“Charley?”

“Oh my God, what’s happening?”

“Charley? Charley!”

“Jim, it’s Claudia. What’s going on?”

“Charley, are you okay?”

“Oh God… no… we’ll get her home.”

“Charley?”

“It’s going to be okay. We’re here.”

“Charley…”

15

Labayelle, November 2013


After almost nine hours on the road, we pulled into a motel in Laramie, Wyoming. Beck had driven this time, while Jake and I nursed hangovers in the backseat. The three of them had joined me in the bar last night but only Jake and I had alcohol. We got a little wasted at dinner and I could only put it down to strained nerves on both our parts.

Waking up early to get on the road was not fun but our pale faces and self-pity seemed to amuse Beck, and I was okay with anything that kept him in marginally good spirits.

For the most part Jake and I were quiet in the back of the car because we were feeling ill. Even when we stopped at Ogallala, Nebraska, for lunch, we were monosyllabic. Food seemed to help though and as Beck got us back on the road, Jake attempted conversation. He updated me on his little brother Luke who’d gone from total player to devoted boyfriend when he met his match in his first year of college. Apparently the she-player he was dating didn’t give up playing like he did, however, and they broke it off when they started sophomore year.

“He’s dating a library assistant now. Really quiet, shy. Luke’s a different person around her.”

“Good different?”

Jake grinned. “Yeah, definitely. I think my little brother might be growing up. How scary is that?”

“What’s scary is the part where we’re growing up,” I said dryly. “Do you feel it? Grown up, I mean? Because I don’t.”

He gave me a consoling smile. “No. I’ve been applying to different grad schools—molecular engineering. Every time I take a minute to process that that’s where I am right now, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.”

Suddenly concerned by the anxious tone underlying his words, I turned toward him. “You’re happy, though, right? It’s what you want to do with your life? This is the next step that you want?”

He thought a moment before answering. “Yeah. It’s what I want. It just sometimes feels like it’s come at me all too soon. Before I’m ready for it. But I guess we all feel that way. We just have to suck it up and get on with it.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

Jake’s eyes reassured me. “I’m sure. There’s just a huge part of me that wishes I could go back a year or two—pause the inevitability of responsibility and adulthood. I’ve fucked up the big stuff before. I don’t want to do it again.”

It was my turn to be reassuring. “You won’t. You won’t because first time around, you weren’t even considering whether you’d fuck anything up. Your head wasn’t anywhere but in the moment you were in. Now you think about consequences, how everything we do affects our future. It’s called the learning curve, Jake.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it without even thinking. “You won’t repeat the same mistakes. You’re not that guy.”

I felt his fingers slide through mine and just like that, the handholding went from friendly and comforting to something more. It was the whisper of skin sliding against skin. An innocent touch somehow turned sensual between us.

Jake rubbed his thumb lightly over mine and I felt that barely there touch between my legs.

Biting back a gasp, I wrenched my hand from his and rolled my head on the cushioned headrest to stare determinedly out at the passing scenery.

We’d passed into Wyoming, a state I’d never been in before. We were on the Lincoln highway and after passing through Cheyenne, there wasn’t much to see except plains, mountains, and trees. It was beautiful. Peaceful.

“Charley?”

Jake said my name so quietly and with such depth, I froze. I looked up front to see Claudia and Beck deep in conversation about which motel to stay in. She was busy looking it up on her iPhone.

Sure they weren’t paying attention, I looked at Jake feeling a rapid flutter in my chest. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For the way I acted last time I saw you. It was childish and unfair.”

I turned away again, unable to meet his eyes when I replied, “Apology accepted. You’re allowed to be angry with me.” I was angry with myself. With everyone and everything.

I felt resentful. Trapped.

I missed him.

“I just wish I knew the whole story.”

I glanced sharply up front, noting Claudia and Beck had grown quiet, alert. I shot Jake a look of admonishment out of the corner of my eye. Understanding I didn’t want to discuss this and definitely not here where we had no privacy, he turned away and watched the passing scenery too.

In the early evening we arrived in Laramie and decided to pull in for the night. We found a motel, took a nap, and then went for a walk. The main part of town was pretty and old-fashioned-looking with streetlights that looked like gas lamps. Some of the buildings dated back to the 1800s, all the storefronts were well kept, and the streets were clean in a way that reminded me of home.

“Bar and grill.” Claudia pointed to a place just across from the train tracks.

“Let’s do it.” Beck threw his arm around her shoulders and they started walking across the street to the bar.

Feeling Jake’s eyes on me, I turned to him. “What?”

He nodded at Claudia and Beck. “Do you think that’s a good idea right now?”

“I think we’re on a road trip to scatter Beck’s dad’s ashes and that it’s a small miracle I’ve heard him laugh and seen him smile as many times as I have. Claudia helps him. As much as I’m worried for them both, I won’t be the one to take away the balm that she is for him.”

Without waiting to hear Jake’s reply, I hurried across the street to catch up with our friends.

The place was pretty packed but we managed to get a table in the back. After we ate, I felt much better, my hangover finally dissipating.

Beck and Claudia took their turn to have beers while Jake and I stuck to soda. We’d been drinking for a couple of hours when Beck and Jake managed to grab one of the pool tables. Claudia and I played against them but we lost, and then I lost in a one-on-one against Beck. I hadn’t spent much time around a pool table and neither had Claudia, so we decided it would probably be more interesting to watch Jake and Beck go head to head.

During one of their games, I headed over to the bar to get more drinks. The bar was busy, so I waited while a group of ladies in tutus, jeans, and glittery pink cowboy hats—a bachelorette party?—ordered another round. After a few minutes I glanced back across the bar at my friends.

I felt unease shift through me at the sight of the young woman leaning against the pool table. Claudia was talking to Beck while this girl, who had come out of nowhere, flirted with Jake.

Jake didn’t seem to be flirting back but I knew him well enough to know that his eyes were definitely taking in everything about her. I could understand why.

She was gorgeous.

Tall with long, wavy dark hair, a golden tan, and pretty, fresh features that weren’t caked in makeup like so many of the other women in the bar. She wore a casual but short T-shirt that showed off her curvy bosom and toned midriff. Her blue jeans showcased her lean legs. She was wearing very cute worn brown cowboy boots.

Everything about her screamed, “I am Jake Caplin’s type!”

I felt sick.

Physically sick.

I studied Jake for a reaction as she reached out and touched the iron fist logo on his Pearl Jam shirt. He’d been holding himself aloof from her but whatever she said, it brought forth that smile that could floor a woman.

And it floored her. I could tell in the way her smile widened and her body relaxed, as if she were melting under his attention.

I turned away, feeling a little breathless.

And then the berating commenced. Jealousy was something I wasn’t allowed to feel where Jake was concerned. I gave him up, and giving him up entailed having to watch other women flirt with him.

Shit.

What if he spent the night with her?

The thought froze me to the spot.

You’re being crazy, Charley! He’s not going to hook up with a random stranger on a road trip to scatter his best friend’s dad’s ashes.

I looked back over at him and my eyes narrowed. The girl was standing even closer and they seemed to be having an actual conversation.

“Blondie, what can I get you?”

I whipped around at the voice and was confronted by a cute bartender. He was a couple of years older than me with dirty-blond hair, sexy stubble, and twinkling bright blue eyes. He grinned as I blinked at him, coming out of my panic over Jake and the girl.

What could he get me?

For one: a stool. I did not want to go back over there until the girl was gone.

I glanced at the filled stools in front of me, frowning.

As if the bartender read my mind, he tapped the bar in front of a big beefy guy and said, “Jay, you mind moving down the bar.”

“Sure thing, Ty,” Jay said and I watched in amusement as he pushed the guy beside him, and like a set of dominoes they forced everyone down a spot until the stool in front of me was open.

I slid on it and smiled gratefully at Ty the bartender. “Thanks.”

Ty grinned and I had to admit, I took some comfort and pleasure in the appreciative look in his eyes. “No need. I wanted something prettier to look at than Jay.”