“Why? Why wouldn’t you look again?”
“Because it was none of my fucking business. I wouldn’t invade your privacy like that.”
“I see,” she says, gaze searching. She stands, moving for her wallet. My scowl stops her. I drop a hundred-dollar bill on the table.
She didn’t answer my question.
We walk silently back to the tarmac doors, just in time to see our plane taxi down the runway and take off without us. We both stare at the plane as it disappears from sight.
What. The. Fuck.
“Sir. Mr. Wilder.” The hesitant voice breaks through my confusion. Swinging around, I take in the small woman wearing a safety vest, holding a cart with our luggage.
“What the hell is going on? Our pilots just left without us.”
“Yes sir. I’ve been instructed to give you this.” She reaches out, dropping a set of car keys and an envelope with my name scrawled on the front into my hand. She turns, moves our luggage off the cart onto the floor, and wanders off.
“Declan,” Cara asks, staring down at our luggage. “What the fuck is happening?”
14
CARA
W e’re in a tiny town somewhere in Colorado, and our plane just left without us. I wish I could say this is the worst thing that could happen to us, but honestly, I’ve had a few fantasies about being stranded with Declan. Most of them involved a sandy beach and us being the only ones capable of repopulating the earth. Only in those fantasies, he didn’t want to just be friends.
Fucking friends.
His way too thoughtful gifts this week have been chipping away at that wall I thought I had built. The wall that was supposed to stop me from obsessing over him. Stop me from wishing he loved me back. Stopped me from loving him. It’s crumbling before my eyes, and he wants to be friends.
Rationally, I know being friends is good. It’s better than me coming onto him and him running away from me every chance he got.
Friends is better than him breaking my computer and coming to fix it, barely saying two words. Friends is better than icy exchanges in the hallway and avoiding each other.
But it’s still so much less than I hoped for, so it’s a bitter pill to swallow. If I let myself dwell on it, it’ll send me into a spiral of wondering what’s so wrong with me and why he can’t love me. It’s dumb and not productive. I’m not his type. Simple. Except I see him every day, and that’s not so simple.
Declan’s still staring down at the letter in his hand. Stepping closer, I slide the envelope out of his grasp, tear it open, and pull the card out. He turns his body into mine, and the busyness of this little airport fades away. All I’m aware of is him. With effort, I pull my focus to the card in my hand.
Fucker,
You screwed the pooch with Cara. Now’s your chance to make it
better.
There’s an SUV outside, gassed up and ready to go.
You’re about seven hours from Vegas. Drive the car, have the
talks, and I’ll see you later tonight at the hotel.
You’re welcome.
—Colton (Motherfucking) Miles
A STRING OF CURSES FALLS FROM DECLAN’ S MOUTH. NONE OF IT ’ S EARTH-SHATTERING, BUT I’VE never heard him talk like this before. He always has this mild-mannered, shy, geeky way about him. The muscled, slightly ragey look he’s got going right now is really working for me. His head is tilted back as he stares at the fluorescent lights of the terminal. He brings his hands up to his head, clasping at the back of his neck, making the muscles in his arms bunch. I sneak a peek down, and a sliver of abs is revealed.
My sister took me to the male strippers once. I saw way more Dong that night than I ever wanted to, and not one of those men got me as excited as Declan does, showing that one tiny strip of skin.
I’m so fucked.
