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“Rafe talks too fucking much.” I push to my feet. “His dad, too.”
“His dad is dead. Like your mom. The point is…” He sighs, gets to his feet, too. He’s really tall, slightly taller than me, and it’s disconcerting, looking up at his face. “Not sure what the point is.”
Awesome. Shaking my head, I turn to go.
“Ryan.”
I stop, square my shoulders, not sure I want to hear whatever it is he has to say. “What?”
“For a long time, Rafe kept his distance because the guilt of what happened to his family crushed him. You don’t have to be alone. If there’s something weighing on you...”
“Nothing’s weighing on me,” I rasp, my voice gone rough.
“But if you—”
“My mother died because of her heart.” The words catch in my throat. “It was nobody’s fault.”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Don’t be.”
It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want to think about death, her death, and what it means for me.
Not today.
***
Starting to rue the moment I ask for Brylee and Riddick’s phone numbers yesterday morning in my apartment, I check my phone again and swear at myself.
Stop waiting. Stop doubting they’ll come. Call them.
Okay, fine.
I call Brylee first, walking up and down my living room, feeling like a school kid asking a pretty girl to the prom. I’m on my second round when she answers, and I halt so suddenly I almost fall over.
“Hi,” she says, and I smile hearing her voice. “Are we still going?”
I lick my dry lips. “Don’t you want to?”
“Yes, I do,” she whispers with the hint of a smile, and heat works its way up my chest to my face and neck. “Are we leaving tomorrow?”
“I haven’t talked to Riddick yet,” I admit. “I’m going to call him after I hang up with you.”
“No need. I called him. He’s coming with us.”
A brief sting at the realization the relationship between them is so much tighter than with me, that she and he talked before talking to me—but then the essence of her words sinks in.
My smile stretches wider. “That’s awesome news.”
Besides, I knew she’s in love with him, and he all but told me he’s in love with her. Despite her insistent, funny attempts to take me out for drinks, I’m the extra wheel here.
I push that thought and its bitter tail down deep, where it belongs.
Just a weekend of fun. That’s all this is about.
“I’ll pick both of you up, say around nine?” I say. “Grab some warm clothes and a toothbrush, that’s all you’ll need.”
“That’s all?” she repeats quietly, and that simple question opens up all possibilities and sends a white-hot bolt of lust through me.
