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“Great, thanks man!” Ace exclaims, and then heads back out of the door with his dogs on his heels and clearly just as excited as he is.
“I’ll have some lunch ready for you when you get back,” Gerald calls after us, and I pause, turning around to face him again.
“You don’t need to do that for us; we’re quite capable of making sandwiches. I’m not comfortable hiring another chef with everything that’s still going on, and I'm not sure I’ll hire another one anyway.” I reply.
“That’s completely understandable and very well. Have fun,” he smiles before turning around and heading back out of the room.
We waste absolutely no time in heading across the expansive backyard, and I studiously ignore the slightly charred patch of grass where I burnt my mother’s finger after the Ravens sent it to me. I’m still not feeling what I think I should be feeling, and although the guys have continued to reassure me, and Waverly even backed them up when she last called, I just want to avoid everything to do with my mother for a while.
“Does anyone else want to bet that we get lost?” I ask as I quickly pull my bright blue hair up into a messy bun on the top of my head and do my jacket up more.
Rome grins, “I’m not taking that bet. I’d be more surprised if we don’t get lost.”
Surprisingly, we’re both wrong, and we don’t get lost; we find the targets pretty quickly. She has several set up at different heights and all of them varying sizes to make it more challenging. As we shoot and practice our skills, I can feel all the tension that was riding us melt away. We all needed to just let off steam. Unfortunately, the rain which was a mere drizzle when we left the house, suddenly decides to take a turn for the worst and gets too heavy for us to continue.
“We should probably head back,” Rip announces over the sound of the rain.
“Sounds good to me. I want a hot chocolate now,” Mase replies, and after making sure that the safety is on his gun, he reaches his hand out to me, and I happily take it, threading our fingers together.
“Good call, Dude,” Ace replies as we all start heading back, our steps quickening thanks to the steady downpour.
“When the weather is better, I want to explore the grounds more, the house is old enough that there should be some old buildings out here somewhere too, and that sort of thing always intrigues me,” Malachi says, sounding as if he could go and explore now.
“Oh, I am definitely up for that,” I agree excitedly, and I’m met with a gorgeous smile as his dimples appear.
“Oh shit,” Rome exclaims as we reach the edge of the treeline and realise that actually the trees were shielding us from the worst of the rain.
“We better make a run for it,” I suggest and then add with a frown, “I don’t think we had signal in the woods; my phone is going fucking crazy with notifications.”
“Last one back has to make the hot chocolates,” Rip yells and then takes off at a sprint.
We all run after him, and somehow, I manage not to be the last one through the door and promptly do a victory dance because I thought for sure that I was going to be last. They’ve all got longer legs than me.
“Rip, how the hell did you end up being the last one through the door? You had a head start!” I exclaim, ignoring all the amused looks I’m getting thanks to my victory dance.
Rip glares at Ace, “He fucking tripped me.”
Ace smirks as he replies, “Rome always tells us that we should always be aware of our surroundings.”
Mase chuckles, “He’s not wrong.”
Rip ignores them all and flips them the finger, and then stomps to the other side of the kitchen to start the hot chocolates, leaving wet footprints in his wake.
His show of moodiness makes the guys all chuckle as we all take off our wet jackets and hang them up. My phone buzzes again in my pocket, and I’m reminded that it was going wild with notifications as soon as we exited the woods.
Frowning, I pull my phone out of my pocket; I really hope that nothing has gone wrong with the Ravens; I feel like I just need a couple of days to breathe before I have to start it all up again. Of course, it could also be something to do with Mona and the job that she wants us to do, which would complicate things since we’ve only got a few days until I have to attend the meetings at the Raven’s headquarters. I suppose it could also be D; he could have an urgent job for me, and again that would complicate things and stretch me a bit too far, but I would never turn down a job from D, especially since if he’s asking me now, knowing what I’m dealing with at the moment then it’s going to be an important job.
My apprehension immediately rises as I see that I have multiple missed calls and texts from Waverly. I only spoke to her yesterday, and she would never ring me continuously like this unless it were urgent.
Fuck. Something must have happened; without any hesitation, I find her number and press call.
Chapter Five
There’s no time to check any of the messages; in fact, I’m so sure that there must be something seriously wrong that I start to make my way upstairs to change and pack because I have a feeling that I might end up getting a flight to her.
“Is everything okay?” Mal asks as I leave the room.
She doesn’t answer the first time, so I press redial as I answer Mal, “I think Waverly needs help. I’m going to change and throw some stuff in a bag in case we need to go.”
