by J. A. Huss
When I get off the plane in Colorado there’s a thundercloud coming in over the mountains. The sky is every shade of gray, and blue, and purple you can imagine. God, I’ve missed this place. I haven’t been home since Christmas and it was a mild Christmas, so I didn’t have any pretty storms to look at.
I grab a rental—also prearranged by Oliver via text message—and head out of the airport to make my way up north. No one is home at our family farm. They are all in Florida with Ford and Ashleigh and the twins for a Disney World trip. So I don’t bother driving out to Bellvue when I get into Fort Collins. I stop at my cousin Sparrow’s house. Belle and Oliver are staying with her. Belle has been to Disney every year since she was born—our mom has a thing for Disney. So she said no this time around. And Oliver insisted he was too old for it, even though Jasmine went, and she’s three years older than him.
It makes me laugh a little. How much Oliver wants to be like Five. He has always idolized him. And even though he’s only twelve, he acts like he’s twenty-seven. Just like Five did when he was that age.
Sparrow’s family home is in downtown, not too far from Five’s house. It’s a sprawling mid-century modern on almost an acre of land, just a block off Mountain Avenue. The driveway is long and there’s four cars there when I pull in. For a moment, I wonder if one of them is Five’s, but then I remember that the unfamiliar BMW is the car that Sparrow got for Christmas last year. The other three belong to Rook, Ronin, and Kate.
Kate is home too.
I’m not surprised. She graduated this year and she’s waiting out the summer here at her parents’ house before she goes to grad school next fall.
But the fact that Five is here and not here is what surprises me. Where is he? If everyone left in town is over at Sparrow’s, where the hell is Five? Does he know I’m coming? Is he avoiding me? Did he bail out before I could get here?
The sick, sick feeling that’s been sitting in the bottom of my stomach like a sinkhole is back and worse than ever. If he ditched out on account of me… I will die. Shrivel up and die of heartbreak and humiliation.
“Hey!” Sparrow is standing in the open screen door on the side of the house near the driveway. “You’re here!”
“I’m here,” I call through my open window. But Five isn’t.
“Oliver and Five went out to run an errand.”
“They did?” I ask, getting out of my rental.
“I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”
“He knows I’m coming?” I ask. Almost dumbly. Definitely on the edge of desperate. Pull yourself together, Rory.
“Of course, you silly bitch. Five can’t wait to see you! He was so excited that you agreed to come home.”
I grab my pack and meet her at the door. “I’m nervous,” I say. The words that have been sitting in the back of my mind ever since that text came in finally come out. Words I couldn’t say to anyone except the people I call family here in Colorado.
“Don’t be,” she says, taking my pack from me and opening the door wide. “He’s here for you, Rory.”
Here for me. But if that’s true, why didn’t he tell me he was coming home? I’ve been waiting for that call for six years and it never came. He’s here. But that call never came.
Why?
I follow her inside and find Belle and Kate chatting at the kitchen table. When they see me, they squeal and get up, rushing over to shower me with hugs and kisses.
“You look great,” Kate says, holding me at arm’s length so she can take me in.
“Me?” I say, laughing with her and letting that horrible ache wash away in their love. “You look like a goddamned Wall Street wolf in that suit!”
Even though Kate isn’t really Ford’s daughter, she’s more like him than she is her mom—aside from looks. Kate and Ash both have small, delicate Asian features. Plump pouty lips and fair skin. And the most beautiful raven-dark hair.
But her personality is all Aston. She’s a ruthless businesswoman. She’s smart. Not weirdly smart like Ford and Five. But clever. And intuitive. And wise for her young age.
“Jesus, Rory,” Belle says. “You need to put on something sexy. What’s up with the Shrike Bikes look?”
I look down at my t-shirt. My dad made this shirt for me when I was fifteen. It’s got a few holes in it, sure. But that only makes it cooler. My shorts are frayed denim. The little white strings hang down across my tanned legs. And my boots are Frye. I look hot as fuck and I know it. Five loves this look. “What I’m wearing is fine. I was on my way to the Hamptons in this outfit. If it’s good enough for that place, it’s good enough for here.”
“Well, Five came home looking like a billionaire. I’m just saying—”
“She’s just saying,” Kate interjects, giving my sister the stink eye. “You look perfect.”
And that’s when reality hits me again. “What is going on?” I ask. “Why is he here? And why didn’t he tell me he was coming?”
“It was a surprise,” Sparrow says. “No one knew he was coming home. Not even Ford and Ashleigh. Obviously”—she snorts—“or they wouldn’t have gone to Florida for the annual Disney trip.”
I squint my eyes at her. “So no one knew he was coming?”
“Nope,” Kate says. “I didn’t either. I’m just as surprised as anyone.”
“Where is he staying?” I ask. “At home with you?”
“He’s not staying,” she says. “He’s got some business in Denver.”
“What?” My heart sinks again. “So he didn’t come here for me?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Belle says. “Why else would he come to Fort Collins? He drove up here from the airport, right? He came to see you, Rory. We all know that.”
But that’s not true. We don’t know that. In fact, we know nothing of the sort. He’s here for business in Denver. He probably had some time to kill, so he stopped by to see his parents and siblings. He probably forgot about Ford and Ash taking the twins to Disney. And he certainly didn’t think I’d be here. I haven’t come home for a summer in two years. I’ve spent them up in the Hamptons with Tera. I only come home for Christmas now and Five never comes for Christmas.
I grab my pack and walk out the door.
“Hey!” Sparrow calls, running after me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This was a mistake,” I say, getting back into my car. “A big, fat, stupid mistake. He never wanted me to be here, you guys!” Both Kate and Belle have followed us outside. “I’m going to the Hamptons.”
They call out every reason why I’m being stupid and immature. Why I should stick around and wait it out. Why I should give Five Aston a second chance.
Fuck that, in the words of my mother. Just fuck that.
I back out of the driveway, squealing the tires on my little Honda rental, and drive off before I have to listen to one more lie about how much Five Aston loves me.
Because if that man loved me, then he wouldn’t have slipped out of my life so easily six years ago. He would’ve called me. He would’ve sent me presents for my birthday or Christmas. He would’ve texted me goodnight and congratulated me on my fucking high-school graduation using that stupid secret Love Notes app he gave me for Christmas back when we were still kids.
And he didn’t. He did none of those things.
So that man is sadly mistaken if he thinks some half-ass trip to Colorado—when I’m not even here—is what it takes to get a second chance with Princess Shrike.
Chapter Two - Five
The Shrike farm is nothing like how I remember it growing up.
“Where are all the horses?” I ask Oliver as we come to a stop under the workshop carport.
“Oh,” Oliver says, waving his hand at the overgrown empty pastures. “Rory sold her horse when she left for college. Belle just sold hers a few weeks ago because she’s leaving for NYU. Jasmine quit riding a couple years ago and I never had a horse of my own. Cindy has a new pony now, and it’s out on the far pasture grazing with the cows until everyon
e gets home from Florida.”
“What about Snowflake?”
“Oh, she died a few years ago. But we buried her over under the old buckeye tree.” He points to an elaborately arranged pile of rocks acting as a marker. “Rory cried her eyes out and, well, you know my dad. Rory crying isn’t something he can deal with. So we had a huge funeral for her.”
Snowflake is dead. Has been for several years. And no one even bothered to tell me about it.
Do you blame them, Five? You walked away and never looked back.
The emptiness here is… sad.
When we were kids, this place was never empty. People were always staying here from out of town. Sasha and Jax would come with my niece and nephew. Merc and Sydney and all those cousins would appear every now and then out of the blue. Even James and Harper would bring their family at least once a year. Plus, we were always out here. My whole family was. The place was alive back then.
“It looks abandoned,” I say, opening my door and getting out of the car.
Oliver takes another look at his family farm and shrugs. “I like it like this. I don’t even remember the last time I had a moment alone, but I feel them coming now that all my sisters are growing up.” He glances back at me over the hood of my rental. “OK, so why’d you drag me out here?”
I gotta get something from the apartment over the workshop. But I don’t want Oliver to know about it. He can’t know about it. So I say, “There’s a hidey-hole in Spencer’s office. You know the one?”
Oliver smiles mischievously. “I know it. What do ya need?”
“A gun,” I say. “Something compact. Fit-in-the-pocket kind of compact. Can you get me one?”
“Can I?” Oliver huffs. “Of course. But he’ll know it’s gone. He counts them, ya know. Like… daily.”
“Yeah,” I say. “He does. But he’s not here. He’s in Florida. And I’ll put it back before I leave so he never has to know.”
Oliver considers this. “OK. Let’s go.” He turns and starts walking towards the house, but then looks back and finds my feet haven’t moved. “You coming?”
“You get it,” I say. “I’ll wait. You never know with your father, right? He probably dusts the place for fingerprints weekly. Or has a hidden security camera. I don’t want him to know I’m here.”
“Right.” Oliver laughs. Like this weird paranoid shit his father does is normal everyday Shrike business. “Be back in ten.”
Ten minutes is more than I need. And Spencer Shrike does have cameras. All over this damn place. In fact, if I hadn’t disabled the app he uses to monitor the farm, he’d know we were here right the fuck now because the second you drive through his gate at the main road, you’re tracked.
But I did disable that app. Because I’m fucking Five and I think of everything.
As soon as Oliver disappears into the house, I turn to the workshop. There’s a keypad to open the door, but I hacked it remotely last night, so I punch in the code, look over my shoulder one more time, and go inside.
The stairs that lead to the second-floor apartment are off to the left. I take them three at a time, then key the code to get into that place too.
I’m down to eight and a half minutes now. So I don’t waste time, just head straight to the bedroom at the end of the hall, bend down to the outlet cover nearest the door, and pull the mini screwdriver out of my suit coat pocket.
Thirty second later I’m reaching inside the wall, feeling around.
Please. Please tell me you’re still here, you little fucking piece of—there. My fingers brush against the smooth metal case, and I carefully maneuver it so it fits through the hole.
Thirty more seconds and I have the outlet cover back on. One more minute and I’m rekeying the code to the apartment to the one it’s supposed to have, and twenty-four seconds after that I’m doing the same thing to the one at the main door.
When Oliver appears at the front door of the house I’m sitting in the car, waiting impatiently. Three minutes to spare. That little shit is quick.
But he learned from the best, so I can’t complain about that.
“Here,” he says, getting in the car and thrusting the gun at me. He pulls out two boxes of ammo from his pockets and places those on the center console.
I laugh. “What the fuck am I gonna do with a hundred rounds of ammo? Jesus, kid. You’ve got some imagination.”
“Dunno,” he says. “Don’t care, either. But if you take a gun you take the ammo too. Even I know that much.”
He’s right. And even though this whole gun thing was mostly for cover, it can’t hurt to be prepared. I pop the magazine out, find it full, then check the chamber. Empty. I reach over, open the glove box, and stuff the gun and ammo inside.
“We good?” Oliver asks. “That all you needed?”
“That’s it,” I say, starting the car.
“Do you need backup?” Oliver asks, serious.
“Nah. It’s just a precaution, that’s all.”
“You got into some trouble over there in England?”
I shoot him a look as I navigate my way back down the driveway. “I’m not taking this gun to the UK, dumbass. I just have a meeting in Denver tonight and I want to go in packing heat.”
Oliver shrugs, like this is the most normal conversation ever. “Cool.”
We drive back to town. It’s a good thirty-minute drive and Oliver fills the time with mindless conversation. I’m zoning him out, thinking about that meeting tonight, when he points and says, “Stop!”
I almost screech on the brakes. Only my inherited Aston indifference keeps my foot off that pedal. “What the fuck, Ollie? You’re gonna make me crash the goddamned car.”
“It’s Rory!” He points to the steps leading up to Anna Ameci’s restaurant. And yup, sure enough, like a page out of a story book gone wrong, there she is. The one girl in this world I really didn’t want to see today.
Princess Shrike is here. In the same town as me.
How the fuck did that happen?
“Rory!” Oliver yells out the window.
“Jesus Christ, Oliver. Shut the fuck up!”
But it’s too late. Rory turns, squinting her eyes into the late afternoon sun as she searches for him. She sees me first, I think. Because she scowls, turns back to the restaurant, and walks inside without a word.
“Park,” Oliver says.
“No,” I say, easing up to the light on Laurel Street. “I gotta get going. And how is she here, anyway? I thought you said she was in the Hamptons this summer?”
“I texted her,” Oliver says with a grin. “Told her you were here. Sent her a plane ticket this morning. And she came, Five. She left her little college world and came here. For you. So fuck you if you think you’re not gonna see my sister today. I’ll call my dad up right now and tell him what you just did inside that apartment. I’ll call your dad up too. And then I’ll tell him you took his shit from inside the wall.”
What the fuck?
“We do have cameras, Aston. Everywhere. And if you think I’m too stupid to figure out you came here to get code from Ford’s stash, well… I’m taking you to school, asshole. Now park the fucking car, go inside Anna Ameci’s and sweet-talk my sister.”
“You got a filthy little mouth on you, kid.”
“Yeah, well. My last name is Shrike. My dad’s a biker and my mom swears like a tattoo artist. What’d ya expect?”
I stare at him for a few seconds. The light at Laurel turns green. Someone honks behind me. Oliver’s gaze is solid. Stoic. Firm. He will ruin everything unless I give in.
So I flip a bitch and park, pulling on the e-brake for effect.
“I’ll make you pay for this,” I say, getting out of the car.
“I can’t fucking wait for it, Aston,” Oliver quips back. “Now go be your charming, stuck-up self and tell my sister everything she’s been waiting to hear for the past six years or I’ll make good on my threats.”
I’d fight it, but what’s the point? I need h
im to stay quiet about what’s happening to me right now and hell, if talking to Rory—well away from said shit happening to me—is the only way to get that done, I can deal.
So I get out and walk up the steps to Anna Ameci’s. Rose Ameci—an old friend of ours from school—is working. It takes her a second to recognize me, but then—
“Five! Oh, my God, Five! You’re here? How are you here? When did you get back? Rory! Look! Did you know Five was coming home today? Holy shit,” she says, pulling on a young girl, who is walking past rolling her eyes. Her little sister, I think. “Isabella, get Rory and Five a bottle of champagne, will you?”
Rory is standing just inside the bar, looking like she wants to sit down and have a drink, but she’s not quite sure that’s part of her personality.
It’s not. From what I remember, anyway. Six years can change a person.
She looks sad when her blue eyes meet my brown ones. And she says nothing. Neither do I. Not because I have nothing to say—I have six goddamned years of shit to say—but because I just don’t know where to start and all the excuses I’ve planned for this moment just seem… lame.
“You look good,” I say. Which is totally lame and even I have to control my eye roll.
“Why are you here?” Rory is practically growling through her clenched teeth.
Well… she’s pissed. And she has a right to be.
“I have a meeting in Denver.”
“So I’ve heard. But why are you here?” She taps her foot on the tiled floor of the restaurant.
I unconsciously glance outside where Oliver is waiting, then catch myself and focus back on the princess. My beautiful, angry princess.
“Well?” she asks.
“You, of course.”
“Liar,” she spits. “You aren’t here for me.”
“OK,” Rose says, coming between us to break the tension. “This is weird. How about a table near the window for old times’ sake?” She grabs two menus and says, “Follow me, kids.”
