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“So, yeah...” I say in an attempt to make things less uncomfortable. “Now we’re both here, but I’m not sure how long either of us will stay. I’ll probably have to get back after this weekend.”
Blinking, he shakes his head. “You rode a train with him for almost thirty hours, and you somehow made it out alive?”
I laugh and sneak a glance at Aiden. He’s talking to Lauren at the end of the table, and he’s smiling. The dimple in his cheek is showing, and I can’t seem to tear my eyes away. Even if he wasn’t nice to look at, the sight of him happy still catches me off guard, and I’d probably find myself staring regardless. Looking back at Chad, I just laugh and say, “Oh, come on. He’s not so bad.”
Chad looks over at Aiden, too. “Yeah.” He studies him for a moment before looking back at me and playfully whispering, “He’s worse.” Before I have time to respond, he puts a hand on my leg. “Hey! You should stay with us! There’s plenty of room at the Natty Shack.”
“Oh,” I say, looking down at my knee where his hand rests. The gesture took me by surprise, and I instinctively shift away from it. “That’s okay. I already have a place not too far from here.”
“Are you sure?” Chad leans in and drags out the question like he’s trying to entice me. “It’s always a party at Natty.”
“Why do you call it that?” I ask. Partying is the furthest thing from my mind right now. My quiet Airbnb gets better and better the longer I talk to this guy.
“Because, for a while, all we could afford to drink was Natty Light, and we drank a lot of it. There were always a ton of empty cardboards from the 24 packs lying around, so when I accidently kicked a hole in the wall, we just stuck a flattened case over it.”
“You accidentally kicked a hole in the wall? How?” I can’t fight the smile in my voice.
“I can’t tell you that,” he says, turning serious.
I gape at him. “You can’t preface the entire story with you kicking a wall and not tell me why you kicked a wall.” I think the sangria is doing a great job of soothing some of my social anxiety. It’s either that, or Aiden’s friends are easier to talk to than I thought they’d be.
“Is he telling you how the Natty Shack was born?” Ethan asks, cutting into our conversation.
“He is,” I confirm. “But he’s telling it terribly.”
“Claire!” Chad exclaims. Then in a harsh whisper, he says, “I trusted you.”
Playfully shaking my head, I turn to Ethan. “Can you tell me how he kicked a hole in the wall?”
“Oh, I can tell you that,” Emily says with a raise of her hand. “There’s not much to the story. Chad was drunk and thought he could do parkour.”
My bubbling laughter threatens to spray the table with sangria. Swallowing hard, I manage to ask, “And I take it he can’t?”
“There are a lot of things Chad can’t do,” Aiden says from the far end of the table. I hadn’t realized that he was paying attention until now.
Chad holds up both hands. “Hey, I still think I could have done it if the wall would have held.”
“Not likely,” Ethan mutters with a shake of his head. “Anyway, we covered the hole with a Natty case and ended up using that repair method more than a few times. People started calling it the Natty Shack, so Em made us a Natty backsplash for our kitchen, and the name stuck.”
I glance at Emily, surprised that someone with her style would entertain a beer case backsplash.
She seems to read my mind. “It fit the rest of the house, and at the time, I didn’t live there, so what did I care?”
“But you live there now?” I ask.
“Yeah.” She laughs. “I didn’t think things through.”
“See how much fun it is at the Natty Shack, Claire?” Chad says in his enticing voice again. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay with us?”
“That’s okay,” I say, but he’s still staring at me, so I add, “really,” to hopefully drive the point home.
He leans back and playfully points at me. “Alright, but let me know if you change your mind. I’d make sure you get the best hospitality.” He winks. “You’d be a VIP guest.”
I’m not sure if it was his hand on my leg, but as soon as he gives me that wink, I come to the conclusion that Chad is extremely good-looking.
The realization almost shocks me.
But now that I’ve noticed it, I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before. Tan, athletic, has great hair, and just the right amount of scruff.
