by K. A. Linde
“I brought her here to help her get over her breakup, not so that you could be an asshole to her, like usual.”
I held my hands up and laughed. “You all take this way too seriously.”
Heidi shook her head. “You don’t take anything seriously.”
Then, she was trudging down the dock, following in Julia’s wet footprints.
I turned to face Patrick and just shrugged. “Women.”
Patrick laughed hysterically at me as soon as Heidi was out of earshot. “Man, you are so done for.”
“Whatever, man.”
“Oh, fuck off, Austin. You’re so going to fuck Julia this weekend.”
I shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that.”
Patrick splashed me as he swam back toward the dock and pulled himself up to sit on the edge. “She’s so fucking pissed at you.”
I lay back, floating, and stared at the sun burning bright overhead. “She’ll get over it.”
“I’d almost think that you weren’t totally into her.”
“Whatever.”
Patrick laughed again as he popped open a beer. “I can’t wait to watch this play out. I sure hope you keep acting like an idiot.”
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” a voice called from the end of the dock.
I righted myself and saw my sister Morgan walking down the dock. She was four years younger than me but was second-in-command at Wright Construction. We had all been born and bred to work for the company, but Morgan was the only one who really relished in it. Only twenty-seven years old and one of the most powerful women in business. She’d landed on three Thirty Under Thirty lists this year. She would have made our parents proud…if either of them were still alive.
“Morgan,” I said with a grin. “Here I thought, we’d never see you out of a business suit.”
“Traded it in for something cuter. What do you think the board would say if I showed up in this suit instead?” she asked, twirling in place in her white bikini.
Even though she addressed the comment to me, her eyes were fixed on Patrick. The idiot was the only person alive who didn’t realize that Morgan had been head over heels for him since they were kids. But I wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole. The thought of my best friend hooking up with my little sister made me want to stab something or vomit or both.
“Probably start a riot,” I told her.
“Indeed,” she said with a wicked grin, as if she were contemplating it. “Now, tell me what you idiots did to upset Julia already? We just got here!”
Patrick raised his hands. “Don’t look at me.”
“Oh, who’s surprised that Austin is the troublemaker?”
“I just pulled her into the water with me.”
“Fully clothed,” Patrick coughed.
Morgan shot me an imperious look. “I have the power to relegate you to the couch. So, watch yourself.”
“Oh no, not the couch!” I cried as I heaved myself onto the dock. “I’ll make it up to you, Mor. How about a hug?”
“Don’t you dare,” she said, pointing her finger at me.
I darted toward her, and she took a step backward, as if we were sword fighting and she were testing her opponent. I took another step, and Patrick howled with laughter.
“I think she’ll make you sleep on the roof if you throw her into the water,” Patrick said.
“It’s Jensen’s house. He’ll get a say.”
“He always sides with me,” Morgan snapped. She had three older brothers. She knew how to fight dirty if need be. “And you won’t even get the roof when I’m done with you.”
“Fine. Fine,” I said, holding my hands up in defeat. “You win.”
“Don’t think I don’t know your tricks,” Morgan said.
“I bow to thee, fair maiden.”
I dipped down low, and when I straightened, I threw her over my shoulder. She screamed and beat my back.
“If you throw me in that water, I will murder you!”
I hauled her to the edge of the dock and pretended to release her. She screamed right before I caught her and then dropped her back onto her feet.
But, when she looked up at me, she was laughing. Morgan might be Jensen’s mini me, but she and I always had the most fun.
“Come on. Dinner is almost ready,” Morgan said, clapping me on the back and then falling into step with Patrick, back up the hill to the house.
I grabbed the beer as I followed them, cracking one open as I went. Julia might have joked about me always drinking, but alcohol was just a part of my life. We had a special relationship. The constant buzz. The feeling of the pain disappearing.
That was what alcohol was.
Freedom.
Pure, unadulterated bliss.
If there was anything I could rely on, it was that a drink would silence everything always buzzing around in my head. It kept me numb and pleasant. I didn’t even remember my life before it. And, frankly, I didn’t want to.
The lake house was in chaos when I entered. Luggage everywhere. People everywhere—cooking, talking, drinking. With all four of my siblings and their plus-ones and kids, we had eleven people at the house for the full weekend. Emery’s sister and her family would join us tomorrow. It made me want to get another drink already.
I finally meandered out of the house and found Jensen at the grill. He nodded his head at me.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Heard you threw Julia into the lake.”
“I didn’t throw her.”
“Semantics,” Jensen said. “I don’t care what you do, Austin. Just trying to make this as much of a drama-free weekend as possible. I know that’s nearly impossible when we get the whole Wright family together, but don’t start shit, okay?”
Jensen, the fixer, the CEO of Wright Construction, and my older brother. No one would ever guess we were only three years apart, considering Jensen treated us more like he was a father than our brother at times. Not that we’d had a good example of a father figure.
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll do that.”
Jensen reached into a bag on the ground and brought out a bottle of top-shelf whiskey. He grinned as he passed it to me. A peace offering.
I opened the bottle and poured the pair of us a drink. It was smooth and hot as it went down. Perfection in one little bottle.
When the food was ready, we all made up plates and took a seat around the fire pit Heidi had put together. She had schooled Landon in her fire-building skills, and he looked the worse for wear with her torment.
“Girl Scouts,” she insisted with a shrug.
I got my food last, feeling more than a buzz for the first time in a while. It took a lot to get me drunk. A lot. But this shit that Jensen had bought was incredible, and we had been downing it like water.
My eyes roamed the seating at the fire pit, and against my better judgment, I decided to do something stupid.
“Hey,” I said, nodding at the seat next to Julia. “This seat taken?”
Julia warily looked up at me. She’d changed out of her wet clothes, and she was in cotton shorts and an Ohio State T-shirt. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“If you’re done being a dick.”
I shrugged and sank into the seat. “Probably not.”
She laughed, short and stilted. “Of course not.”
“So, you haven’t gotten over me pulling you into the lake then?”
“Is this your idea of an apology?”
“No.”
“You’re really insufferable, you know that, right?” Her chest heaved, and she glanced away from me.
“Maybe you should have a drink.” I offered her the bottle of liquor.
“That’s your answer to everything. Have a drink. Drinking doesn’t solve problems, Austin. It creates them.”
“Your choice.”
I set the bottle back down and dug into my cheeseburger. I was starving, so anything would have tasted good, but Jensen really knew what he was doing on th
My family was overbearing at the best of times. Had to be completely overwhelming otherwise.
“Hey, you want to see something cool?” I asked.
“I’ve already seen your dick. It’s not that interesting.”
“That’s a lie, and we both know it.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Look, I’d be happy to give you another look if you don’t remember,” I said, standing and reaching for my swim trunks.
“Austin!” she said, jumping to her feet. “Cut it out.”
“Come on. Let me show you something.”
“I really do not want to go anywhere with you.” She pulled back her arm as I reached for it.
“Christ, just trust me, Jules.”
“I don’t.”
She strode back into the lake house, and I followed her at a close clip.
“Jules…”
She whirled around. “Stop calling me that. You know I don’t like it. It’s Julia. You can call me Julia, like everyone else.”
“Fine. Julia.” I stepped up to her, as if I were approaching a wild animal. And, with her unruly red hair down, tangling around her shoulders, she gave a pretty good impression of being one. “I thought you’d like to see this.”
She stumbled forward a step, as if drawn by an invisible cord that linked us together. As drawn to me as I was to her. Or maybe I was drunk and imagining things because her eyes shuttered, and that spark was gone.
“Why do you think I’d like it?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
Her curiosity must have piqued enough because she finally gave me a stiff nod. “All right. Where to?”
I grabbed her wrist, and she only glared at me.
“Follow me. It’s almost time.”
Three
Julia
Going anywhere with Austin Wright was a bad idea.
I’d had my fair share of bad breakups. And whatever the fuck had happened with Austin ranked up there. I was going to put it in the number two spot. The number one spot would always be taken.
Maybe I was actually following him because of my most recent breakup though. No one would blame me if I slept with Austin to forget the last year of stupidity I’d let myself go through. To let myself believe for so long that I could do nice and normal.
Except me. Would I forgive myself?
Austin had gotten under my skin.
Like a virus, and I was so fucking sick.
Austin grabbed keys off of a hook by the kitchen and then veered toward the exit. I glanced over my shoulder once and realized that no one else had even seen us leave. I’d been friends with Heidi and Emery for almost two years now, but the whole Wright family thing was a bit over my head. Strangely, it felt like Austin was the only one who noticed that. Or maybe he didn’t, and he just wanted to get in my pants. I rarely could get a good read on him.
“Where are we going again?” I asked.
“I didn’t say.”
He shot me that panty-melting grin, and my frown deepened.
Warning alarms were going off in my head. I should stop this. I should go back to the party and enjoy my time with friends. I didn’t have to do this with Austin to have a good time.
But I walked out the door anyway.
He jangled the keys in his hand, absentmindedly flipping them around and around on the key ring. I didn’t see his shiny red Alfa Romeo. A fucking beautiful car that I had fallen in love with on sight. Not its owner, but definitely the damn car.
Austin swung me toward Jensen’s giant truck.
“Um…what are you doing?” I demanded.
“Going for a drive.”
“You are not fucking driving! You’re drunk.”
His face split into a smile. “I’m not driving. You are.”
He threw the keys to me, and I caught them, one-handed.
“You want me to drive this huge truck? Does Jensen even know we’re borrowing it?”
“Eh, don’t worry about him. He won’t care.” He popped open the driver’s side. “Need a boost?”
“I don’t want to steal his car, Austin. Grand theft auto isn’t in my repertoire.”
“You want me to drive then?” he asked, reaching for the keys.
I held them back, out of his reach. “Definitely no.”
“Then, get your ass in the truck.”
Austin didn’t give me a chance to argue; he hoisted me up and set me down in the driver’s seat. I didn’t even know how he’d managed it. I wasn’t a small person. Short, yes. Thin, no. I’d never in a million years been Heidi’s size. Not that I gave two fucks. This was who I was, and I liked it. But, damn, Austin had to have biceps for days to lift me like that.
“Austin,” I said softly. My voice was a knifepoint.
“Hmm?”
“If you ever touch me again without permission, I’ll gut you like a fish.”
He laughed and trailed a finger down my exposed leg. “Sure thing, Jules.”
I clenched my hand into a fist to keep from slapping his endearingly handsome face. “Why am I doing this?”
“Because you’re intrigued. Now, let’s go.”
Austin jogged around to the other side of the truck and jumped into the passenger seat. I couldn’t believe myself, but I turned the truck on and slammed the door shut.
All I kept asking myself was, Why? Because, seriously, why?
“Don’t make me regret this,” I told him.
I put Jensen’s truck into reverse and backed out of the lake house. I was glad that I drove a giant Tahoe, or I wasn’t sure how I would have managed. The roads at Ransom Canyon were narrow. Luckily, most people were inside or on the lake, and we were the only idiots driving back up the canyon wall.
The winding road cut into the mountain face made me nervous as hell. It was bad enough when Landon had driven down it. This was a whole new level of unease. We certainly didn’t have canyons like this in Ohio. Truly, we didn’t have much in Ohio. Not where I was from.
Austin guided me around the face of the canyon, and I was so busy concentrating on not falling off of a cliff that I hadn’t noticed that we had come to some empty gravel parking lot.
“Right here,” he said. “Now, turn it around and back up to the edge of the cliff side.”
“Uh…how close?”
“I’ll tell you when to stop.”
He didn’t do that until I thought I was going to drive straight over the edge.
“It’s fine. There’s a chain,” he said when I refused to move another inch.
“A chain isn’t going to stop this truck.”
“Ah, come on, babe.”
He hopped out of the car, and I counted slowly to ten before following after him. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Why am I at an abandoned parking lot on the top of a canyon with Austin Wright?
“This is what you wanted to show me?” I asked incredulously.
He’d pulled down the latch on the back of the truck and dropped a blanket over the bed. He sat down and patted the seat next to him. “Over here.”
I bit back a snarl and took his offered seat. “What are we doing?”
He put his finger to his lips and then pointed out in front of him. I resisted the urge to bolt. He wasn’t being a total shit even though he was clearly drunk. I didn’t forgive him for pulling me into the lake or all the other stuff that had happened, but I had agreed to come up here. I could at least give him the benefit of the doubt before he fucked everything up and drove me mad.
With a sigh, I turned to face forward, conscious of his leg pressed up against my thigh and our shoulders almost touching. An electric current seemed to radiate between us as I tried to focus on everything but his body next to mine.
But what I saw was a perfect, unimpeded view of the canyon below. A crystal-clear blue lake was dotted with boats, Jet Skis, and a few tubes. From this height, we couldn’t hear the screams of excitement and adrenaline, but I could sense it. Houses dotted the lakeshore, gliding evenly up the canyon walls. Some were as large as the crazy mansion on the hill, as obtrusive as the steel house that had taken decades to build, and others were as small as a tiny one-bedroom, completely hidden and tucked away in the trees.
“Wow,” I whispered. “It’s a great view.”
“See? I thought you’d like it.” His hand trailed over mine, leaving little circle eights behind in its wake. “It’ll only get better.”
“Why are you like this?” I asked, my voice hoarse. I couldn’t look at him, but I didn’t move away. I’d always loved the things that were bad for me.
“Like what?”
“Decent when I want nothing to do with you.”
“Hate and love are easy emotions to feel. They’re powerful. It’s indifference you have to fight for,” he said, gripping my chin and turning me to face him. “Not caring about someone would mean forgetting them, and we both know that neither of us are forgettable.”
For just a moment, my fingers ached to thread up through his hair. My mind replayed past memories. Simpler times. My body remembered those lost hours. But my heart snagged on the rips he’d added to the shredded mess. It was a mystery how it still beat with all the damage it had sustained.
“I wish I could forget you,” I told him, not caring how harsh I sounded.
But, like usual, he just laughed and faced forward once more. He didn’t take my anger seriously. I never knew if it was the buzz or if he truly didn’t care.
“No, you don’t.”
I didn’t contradict him. I just huffed as I faced the horizon and watched the sun set on my first day newly single. There was nothing like a Lubbock sunset. Streaks of pink and orange and gold painted the sky like a watercolor, bleeding into the sky. The scene reminded me of a postcard—fake and full of hope.
And, for the first time in weeks, my fingers itched for my charcoals. I’d thought, when I was younger, that I would be this incredible painter, full of life and color. Then, I’d grown up. I’d realized bright colors were for other people, and shades of gray were more my speed. It wasn’t often I was inspired to pick them up anymore. They brought back too many memories.
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