“Do you want me to carry you back to the party?”
“No. I just need to find my phone…”
The crunch of gravel has us both turning our heads toward the entrance gate.
Oh, god. He’s back?
A man with hair so light it shines in the darkness, along with the light of a flashlight or his phone, comes strolling through the parking lot.
“Bear?” he whispers. Then louder, “Bear?”
“Over here!” the man holding me up – Bear, apparently – calls back. As the blond comes toward us, the Bear guy asks, “What took you so long?”
“Sorry. Long line.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, but we should go…” He trails off, shining his light on us. “Holy shit. Is that Laurel?”
“No, it’s Laurel’s sister.”
“Um, okay. Why are you making out with your ex-wife’s sister?”
“Ex-wife?” I say in confusion at the same time the Bear guy says, “We’re not making out. Lyla took a tumble.”
“What do you mean she took a tumble?”
“She fell down!”
“Oh. Is she okay?”
“That’s what I was trying to find out when you came up.”
The two men go back and forth in that familiar way like they’re good friends or siblings while I’m still working out the ex-wife comment.
“Wait a second,” I say when it occurs to me that Bear is the obvious nickname for Barrett Fulton. I push my palms against his chest to take a step back so I can tip my head up and see his face in the light of the other guy’s phone. His gorgeous, scruffy face that I just saw a few days ago.
“Barrett? What are you doing here?” After I ask the question, the answer slaps me in the face. “Oh my god. Were you coming to stop Laurel from getting married? You told me that you wouldn’t show up and cause a scene!”
“No, I know. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I was trying to get that closure we talked about.”
“Closure?”
“To see Laurel is happily married to someone else.”
“You wanted to see if she’s happy? Marrying one of the men she cheated on you with while you were away?”
“One of the men?” he huffs, and I wince.
“Sorry. I thought you knew.”
“She’s bleeding,” his friend or brother says as he shines the light in my eyes again.
“I know that, RJ,” Barrett responds, dabbing at my wound with the cloth again. Was RJ one of his brothers’ names? I think so.
“Ow.”
“You’ve got a bad scrape. Just making sure the bleeding has stopped,” he replies. “Did you hit your head hard? Could you have a concussion?”
There’s no possible way my clumsy fall could be any more embarrassing than having the hottest man ever witness it.
“Do you want me to take her back inside so we can get out of here?” RJ offers.
“I definitely can’t go back and tell them now,” I remark. “Nobody else needs to know that I fell when I was running on rocks in heels.”
“Why were you running?” Barrett asks.
“Ah. Just in a hurry to get out of here,” I lie rather than tell him I thought someone was following me. What if someone was there, though, and follows another woman out of the party and hurts her? “Did you, ah, see anyone else? I mean, was anyone else out here to witness my face-plant?”
“No. I didn’t see anyone else,” Barrett replies, confirming it was all in my head.
“Well, um, thanks for checking on me, even though you shouldn’t be here.”
“You were laid out on the ground bleeding. I couldn’t just leave you there, even if it meant outing myself for showing up here.”
“I won’t tell anyone you were here if you never tell anyone I tumbled across the rocks like an idiot.”
“Deal,” he agrees, flashing me a small smile that I’m compelled to return.
In fact, the two of us stand there and just stare at each other silently for several long seconds until RJ’s light skips away from us.
“Where are our bikes?”
Barrett clears his throat. “Down that row,” he tells him, pointing to the left side of the parking lot.
For a moment, we keep standing around awkwardly, neither of us sure what to say. I don’t want them to leave. I don’t want to be alone. Although, there’s no reason for them to stay here. In fact, they should leave ASAP before one of my dad’s guys sees them.
“Could you help me find my phone before you go?”
“Sure.”
Both men have their phone lights searching the area around us. It doesn’t take long before RJ bends down and picks up the device.
When he offers it to me, I tell him, “Thank you. I need to get a ride home.”
“I would offer to take you, but we’re gonna need rides of our own since we had too much to drink,” Barrett explains.
“That’s okay,” I say, only a tad disappointed as I try to get my phone to turn back on. There’s a big crack down the center of the screen, surrounded by smaller cracks.
“You calling a friend to come get you?” Barrett asks.
“No, an Uber if I can get it to come on.”
“We’ve already got a ride on the way here. Let us drop you off.”
“Okay, yeah,” I easily agree since my options are limited. “Thank you, Barrett. You’re a lifesaver.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Barrett
Lyla looks shaken up, even if she’s trying to act all tough after her fall.
She’s stubborn and proud like her sister. I’m not sure if the “fiery redheads” stereotype applies to everyone with crimson hair, but it applies to the Perry sisters.
I pull up the ride share app on my phone to update our plans so we can drop Lyla off first while RJ goes to round up his cut from his bike. “Do you have a place of your own, or are you still living with your dad?” I ask so I can put in the address.
“I still live with my dad and grandma, which is both sad and pathetic, I know…”
“I still live at home too.”
“Oh, right.”
I enter in the address I still know by heart and then the home address for me and RJ. Tomorrow we can get Jordan to bring us back to get our bikes.
A few minutes later, a burgundy minivan drives through the lot. I wave my arms above my head to get their attention as the headlights shine across the lot.
“Shotgun,” RJ says as the driver turns down our row.
As soon as the van stops, he opens the front passenger door and hops in while the rear door slides open automatically, the interior lights illuminating the second row. “After you,” I tell Lyla.
She climbs in and sits down with me right behind her.
Before the doors close, it’s impossible not to notice that her injuries are worse than she let on.
She must have seen her face in the rearview mirror because she gasps and lifts her fingers to the scrapes across her forehead.
Her light green dress has brown dirt stains, a few tears. She holds out her palms, and they’re scraped up too.