AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A short while later, we landed and climbed out of the plane. Just as he was about to amble off, Tom glanced back. “I think you do have somebody in mind. Don't be stupid like me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Get it right the first time.” He winked before waving and walking away.
ChapterEleven
GRANT
I took a bite of my burger, closing my eyes before opening them again. “Their burgers are fucking good.”
“I know,” Flynn replied.
I took a swallow of my beer, glancing around the table. Every few weeks, the guys tried to get together. Tonight, it was actually all of us—Flynn, Diego, Tucker, Gabriel, Elias, and myself. We’d met up at Glacier Brewery, which had excellent food to go along with the beer.
“Schedule’s busy these days,” Diego commented between bites of his burger.
Flynn nodded. “I know. For now, we’re just going to roll with it. I'm not up for buying another plane or hiring another pilot right now.”
“I get it, man. It's a lot to manage,” Elias replied.
Our conversation meandered along, talking about work and our respective lives. Diego happened to be seated beside me. Flynn was chatting with Gabriel about something on one of the planes, and Diego commented to me, “Thanks for letting me know about Harley, by the way. She upset with you about it?”
“Oh, yeah,” I replied with a chuckle. I ignored the jolt of heat that went through me at any mention of Harley.
Diego’s sister had definitely been upset with me. Then I’d lost my damn mind and kissed her again. That ended with her coming all over my fingers. I was so fucked.
I forced my mind to the moment. “She said she went to the doctor.”
“Yeah?” he prompted.
“She said it turned out to be no big deal. Just a low blood sugar thing.”
“Hope she's telling the truth,” he commented.
“You don’t think she is?”
Diego shrugged. “It’s Harley, and she doesn't like to make a big deal out of fucking anything.”
“Mmm,” I offered. The last thing I wanted was to spend more time talking about Harley. It was bad enough to have her parked smack dab in the middle of my thoughts most of the time.
Later that night as I lay in bed, I was attuned to any tiny sound coming from her bedroom. This was day four of managing to avoid her at the house. Yet she was here, just on the other side of the wall between our rooms.
Her door had been firmly closed when I'd gotten home. My mind replayed Diego’s last comment about Harley. I hoped it was nothing, and that she wasn’t covering up something more serious. My mother had passed away from an undiagnosed heart defect when I was in college. Her death still weighed on me. She'd had problems periodically but hadn't told us the whole story. I remembered being worried, but she’d assured me she was fine and insisted I go to college.
It was midsemester one year when I got the emergency call. The doctor had told us her prognosis wouldn't have been good long-term because of the complications. But still, I kept thinking if I hadn't been off at college, somehow, she would’ve been okay. I’d raced home to take care of Nora and Cat while I tried to hold our family together until Flynn could get there for all of us.
After Flynn came home, things started to feel less overwhelming. But even now, I carried the weight of it. Old twinges of guilt burned. I thought I should have known. Logically, I knew better, but it didn't really matter.
While I understood Harley was angry with me for mentioning it to Diego, she didn't understand where I was coming from. My mind spun. Moments from the other night kept going off like little flashbulbs in my memories. Every recollection triggered a visceral response as my body reacted with lingering jolts of electricity.
Diego would fucking kill me if he knew I’d even thought about his sister that way, much less had done anything about it. I thought maybe I could get over my attraction to Harley if she wasn’t fucking living here.
* * *
I glanced over at Tucker, who was walking through the garage door to one of our plane hangars. “Hey!” I called as he approached.
“Hey, want to grab some dinner at Sally’s?” he asked.
