If she stayed long enough, I’d be able to catch her, and then... I don’t know if I would’ve told her word for word what I’d planned. I probably would’ve started with Hi, how are you?
It seemed the right thing to do.
If I actually got the nerve to approach her.
God, she’s beautiful. But she’d always been, so that was nothing new. There was a reverence to her now, though, something bold. And I feared that forcing her to even look at me might take all that away. And that was a terrifying thought.
So I waited, and waited, and waited. And then poof, she was gone.
Like a dream.
Like a fantasy.
The party’s over now, and all the guests have left besides Lucy’s group of friends who are at the fire pit by the lake. Katie, my niece, is sleeping in the crib in Dad’s room, and he’s passed out, snoring like the tired old man he always tells us he is. I’m in the garage apartment with Logan and Red, his girlfriend. I spend more time here than I do in my own room. Ever since the shit that happened with Logan, I don’t like to be too far from him. At first, I thought I might be smothering him with all my big brother bullshit, but then he pulled me aside and told me that he appreciated it, that he needed me to be that person for him, which is good, because I didn’t really plan on going anywhere any time soon.
“Are you ready?” Red, whose real name is Aubrey, asks as she sits on the couch opposite me.
“For what?”
Logan uncaps a beer and hands it to me. “Academy.”
Right. I was leaving for the police academy in less than a week, and I’d be gone for near six months, which made the whole creeping-around-my-little-brother thing hard, but still doable. I take a sip of the beer and nod once. “Yeah, I think so.”
I’d already passed all the previous tests, and Misty, Laney’s kind of stepmom, lined up a job for me as soon as I graduate. If I graduate. Misty and I had become close over the past few years, ever since I told her that I was interested in joining law enforcement. So close that when she had a son with Laney’s dad, they asked me to be his godfather. They named him Preston. To be honest, it was a little overwhelming at first—all that responsibility—but man, it helps that he’s cute as hell, and for some unknown reason, he really looks up to me.
“Dude,” Logan says, flopping down on the couch next to Red. His hands are free. He doesn’t drink alcohol. Weed was his vice. In normal circumstances, it isn’t too bad, unless you’re using that drug to help murder the memories of your past. Which he was. “How much has Mia changed?” I can hear the underlying meaning in his words, and so can his girlfriend, because she narrows her eyes at him and smirks at the same time. “I’m just saying!” Logan laughs out, kissing the side of her head. Red simply rolls her eyes and allows him to bring her closer. And before I can even process the fact that he’s even said Mia’s name, he’s telling me, “I gave her a ride to the hotel.”
“What? When?” Now Logan narrows his eyes at me, and I try to play it cool. “I mean, I didn’t see her leave or anything, so…”
Aubrey stifles a giggle. “You should just sex her,” she tells me, using Lachlan’s toddler talk. “I saw you watching her the whole day.”
It’s true. I was. And also: been there, done that. Greatest sex of my life. And then the crying and the yelling and the truth happened.
“After we set off the lanterns,” Logan says, clueless to the silent message his girlfriend’s trying to send me through her eyes alone. “Lucy asked me to get more ice, so I left, and Mia was walking on the side of the road with her luggage. I felt bad, so I offered her a ride.”
“Huh.” It’s all I can get out.
“What did you talk about?” Red asks. “How much she’s changed?” She’s still teasing him in that way they do—to each other—all the time.
Logan shakes his head. “Nah, she didn’t really talk much. I tried, but it was clear she didn’t have a lot to say.”
I chew my lip.
“But she did mention that she was here trying to get Virginia to sign divorce papers for her dad