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"He won’t."
That's all my brother gives me, and his expression tells me not to ask any further questions.
After touchdown, the jet taxis directly into a similar structure as we departed from. However, this one screams private airport, not dingy drug-smuggling airfield. As I peer out the window, I see a massive sign on the wall reading Altman, and my eyes widen.
Nate gets up and digs through a bag, pulling out a plain hoodie and a baseball cap. "Put this on."
I look down at myself. "I’m already wearing a hoodie."
Before he can respond, George steps up to us. "Yes, but yours has your school's logo on it. If anyone would take a picture right now, they could easily trace it back." After a pause, he adds, "Leave your hair inside the hood, pull the hat down low, and put these on." He grabs something from Nate's hand and presses a pair of black Wayfarers into mine.
I argue that I'll stick out like a sore thumb like this, but Nate assures me that Californians dress like Eskimos in seventy-degree weather, and no one will look twice.
Well, okay then.
He was right.I don't get a second glance as I follow Nate to a fancy-looking car, which he identifies as an Aston Martin One-77. The first image in my head is how Rhys and Wes would drool over this vehicle. I shut down that train of thought as fast as it came—I can't go there. I can’t break down in public.
George will follow us in his truck, a matte-gray monstrosity with blacked-out windows that would make Tristen proud. As we pass him leaving the airport, I'm able to recognize it as a RAM 3500.
We drive for almost two hours. LA traffic is something one has to experience to understand. Holy crap, what a cluster. Where are all these people coming from—or going to—in the middle of the day?
When we enter a neighborhood like ones I have only ever seen on TV, I crane my neck to take it all in. One wrought-iron gate after the next. Behind some, you can see mansions that make the vineyard look like a mobile home. Others have an endless driveway with no house in sight.
"Nate?" The awe in my voice is apparent.
"Hmm?" His shoulders are tense, and he doesn't look away from the road.
"Where are you taking me?" I don’t think he would bring me to his house.
"My parents’," he replies absently.
It takes me a moment to grasp the meaning. He's letting me stay at his childhood home. The home he has barely set foot in in over ten years. My father's house.
"Nate," I choke out his name. "You don't have to. I can stay at a hotel or..."
"This is your house as much as it is mine," he cuts me off. "And this way...maybe I can associate that place with something good again."
Tears prick at my eyes. "Thank you," I whisper.
This time he turns to me. "For what?"
"For being here."
