Page 39 of Chasing After You
“Don’t you see? If I hadn’t overreacted, I never would have gone. I wouldn’t have taken that job. I would have stayed home. Matti would have surprised me with that trip, and I would have loved it. We would have felt like us again. Weneverwould have split. I never would have put us through all of that, never would have put him through it. Or the kids.” God, who haven’t I hurt?
“You had to go.” He says it just as calmly as Matti did. Just as matter of fact. “You had to go so you could become who you are now.”
“Maybe I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did,” he insists. “And if you weren’t so set on believing your own damn story just so you can be right about everything all the damn time, you could see that everything you ever wanted is still possible. That the only thing keeping you from being happy now, from being with the love of your life, is your own stubborn-ass reasoning.”
I stand up with a jolt, feeling a sudden impulse to stomp off like a teenager. “This has nothing to do with me being stubborn.”
My brother sighs. “Did he tell you he’s not with Kenley?”
My shoulders drop off a bit from their high of indignation. “Yeah.”
“Then it has everything to do with you being stubborn, Ness.”
CHAPTER NINE
MATTI
No sooner has the last room service cart delivering our breakfast buffet been rolled out of the cabin, than my crew shows up, Knox leading the way through the freshly vacated entry.
“I smell waffles,” he says, loud enough for Jason to hear, who wanders in last, dragging an extra-large suitcase along which I’m guessing isn’t his.
Outside of a proper greeting involving words and hugs between me and Kenley, everyone else mostly just grunts their hellos and heads straight for the food.
Hunger outweighs the need for conversation until we’ve cleared at least half of the buffet.
“Just to be clear,” Jason says as he’s serving himself up a third Belgium waffle, “we can do our own thing while we’re here? You don’t need us to do anything specific outside of showing up?”
I nod, taking in the sight of my bandmates and Kenley packed around the dining room table, all here on a moment’s notice just because I asked. “Your job is complete. By all means, do the dude ranch thing. Or don’t. Whatever floats your boat.”
“Oh, I’m doing the dude ranch thing,” he muses, turning his attention from me to Cass, who’s sitting directly across from him. “We can book a private trail ride. They’ll pack a picnic basket for us too if we want. I was reading about it on their website.”
Cass stops short of popping a strawberry in her mouth. “You’re serious. You want to go for a romantic ride on horseback complete with picnic?”
He grins. “At sunset. Somewhere with a view.”
For a second there, she’s practically glowing. Then, her suspicious side gets the better of her. Her smile falters. Her eyes narrow. “Why?”
Jason doesn’t take offense though. If anything, I think his grin is getting broader. “Because the most romantic thing we’ve done all year is make out inside the beer cooler where we shared our first kiss. I’d like to think we can do better.”
“Your first kiss was in a beer cooler?” Kenley interrupts, looking wholly invested in the current conversation while she holds a half-eaten biscuit two inches from her mouth, like she’s so enamored with Cass and Jason’s attempt at having a healthy relationship, she forgot she was even eating it.
“Yep,” Cass confirms, trying to sound unimpressed at the mention of it, but the smirk curling the corner of her mouth gives her away. “One of those big, walk-in coolers for the kegs. That’s where it happened.”
“Tell me,” Kenley goes on, using her biscuit to point at them both while she talks, “how does one wind up making out in one of those?”
“Yeah, let’s hear that story,” Knox adds, pushing away an empty plate and leaning back in his chair. “I’ve always wondered how that came about.”
“I have not wondered,” I add, reaching for my cup of coffee. “But I probably should have considering I’m the one who caught you two sneaking out of the beer cooler.”
Knox briefly stares at me before all eyes land on the pair. Waiting.
“You wanna tell it?” Cass asks, gesturing for Jason to go ahead. “You were kind of the driving force behind that beer cooler kiss.”
He snorts. “Sure. We’ll go with that.”
She gasps indignantly. Then smirks and noticeably, doesn’t utter even a single word to contradict him.
