I sit up and tilt my head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He chuckles to himself, again getting some sick pleasure out of tormenting me. “For someone that really loves being the hero, you’re going to pick now, as the time to be lame and what… just wait? Go get the girl, you fucking idiot.”
“Even if I leave now, she’ll already be on a plane to a connecting hub by the time I get to Taos.”
His gaze hardens and he stands. His teasing tone is gone, replaced by his gruff solemn words when he looks down at me. “I’m not going to let you make the same mistake I did. Come on. If we get you on the road soon, you can get to Jackson before she does.”
I quirk a brow at him. “Are you going to let me borrow your baby and drive it?”
He flashes a shit-eating grin at me. “Hell no, but I thought these might come in handy.”
He reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants and before I can react, he tosses a set of keys at me, hitting me right in the middle of my chest.
“For fuck’s sake, can people stop throwing keys at me?”
“Nope,” my brother says dryly before starting to walk toward the gate to the motel parking lot. “Let’s go get your ride.”
I look at the keys in my lap and recognize them immediately. “You really think that thing’s ready to drive that far?”
Sly stops and turns to me, dropping a shoulder in a one-sided shrug. “Yeah, I trust anything that one of us fixed.” He waves a hand at me in a gesture to join him and I finally peel myself out of the patio chair.
I know he’s talking about fixing cars, but the casual confidence in his voice reignites that spark of hope that I can fix this with Kelsey and make everything right. Not just what happened tonight, but everything else that’s happened between us over the last two years.
I love her and want us both to feel good about a future together. Most of all though, I want it to beourfuture. Something that we can build together, something that’s truly ours, and that’s exactly what I told Slade earlier tonight.
That’s why I follow my little brother to his old car and fully commit to this crazy idea.
CHAPTER 49
KELSEY
Jackson, Wyoming
If the lasttwenty-four hours have taught me anything, it's that I don’t like flying or being in airports. After driving aimlessly around in the rental car, I found myself eventually heading toward Taos just to get away from Sterling Springs.
When I saw the sign for the airport on the outskirts of town, I figured I’d go back home. So I returned the rental car and rushed through the Taos airport to get on the last flight to Salt Lake City. Then I spent the night in the airport—on a horribly uncomfortable bench—just to catch the first flight to Jackson this morning on a tiny, cramped plane. If I never set foot in an airport terminal or on an airplane again, that would be fine by me.
At least if I’m looking on the bright side, for a change, hurrying through the airports and being exhausted was enough to distract me from what I heard Sutton and Slade talking about last night. I can still hear their voices and those words echoing in the recesses of my mind.
Close on Gloria’s.
Maybe she’ll visit you in Seattle.
Even after a night of crappy sleep in an airport, those words still haunt me and stoke my worst anxieties while I walk through the small Jackson airport toward the doors to the parking lot, complete with elk antler arches like the ones on the town square. It’s an almost comforting reminder that I’m home—or at least the place I will always want to call home.
That little bit of comfort doesn’t change that it feels like I’m losing Grandma’s house all over again and worse, maybe losing Sutton too. That part feels bittersweet though because I love him. I nearly turned back to Sterling Springs multiple times last night because I love him so much that it hurts down to my bones.
I think that’s what makes this worse—it feels like my trust was at best, misplaced, or at worst, betrayed.
That’s why I couldn’t stay there last night. That’s why I needed to get away and clear my head.
There’s still one thing that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. It’s the way he sounded last night. It was just so… off. He was so rigid and uncomfortable last night when he was talking with Slade. Maybe I should have stayed and talked to him, but I was too afraid that I might have been right.
Those thoughts are quelled, at least for a welcome moment, when I walk through the sliding glass doors, out of the airport. I’m hit with the soothing fresh mountain air that immediately acts like a balm to my frayed nerves. It just feels like home and for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, I take a breath—one that gives me enough air to finally try and think straight.
I close my eyes and take another deep breath, enjoying the steadying feeling.
Alright. I can do this.