“He’s overreacting,” I said into the phone. “I haven’t joined a militia. I hate rules.”
“You told him not to wait up.”
“I’m currently stranded in the desert. He shouldn’t wait up. I was just being considerate.”
“You’re at a motel with Wi-Fi, Theo. It’s not like you’re stuck in the middle of the Sahara with no way out.”
“I might as well be,” I mumbled. “You haven’t seen this place, but that’s not the point.”
“Yeah, the point is that we could just come get you.”
“No,” I said quickly, then cleared my throat and tried not to sound as panicked as I was by his suggestion. “This isn’t a big deal, Jess. I just took a little detour and I have to wait until the bike is fixed before I can come back.”
It doesn’t hurt that it’s getting fixed by hands-down the hottest girl I’ve ever laid eyes on, but I probably shouldn’t tell him that.
When he laughed, my defenses lowered a little in response. The problem with it being Jesse at the other end of the line rather than one of the others was that he was hard to bullshit.
He’d disappeared on us for years, traveling and finally deciding to base himself in Miami instead of going back home to Chicago. If any of my siblings would understand this urge I had to stay away for just a little while longer, it was him.
“Alex is under the impression that you’re never coming back,” he said. “That is a big deal.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Would it really be so bad if I didn’t come home?”
The sky outside had gone dark enough that I saw my own reflection in the windows instead of the parking lot beyond, and the truth was that I no longer looked like the Theo they knew. In fact, I might even look a little feral these days, with the longer hair, the faint scruff on my jaw, and the slight sunburn on my nose.
The guy I was staring at in that reflection had no business in the polished halls of W&S. He was a biker. A drifter. A man who followed his heart wherever it led and didn’t get tripped up by things like arranged marriages or family tradition.
Frankly, I was having the time of my life, and while I missed my family, especially my nieces and nephews, it had been good operating on my own without my family name walking into every room ahead of me.
“Do you actually know what you’re doing?” Jesse asked, dragging my attention back to him.
“Usually?” I scoffed. “No.”
He sighed. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t.”
“Fine. I’ll be straight with you. Do you know what it takes to step outside of the Westwood family circle?”
Obviously, I didn’t.
I’d never done this before, but he had. For most of his adult life, he’d been on a journey of his own and he’d only come back into the family fold a couple years ago.
“Is it worth it?” I asked instead of responding to his question, because we both knew that I didn’t actually know what it took. “That’s all I need to know.”
“There are rules, Theo,” Jesse said. “You and I might not always agree with them, but Alex is a stickler. He believes in our traditions like they’re sacred texts, and that includes the rules about what happens when someone breaks away from the family.”
“But you still did it.”
“Yeah, and then I came back,” he said emphatically. “I also knew going into it that I’d lose certain financial privileges and I planned for it. Did you?”
I kept quiet, and that seemed to answer the question for him. “Yeah, I thought so. Look, I love Alex. You know that.”
“I love him too.”
“Yep, but no matter how much he loves us back, he’s not going to make an exception about this,” Jesse said firmly. “Even Will forfeited those privileges when he quit his job and moved to England to be with Eliza.”
“He did?” I hadn’t known that. “I’m sure he’s fine, though.”
