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I can’t get any sense of movement from inside Laney’s room, though. I hope she’s already awake, and I’m not going to have to haul her out of bed. My mind briefly flits to picturing what she’d slept in, and I force the image away. I can’t let myself think of her like that. She might be almost eighteen, but she’s my responsibility. I probably look like an old man to her, though when I look in the mirror, I don’t feel like I look any different than how I was in my twenties or thirties. Forty, fuck, how did that happen? With two grown sons, too.
The hotel room door suddenly swings open to reveal Laney standing there, a roller-suitcase in one hand, a purse in the other. They’re all things I asked the personal shopper to provide for my newly reacquainted stepdaughter.
“Ready?” she asks.
I blink in surprise. “Yeah, sure. I was going to ask you that.”
She half lifts the suitcase. “Thanks for all this. I’ll pay you back...someday.”
I flap a hand at her. “It’s the least I can do.”
She gives me a strange look that I can’t quite read. Does she agree? After all, it’s not as though I gave her mother a cent toward raising her. I had my reasons for that—and those reasons weren’t that Laney was never really my child—but I still can’t escape the twinge of guilt that goes through me.
“Where are Cade and Darius?” she asks.
“They’ll meet us down by the car.”
I check my watch. We need to make a move.
The hotel room door swings shut behind her. I catch a glimpse of the ruffled bedsheets and quickly turn my head. I don’t want to think about Laney half naked in bed either.
She’s casually dressed this morning in ripped blue jeans and a cropped sleeved white tee. The white sneakers she’d been wearing yesterday are on her feet. Her hair is loose and hanging down her back.
I hope Cade and Darius aren’t going to give her any shit. I’ll have to jump on them hard if they even try. Maybe she should have gone to live with a foster family, or even a friend, but then she hasn’t mentioned having any of those.
When we get down to the lobby and step out into the bright sunshine, I discover both the boys are standing beside the car. Darius is by the passenger door, his forearm resting on the roof, as he speaks to Cade across it. Cade has the rear door open, and he senses us coming, and looks past Darius toward us.
“Come on, old man,” he says. “You’re going to make us late.”
He knows full well that we’re not going to be late, but I always try to keep everyone on track, so it’s just his way of ribbing me.
Neither of them says good morning to Laney, and I sense her pressing in closer to me. A wave of protectiveness rises inside me. I guess it’s better that they ignore her than they give her shit for me bringing her along. I can’t imagine either of them particularly wants a little sister hanging around, cramping their style.
The driver appears, straightening his suit, and taking the bags off our hands to put in the trunk. Laney offers him a smile of thanks, and I tip him.
“Make sure we get to the airport on time.”
He nods. “I’ll do my best.”
There will be five of us in the car, and since Darius is up front, and Cade and I both have to sit in the back, it makes sense that Laney sits between us. The boys have both got my height, and we’re all well over six feet tall. Laney isn’t petite for a girl but she’s still substantially shorter. I do wonder about the length of her legs, and immediately snatch my thoughts away from them again.
We squash into the back seat together. Darius climbs in the front, but he still hasn’t said a word—not that it’s unusual for him. I’m aware of how closely squashed in Cade and I are to Laney, but there’s not much I can do about that. She pins her knees together and folds her arms in her lap and stares straight ahead.
The driver starts the engine, and we pull away from the hotel and merge into the city traffic.
Laney frowns as we leave Los Angeles behind us and head north, toward the San Fernando Valley.
“Aren’t we going to LAX?” she asks.
“We’re not flying commercial,” Cade tells her. “Private planes all the way for us, baby.”
She blinks those big eyes at him. “I’ve never even been on a plane, never mind a private one.”
“Then you’re in for a treat.”
It takes about an hour for us to reach the private airport. No one speaks much. Everyone scrolls through their phones or stares out of the window. I can’t ignore the fact that the atmosphere is different with Laney in the car. Normally, the boys would be teasing each other or chatting about who theywere with last night. I’m grateful to them for keeping those particular details to themselves, but I hope Laney doesn’t think we’re all unsociable.
I’m not sure why I care about what Laney thinks. In a little over a week from now, she can walk away from us all without a backward glance. What is it I’m even hoping to get from this next week? Am I simply trying to sate some deeply buried guilt about leaving her and her mother? I’d be lying if I said I’d felt guilty all these years. The truth is, I’ve barely thought about either of them. I had my hands full with Cade and Darius. But yeah, seeing that Laney had been living in those shitty conditions all these years does make me feel bad.
