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That didn’t surprise me.
“What’s she doing here, Aderyn?” Vic said.
Addie ignored his question and turned, heading for the cabin. “I’m calling Jaeg. He’s going to shit unicorns when he hears you’re back.”
Yeah. And it was going to be painful because he obviously hadn’t mentioned to Vic that I was staying in the cabin, and that conversation wasn’t going to go down well.
Addie’s brother was a six-foot-three, tatted mechanic who owned Mason Auto. He was sweet, funny, and overprotective, but he was also confident and cocky, and I couldn’t picture him backing down from anyone. Even Vic Gate.
I moved toward the cabin, my head spinning and stomach twisting. Crap. I didn’t want to have to find another place. Not only that, but my funds were limited, and Collingwood being a tourist town, places weren’t cheap.
“She can’t stay here, Aderyn.”
Addie stopped and bent to turn over her flip-flop before shoving her foot into it. “Why not? You’re not using it.” She said it casually, as if it was no big deal and she wasn’t in the least concerned.
I walked up the porch steps and crouched to pick up ceramic shards.
“Because I said so. Get her out.”
He spoke as if I wasn’t ten feet away and could hear everything he said. And as much as I wanted to tell him to take his cabin and shove it up his ass, I had to think of more than just myself.
She walked up the porch steps, then half bent to help me pick up the last few shards of the mug. “Don’t worry. Jaeg will talk to him,” she said to me.
Vic overheard. “I don’t need to talk to Jaeg because it’s my goddamn place. Help her pack. She has seven minutes left.” He didn’t even bother looking at me as he turned and walked away.
Addie straightened and yelled, “Oh my God, Vic Gate, you’re being a complete donkey ass.”
He ignored her and disappeared into the thicket of trees.
She cursed beneath her breath. “Jaeg will talk sense into that stubborn, pigheaded mule.”
But I had a feeling that no matter what Jaeg said, Vic Gate wasn’t going to change his mind.
Especially when he found out I wasn’t alone.
Vic
I didn’t go far.
I had no doubt Aderyn would call her brother, and Jaeg’s bike would be roaring up the drive in ten minutes flat. Eight if he was dressed and out of bed, which I doubted because Jaeg wasn’t a morning person and had likely been in his shop working all night.
From the cover of the leaves, I watched Aderyn and Macayla disappear inside the cabin.
Jesus Christ.
I’d learned to blanket my emotions. I survived by suffocating them. And suddenly that blanket had rips and tears—because of her. Because of an ocean-blue-eyed girl I’d met when I was twelve years old. And met was an exaggeration. That process had to involve both parties, and she didn’t even realize we’d met.
What the hell was she doing here? Not only here in my cabin, but here in town. She’d never lived here with her father and brother as a kid. When her parents split, she’d stayed with her mom in the city, and her brother had moved here to live with his dad and new stepmom.
I shouldn’t know that. I shouldn’t know anything about her. But I did, and that was a huge red warning flag for me to stay as far away from her as fuckin’ possible.
I circled around to the side of the house where two vehicles were parked. I wasn’t interested in Aderyn’s blue truck, but in Macayla’s black, two-door shitbox with rust around the rims of the tire wells and doors.
I peered through the windows. No empty coffee cups or fast-food bags. No clothing or scented cardboard thingamajig hanging from the rearview. Not even a pen sitting in the console. Not a single personal item, which meant she hadn’t had the piece of crap for long. It also meant I didn’t learn anything about her circumstances except that she obviously had money issues.
I glanced at Aderyn’s 1970’s Chevy truck she’d fixed up from a pile of scrap by the time she was eighteen. She and Jaeg had been raised by their grandmother Hettie, Henrietta Mason, who had a thing for old cars and drove a 1967 red Mustang convertible.
The entire town always knew when Hettie was going out as it sounded like a jet fighter plane when the engine roared to life. And when Hettie went out, she looked damn good doing it because she didn’t just drive the Mustang, she dressed to drive it, wearing her oversized sunglasses, lavender-and-white flowered scarf over her head to keep her coif from being ruined, and her staple flamingo-pink lipstick. You’d think she’d wear a fancy outfit to complete the look, but she always wore light gray cotton coveralls with the bottoms rolled up as if she was headed to the lake to put her feet in the water.
