Chapter 14 August
FOURTEEN
AUGUST
“I can’t wait to go home and get back to work at the bakery,” Ellie says as we board the plane.
“Did you let yourself relax on this vacation?” I ask. “Mentally?”
She puts her bag in the overhead bin that’s a seat in front of mine. I watch her struggle on the tips of her toes before Rowan leans over her and pushes the bag inside.
“Yeah, a couple days is plenty of time.” She sits in the seat next to the window, and I follow suit behind her. “I’m just excited to get back to work and get us closer to opening up the bakery.”
“I wish I could say the same,” I mutter and fasten my seatbelt.
Beau and James take a seat up front together. Addie and Hailey are on the opposite side of them. I unbuckle my seatbelt and hover over my sister's seat.
“I thought I was sitting next to Beau?” I ask.
“Did he know that?” Rowan asks, scrolling through emails on his phone.
“We booked our tickets together.” I sit back down and pull out my phone.
Me: Did you forget to book your seat next to mine?
Beau: Shit, sorry man. I messed up when I booked them online.
I left Beau in charge of our tickets while I was busy at work and didn’t have time to handle them. I figured I could trust him to choose the best seats and keep us together. I’m not a fan of having to sit next to a stranger, especially on a plane where space is limited.
Me: Great, I’m gonna sit next to a stranger the entire time? You know how I feel about people being in my space if I don’t know them.
Beau: You’ll survive. Riley’s sitting with you.
My eyes go wide. How in the hell did it come to the point where Riley is sitting next to me? People are still boarding, and I take the opportunity to bug my sister again.
“Hey, who booked Riley’s ticket?” I whisper.
She turns to me with a cocked eyebrow. “I did, why?”
I grip the back of her chair while keeping my face neutral. “She didn’t do it herself?”
“Well, I wanted points on my credit card, so she said I could buy her ticket and then she’d pay me back. I asked everyone if they already had seats, and they said yes, but you didn’t. I know how you are with your personal space in tiny places.” She shrugs. “Is there a problem?”
I swear the corner of her mouth twitches like she’s up to no good. Scheming. Plotting.
“Oh, you’ve got to be joking,” Riley says, standing over the chair. “You really paired me with August?”
Unfortunately, the plane is a two-seater.
“You two are grown-ass adults, deal with it.” Ellie points at us, her voice stern.
Riley lets out an exaggerated sigh, stuffing her bag in the overhead bin and sitting down. Her hair is pulled back in a very, very tiny ponytail, her skin bare and dewy like she just moisturized, and she’s in sweatpants and a sweater.
We hadn’t spoken to each other since last night, after the unexpected, body-tingling kiss that I dreamt about. I knocked on her door this morning after I packed up my suitcase and was heading downstairs, but there was no answer.
Riley was already in the lobby, standing close to the girls, and she didn’t give me any attention. It stayed that way up until now. Now she’s sitting next to me. She’s stuck with me, and maybe this is the only chance I’ll get to talk to her about what we did.
After the pilot makes their announcement, the plane starts to hum under my feet. For me, the worst part is the takeoff. Once we’re in the air, I’m fine. I can feel my hands grip the edge of the armrest, and I take a deep breath in through my nose and out my mouth.
The plane picks up speed in what feels like five seconds, the loud noise rushing through my body as I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Are you still scared of this part?” Riley whispers.
All I give her is a nod.
“Do you need a Xanax?” Her tone is playful, in a teasing sort of way. I can imagine the smirk on her lips.
Once I feel my heart drop to my ass, my body finally evens out, and I force myself to let go of the armrest. I slump in the chair and open my eyes. When I look out the window, we drift into the wispy clouds until we hover above them.
“Need to change your diaper?” Riley says.
“I think a kiss will do just fine.” I give her a grin that I know she’d want to smack off my face.
She adjusts herself in her seat, looking around to make sure no one hears our conversation. Especially my sister, who is right in front of us. Riley leans in close to me. Her hair smells like fresh roses.
“Do not say the word kiss,” she whispers glaring at me with her sunshine eyes.
“Why not? It’s just a word. Kiss. Kissing. Making out.”
“Why are you doing this? Why? Nothing happened.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Nothing happened? So, what, we just had the same dream where we made out, and you slipped your tongue into my mouth?”
She covers her face, agitation crawling over her, and I cross my arms.
“August, please don’t do this right now. Your sister is sitting right in front of us. This is not the time to speak about… the kiss.” She mouths the last part.
“Okay, when can we talk about it then?”
“Oh, let me just check my calendar to see when I can fit you in my schedule. I don’t know!”
“Are you guys’ okay back there?” Ellie asks.
“We’re fine.” Riley’s voice is pleasant when she answers my sister, but her dagger eyes say another thing. “Remind me to send you a fruit basket for making me sit next to your irritating brother.”
“Make sure it has chocolate-covered strawberries,” Ellie says, putting her headphones on.
“Look, last night—it shouldn’t have happened. I had a lot of emotions and was embarrassed at what happened to me. I’m sorry.”
I try to read her mind, read her features to figure out if it was a mistake to her. There’s something behind those words that isn’t convincing me. I also can’t deny that what she said stings a little.
“So, you were just using me?” I hide the hurt in my voice with sarcasm.
“August.” There’s no playfulness behind her words. “That can’t happen again. Okay?”
“Fine.” I turn forward in my seat and rest my head on the window, staring out toward the soft blue sky. “It didn’t happen.”
Who knew that the first time I’d kiss my dream girl, she would tell me to act like it never happened? How am I supposed to do that after getting to feel what her lips tasted like on mine? How do I move on from this?
The only thing I can think of is throwing myself into my work and taking care of Dad when they need me.
When we step off the plane and into the airport, I stretch my body for the first time in five hours. After the small conversation I had with Riley, we didn’t speak for the rest of the flight. It was awkward, to say the least.
But what was I supposed to do? Bug her until she admitted that she wanted to kiss me, and it wasn’t because of the pent-up adrenaline from when she knocked into that guy, spilled her drink all over herself, and had that short, intimate moment in the elevator.
Nope. She didn’t want to talk about it, and I gave her what she wanted.
“August, I’m going to go see dad,” Ellie says as we walk outside the airport. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Yeah, I’ll tag along. I need to talk to him about some stuff for work.
” After I turn off airplane mode on my phone, ping after ping sounds off with emails from vendors flowing in.
Normally, I feel perfectly fine going back into work after a small break, but this time around, I can feel my anxiety peaking.
My thoughts run in circles as I try to figure out what to do first. Answer emails, go to the shop, check up on things, and see how Dad is doing. I breathe in through my nose and close my eyes for five seconds. My chest feels heavy while my thoughts scramble in my head.
Making choices wasn’t always something I was good at. I start overthinking and wondering if I’m making the right decision. What the consequences may be depending on which road I take. When stress takes over, my ADHD comes in full force, wreaking havoc on my thoughts.
It’s hard to keep under control sometimes, but I’ve learned some tricks on how to slow my thoughts down.
“Our ride’s here,” Ellie says. “Riley, did you want to come with us? We can drop you off.”
“I’m gonna catch a ride with my sister and Addie, but I’ll talk to you later about the bakery.” She goes in for a hug, and my sister returns it. “Tell your parents I say hi.”
Ellie and Rowan get settled in the car, and I catch Riley looking at me.
“August,” Riley says, grabbing my arm. “I’m sorry. We can talk about what happened, okay?”
“Oh, now you want to talk about it?” I stuff my suitcase in the trunk.
“I know we need to.”
I close the trunk a bit too hard. “It’s fine, Riley. There’s nothing to talk about. It didn’t mean to happen, and we can move on from it. We have a lot that we’re dealing with right now. We don’t need to worry about this.”
Her shoulders drop, and she wraps her arms around her stomach. “I don’t want things to be weird between us.”
“Things have always been weird between us.”
“You know what I mean.”
The crisp air bites at my neck, and I suppress a shiver. “Riley, it’s fine. We both had too much to drink. It just happened.”
“August, let's go!” Ellie says.
“I’ll see you later, okay?” I tell Riley. “Get home safe.”
It hurts to leave our conversation like this, but maybe she’s right, and we should act like it never happened. We have other things to focus on. If I keep myself busy, it’ll be easier not to think about it.
Before I get in the car, I take a second to look at her before leaving. All I want to do is pull her into a hug and tell her it’s okay. But if I do that, I’ll only make it worse for both of us.