AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What the actual fuck is taking so long?” Adam snaps, his impatience bringing a smile to my face. “Did the princess need to fix her makeup or something?”
“Ah, there’s your attitude. I thought we lost you for a second with you acting like you actually liked me.” I laugh at his eye roll while unlocking my car to toss the weird flowers in and grab my purse from the glove box.
“That wasn’t showing like, that was pity.” Adam throws back, making my eyes narrow in anger. Nobody gets to fucking pity me, I don’t need pity.
Adam smiles when his comment hits the mark, the fucking bastard. Walking backwards, he makes a big show of checking his watch and makingmove it alongmotions. It honestly really makes me want to make his right eye match his left.
“Let’s go,” I grumble, moving towards the prick at the car. My legs feel steadier as I walk, but the pain in my head is still an incessant throb that’s dulling all of my other senses.
We both get to the car, a little quicker than we got to mine and climb in the backseat. Rhys looks back at me, making sure I’m okay and buckled up before he starts up the engine. Laying my head against the backseat, I let my mind wander in the silence of the car. All of us seem to be inside our own heads, the only sound is the hum of the engine and the wind whipping by the windows.
My thoughts drift back to Declan and his song before I can stop them. Taking a deep breath to stop another panic attack, I sort through the mess of my own mind. The problem with this situation is there’s so many unknowns that I’m afraid I’ll never get to know. Even the guys in the car, the ones that seemed to be closer to him than anyone else, are holding questions about why he left, why he didn’t ask for help, why he took this exit when his road kept going. Declan took all of the answers to the grave with him, whether we like it or not.
“Wait.” I sit up abruptly, pulling everyone out of their thoughts. “Did Declan leave a note or anything?”
The guys all exchange glances with each other, an electric intensity filling the car. Rhys clears his throat a few times, his eyes flicking between looking at me through the rearview mirror and the road in front of him.
“He did,” Rhys speaks slowly, his expression tense and grim. “He addressed it to you.”
Adam swings his hand out, smacking Rhys in the arm at the sound of my disbelief. “You didn’t have to fucking tell her that. It at least could’ve waited until we got back to the house in case she has another panic attack.”
“I’m good,” I whisper, my voice getting drowned out by the arguing in the front seat. “I’m good.”
Riggs sighs in frustration at his two friends, not agreeing or disagreeing with either of them. His hand pats mine awkwardly in the middle seat, his eyes searching my face to see if I’m actually good or if I’m lying. The truth is I don’t even know the answer. I’m not panic attack bad, yet I definitely feel like I’ve been stabbed in the heart. Again.
“She asked the fucking question!” Rhys yells at Adam, his anger making his knuckles turn white on the steering wheel. “What did you want me to do? Ignore her like an asshole?”
“You could have used some damn tact! Look at how she reacted to his fucking song! The note is so much worse than that,” Adam growls back, his voice growing louder with every word.
“ENOUGH!” I yell out, my head screaming from all the yelling going on. “It’s fine. I’m not going into a panic attack, you don’t need to pity me anymore.”
Adam looks back at me, his lips pulled into a thin line that makes me think he disagrees. Too bad for him, I know myself better than anyone. I know the signs of a panic attack, I know the signs when I’m triggered. I’ve lived with this shit for most of my life. Right now, the mention of the note is not triggering any reactions from me. It was the answer to a question I asked, reading it may be different, but right now I’m okay.
“You don’t know me, you don’t know my mental health or my triggers,” I push on, the entire car silent as they listen to me. “We’ve met each other under horrible circumstances which have led me to more vulnerable moments in front of you than I would like. That does not mean you get to ignore me when I say that I’m okay. You do not get to decide what is or isn’t okay for me to hear. I won’t be here for very long, but while I’m here we need to have some semblance of trust between us.”
“Agreed,” Riggs grunts out beside me, his eyes sparkling at me with something akin to respect and pride.
“You’re right, Alayna. I apologize for the fighting,” Rhys speaks up, his voice back to the calm, reassuring one I’ve come to know. “That was unacceptable behaviour and I will do my best to not react like that in front of you again.”
He glances at me in the rearview again, his eyes filled with guilt and shame at his outburst. Without thinking, I reach forward and place my hand on his bicep in a comforting gesture. There’s something about these guys that make me comfortable with touch just a bit more than normal. Usually the thought of casual touch makes my skin crawl, the only exceptions were when my vagina needed some tending to. Not with these three though.
The car is silent again, the tension still there a bit between the two in the front. It doesn’t escape my notice that Adam didn’t say anything at all, not an apology or an agreement not to do it again. Whatever, it’s not like I’ll be here for much longer. Besides, he’s shown his true colours and kind and understanding are the furthest adjectives I would use to describe him.
The house is just up ahead, the same grey brick, suburban looking house that I pulled up to yesterday with so much hope and happiness in my heart. The simple white porch, with two chairs that look well loved where they probably drink beers and watch the sun go down. It’s also the porch I punched poor Riggs in the stomach on, that’s two out of three guys I’ve punched. I’m winning at social interactions.
The driveway is wide enough for two cars with an attached garage in front. There’s a massive dark blue pick-up truck sitting in the driveway already. Rhys pulls in beside it, cutting the engine as we all stare at the house like it’s going to bite us.
“Why does it look so ominous now?” Riggs rubs the back of his neck, his elbow hitting the car window as he does. His voice seems to shock Adam and Rhys out of their staring contest with the bricks, both of them laughing awkwardly.
“Probably because we’re about to go in there and sort through our dead friend’s stuff with his long lost girlfriend,” Adam blurts out bluntly with a hollow laugh. Apparently his takeaway from my earlier admonishment was that he should be completely blunt at all times. Even though he was abrupt with his delivery, he’s not wrong. It’s why the place looks so uninviting right now.
“Let’s just bite the bullet and go in,” I murmur, trying to bolster us all up to leave this car that is growing hotter by the second.
“Bad analogy, Lay. Bad analogy.” Adam shakes his head, turning my words into a morbid as fuck joke. It should have made us all sad or angry, but instead we all start chuckling in unison. Our chuckling grows quickly into a full blown laughing fit that has each of us gasping for breath. Wiping tears off my cheeks for a different reason, I jump out of the car with the three assholes who seem to be the same brand of messed up as I am.
It makes sense, Declan was exactly like them, thorns and all. He would have probably made the joke himself had he been in this with us. He hated tension or uncomfortable situations so he always tried to joke his way out of them. It feels like the perfect way to pull us out of that internal struggle of whether or not we are ready for this next step.
“You know,” Rhys mutters with a chuckle as he unlocks the front door. “Declan would have loved that joke.”
