eric who just shrugs.
He doesn’t look even the slightest bit surprised at Jace’s accusation. “Eh, I’m cute so.”
“Are you saying that because you’re hot, it’s okay to be a stalker?” I ask him.
“First off, I said cute, but it’s nice to know you think I’m hot. Secondly, yeah pree much. Ain’t there a whole genre about it in the books you read?”
“They’re books. Not real life.”
“Yeah well, I got the girl, and she put a ring on it,” he counters, holding his left hand up to show the metal band around his ring finger that I hadn’t noticed.
“No. No, no, no.” Ariana sits forward, raising her hand in the air.
“I’d like to point out that I did not do that.
That was all him,” she says waving her hand behind her.
“He decided one night it’d be a good idea to shove rings on all of our fingers whilst we were asleep.
But we discussed this,” she stresses the word, looking directly at her chaotically obsessive partner who is currently pouting.
“We are not getting married. We aren’t ready for that. ”
She sits back, crossing her arms with a bright red flush to her face, and I hold my tongue. One look at each of her guys tells me another story. They’re definitely ready to marry her, they’re just waiting for Ariana to catch up.