AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once inside, we got on the road, heading southeast, and I turned on some light music to fill the quiet. I half-expected Carmela to fall asleep once we were on the road, but she had brought a book with her and seemed quite well awake. Our small talk was mostly unfocused and not really a conversation as much as it was just us awkwardly trying to figure out how to speak to each other with the new dynamic.
“So, you look like you’re getting around a bit better,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“Still hurts,” she said. “But it’s better. I’m able to put a shoe on again, so I take that as a win. As long as I don’t put pressure on the heel, I’m mostly okay.”
“Good, good,” I said.
“Did you talk to Camden before you headed over?” she asked.
“I didn’t,” I said. “He was already out with the animals.”
“Sounds about right,” she said. “He gets up with the chickens. He’s supposed to be trailering up the horses on Saturday for the ceremony.”
“Wait, he’s coming down with them?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, sighing and sounding non-plussed. “I’m going to meet him and take over the responsibility of them once he gets there. You have a hitch on this truck, don’t you?”
“I do,” I said. “I hauled all my stuff down in a trailer with it.”
“Do you think it could pull the horse trailer?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Good. Then if I meet him when he drops them off, I can tell him to go on home and we can bring them back,” she said. “Easy enough.”
The rest of our drive was much more pleasant, and when we arrived at Port Aransas, I helped her off the ferry. We were supposed to go directly to see Trevor and Jade and be shown to our cabin, and I knew she was nervous about it all. It would be the first time she had seen Trevor since they’d broken up, and the first real test of our ruse.
I squeezed her hand and kept my hand on the small of her back as the golf cart dropped us off at the main venue cabin and met the couple inside. Once in eyesight of Jade and the man I assumed was Trevor, she straightened up and did a remarkable job of trying to try to look as elegant as possible while on ugly metal crutches.
Trevor spirited away pretty quickly, only barely acknowledging Carmela before excusing himself. He didn’t even introduce himself to me or shake my hand. It told me a lot of what I needed to know about him immediately. Jade, on the other hand, seemed delighted and was excited to show Carmela and me to our cabin for the weekend.
After a few moments of gushing about how happy she was and bragging a bit about some of the amenities, Jade eventually got around to asking Carmela about her ankle and if she call the golf cart to take us to the cabin. When Carmela said it was going to be no problem, I rolled my eyes. Thankfully, I had a bottle of the extra-strength acetaminophen with me. I had a feeling she was going to need it.
We followed Jade to the cabin, which was only a few dozen yards from the main venue. The view from the area where it sat was lovely. Each cabin was separated from the others by a little tree line, and there was a view of the ocean from the room.
Jade brought us to our door, handed us a key, and then had to run back to meet another guest, leaving Carmela and I opening the door by ourselves. Figuring I could go get the rest of our luggage and things in a few minutes, I opened the door for Carmela and followed her inside.
The cabin was cute but small. It was all open floor with a bed in the center of the room underneath a window that looked back toward the mainland. There was a small kitchenette on one side, what I presumed to be a bathroom beside it, and then large windows overlooking the ocean and leading out to the beach across from the bed. A couch, a couple of chairs, and a small, ancient-looking TV filled the rest of the room other than a couple dressers and nightstands.
“That’s a double bed,” Carmela said.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I can sleep on the couch. You take the bed.”
“That couch is small. You can’t fit on that thing,” she said. “Hell, I don’t think I could fit on that all night.”
“It’ll be tight, but I can make it,” I said.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “We are both adults. We can share a bed.”
As she said it, our eyes connected, and we shared a look that said both of us kind of doubted that.
