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My father smiled back at me warmly. “Nowthere’smy ankle-biter.”
He kissed my cheek before driving off, eventually leaving me to my thoughts. The ankle-biting nickname went way back to when I was a little girl, laughing and playing and biting my father’s ankles to get his attention whenever he wasn’t working. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very often.
Another song came on, but not for long. I hadn’t even put the car in drive yet when the bluetooth was interrupted by another phone call, this time from a number I didn’t recognize. Most likely Brian using a friend’s phone, trying to trick me into picking it up.
This time I pressed the ACCEPT button and did it anyway. Enough was enough.
“What!?” I shouted into the empty car. “For fuck’s sake, what could youpossiblyhave to say to me!?”
There were three of four seconds of complete and utter silence. Then: “Ummmm…. hi?”
The voice at the other end of the connection wasn’t Brian’s at all. It was deeper and more baritone. Velvety and delicious.
“Dakota?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Jace.”
Jace…
It didn’t register for a few seconds. That’s how long it had been.
“Jace…” I squinted, as the heat warmed my pink skin. Then, a revelation: “Oh, JACE!”
Images of my brother Tyler’s best friend popped immediately to mind. I could envision his tall, slender frame. His deeply tanned skin, accented by that beautiful white smile.
“Jace!” I repeated again. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I was just—”
“Thinking I was someone else?”
He chuckled, and the visual solidified. I hadn’t seen Jace for nearly a decade. I knew he’d entered the military, and I knew he was doing some very badass stuff. The last I’d heard from Tyler, his friend was somewhere on the other side of the world, getting decorated for something amazing he couldn’t fully talk about.
“Yes, I thought you were someone else,” I told him, before adding: “and nobody very important, believe me.”
“Good,” Jace answered smoothly. “Because although we teased you a lot in high school, I can’t imagine you’d hate methatbadly.”
He was referring to him and Tyler, of course. When I was a sophomore and they were both seniors, they spent a lot of their time teasing and pranking me mercilessly. But that also meant I got to hang out with my older brother and his friends a lot, which was never a bad thing.
“Nah, we’re good,” I sighed happily. “So how’ve you been!? Where are you now? Most of all, what the hell have you been up to? Last I heard you were—”
“All good questions,” Jace cut in, “but right now I have a favor to ask of you.” He paused awkwardly. “A reallybigfavor.”
“I can do favors,” I reasoned, saying the words slowly. “Shoot.”
“Well it’s actually part favor, part proposition.”
I shook my head. “Can’t be worse thansomeof the propositions I’ve been getting lately.”
“And you can totally say no if you want,” he went on. “But you can also say yes. At least Ihopeyou say yes. Even though what I need is a little… unorthodox.”
God, what the hell could it be? Jace had always been straightforward: totally cool and confident. He was a good-looking lacrosse player, with tons of friends and even more in the way of girlfriends. It just wasn’t like him to beat around the bush.
Then again it had been a while, and people changed. Everythingaroundyou changed too, as I found out from remaining home these past several years. The changes usually happened when you weren’t looking, whether you liked it or not. It was an unfortunate fact of life.
“Okay,” said Jace finally. “Here goes nothing…”
I sat there with both eyebrows arched, staring into the phone. Just inches in front me, wave after wave of frozen sleet blasted against my windshield.
“How would you like a free trip to Hawaii?”
