Page 142 of Daddy, Take Me Away
Road Trip Daddy
By Bayleigh Rae
Chapter One
Polly
“What do you mean you can’t go? Jared, we’ve been planning this trip for two years!”
My brother ran his hand through his sandy-brown locks and sighed. “I know, Poll, I'm sorry. But there’s a merger and downsizing at work and I’m lucky I still have a job. Hundreds were laid off, Poll. Hundreds. I can’t leave right now. They need me.”
He wasn’t lucky, he was fucking brilliant, but now wasn’t the time for that particular argument. Besides, I was too mad at him to worry about fluffing his ego right now. I glared at him sullenly, crossing my arms over my chest like a petulant child. “Two years.”
“I know. And I promise we’ll go. Just as soon as everything settles down at work. I’ll make it up to you.”
“As soon as everything settles down at work?” I repeated incredulously. “Jared, no! This isn’t just some random trip that can be rescheduled. It's my twenty-first birthday trip!”
“I know. I’m really sorry. And I’ll still take you out for drinks on your birthday.”
I blinked at him. “Where? Here? This town is practically dry. I am not spending my birthday here.”
Jared grimaced. “Maybe some of your college friends can come with us. Make it into a party.”
“Everyone’s gone home for the summer, and no one tried to make plans with me for my birthday because I wasn’t supposed to be here.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I should have known this would happen. Work always comes first with you. Next time, fuck your stupid overprotective ways. I’ll plan to go with Savi and Krystal. They won’t cancel on me at the last second.”
Jared looked wounded. Not that I was surprised. I’d dealt a low blow, several of them, in fact. Work did always come first, but it was because he’d been solely responsible for raising me after our parents died when I was fourteen. He’d been a kid himself still, creeping up on his twenty-first birthday, suddenly crippled with grief and just as suddenly solely responsible for a sullen, grief-devastated teenage girl.
Most people would have dropped out of college to get a job. Not Jared. He used the little life insurance our parents left behind to pay off the house so he wouldn’t have the burden of mortgage payments, and did his degree in record time while working enough hours to keep the lights on and put food on the table.
When he graduated college a year early, he got hired on with the same company he works for now. Competitive salary, good benefits, life-work balance… they’d wanted him badly, and he’d used that to set us up for the next several years. They’d given him everything he wanted and been an incredible place to work while also raising his teenage sister. The fact that the company was now changing hands was killing him, I knew.
But he was protective, overly so. I’d always put up with it because of everything we’d been through and how much he’d given up for me, but I was about to be twenty-one, and I could have gone on this road trip with friends. Jared had insisted we do it together, and had kept adding stops to sweeten the pot until I agreed, and now he was canceling.
Jared stared at me for a long beat then huffed out a sigh. “I’ll make it up to you,” he offered weakly. “We can still go on the trip.”
“When? A year from now? Two?” My tone was sharp, and I sounded like a petulant child, but I was upset and I had every right to be.
“No.” Jared’s answer lacked conviction and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Before the end of the summer, I promise.”
“Not good enough.” I wasn’t appeased. “My birthday is now. I didn’t enroll in any summer classes. I declined a bunch of invitations from friends. I got three weeks off from work, which meant working a ton of extra shifts the past few weeks to make up for it. I’m fucking going on this trip, Jared. If I have to go alone, so be it.”
He nodded slowly, his expression resigned. “I knew you were going to say that. That's why I had a plan B in place.”
Hope bubbled in my chest. I really didn’t want to go alone. For one thing, I hated driving, and for another, who wanted to go on a road trip by themselves? “Plan B? What’s that?”
“I believe that would be me.” The French doors to the kitchen swung open and there he stood, the bane of my existence. Cas Duncan. He must have just gotten out of the shower because his hair was still wet and he had a fluffy towel wrapped around his hips, showing off his adonis muscles. Staring at him, I forgot for a moment that I was angry and what I’d been talking about.
God, he was gorgeous. Dark hair that he kept just long enough to fall in his eyes, stunning green eyes, and a body like a Greek god. And when he wasn’t talking, I could easily forget how annoying he was.
The truth was, Cas Duncan was a good man. Flighty, not so smart, crude at times, and a lot overbearing, my brother's college roommate was his polar opposite, but when shit hit the fan, nobody could hold a candle to the way Cas had stepped up. Even though he was by all accounts, a total bro-dude, he’d held my brother at the hospital, helped him plan the funeral and when Jared had been out of the dorms and in the house with me for a week, Cas showed up with two suitcases full of all his worldly belongings and a rolled-up mattress and announced that he was ready to “full house this shit”.
And he had. Cas had driven me to volleyball practice, picked me up after debate club, helped me with my history homework, and basically stepped up whenever and wherever Jason couldn’t.
At fourteen, I’d had a giant crush on him. But I was twenty-one now—basically—and Cas annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me on a daily basis. He still lived here, still helped wherever he could. Still made sure the household ran smoothly because my brother, genius that he was, could forget about basic things like grocery shopping and paying the water bill.
Once when I was seventeen, I’d gotten mad at him and accused Cas of mooching off us for free room and board, since I barely ever saw him do anything that looked even remotely like work. Jared’s jaw had dropped and Cas had scoffed, picked up his phone, then showed me his bank account with its balance in the low millions. Turns out Cas was very adept at playing the stock market and had increased a minor trust fund his grandma had left him by like 200× the original amount. I’d had no idea. I respected him a little more after that, but his arrogant take-charge attitude still annoyed the shit out of me.
“So…” Cas took a step toward me and shook out his still wet hair. “What’s our itinerary for this road trip?”
