Page 50 of Your Last First Kiss
“Yeah.” He chuckles. “Remy taught me after…” He tears his gaze away from mine. “After my dad left.”
My fingers burn with the need to give fucking Eddy the finger and maybe a couple of black eyes.
“I’ll ride with Kai.” I slide my jaw side to side to work out the tension.
Kai looks at me with a questioning expression.
“I trust you more than him,” I say under my breath. “Pretty sure Miller will do everything he can to dump me off the back of one of these things just to watch me tumble.”
A grin appears on the boy’s face. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“One hundred percent,” Miller confirms with a laugh. “Let’s get going. We’ve only got a few hours before the next storm.”
Kai climbs onto a bright red machine and guides it down a small ramp. When he’s outside, he scoots forward on the seat, then motions for me to follow him.
So, I do. I climb on behind him and trust that this kid won’t try to kill me. As soon as I’m on, he relaxes into the seat. This must feel like freedom to him. I remember how much I needed that at his age. I also know that trust doesn’t come easy to him; I can sense it. But he’s trusted me twice now, and I don’t take that lightly.
The ride to Remy’s place is rough, though I doubt it’s because Kai was trying to kill me. The terrain is unmarked, but they forge a path until we come to what looks like a lighthouse overlooking a lake.
What in the hell?
“Remy has a funny sense of humor,” Kai calls over the wind that pummels us from across the lake.
“His house is a lighthouse? On a lake?”
“Yup.” Kai stomps through the snow, and I follow in his steps since I don’t have snow gear on yet.
Miller beats us to the door and opens it wide without knocking. I close the door behind us and take a deep breath of warm air filled with pine and apple pie. It’s an odd mix that has my body relaxing before my mind catches up to it.
It smells like Christmas in here.
“It always smells like this. Year-round,” Kai whispers when he catches me inhaling again.
“Huh.” The circular room we’re in looks like a storage unit full of apparel and gear for every type of weather, from fly-fishing poles to snow boots.
We all tromp up a spiral staircase to the third floor, where an old man sits on a stool near a window with a pair of binoculars held to his eyes. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and jeans held together at the knees with duct tape.
Duct tape. He’s sitting on property he must have dumped millions into over the years, yet he wears jeans that are probably older than me with holes covered in silver tape.
I don’t understand.
“Remy, meet Dillon, the Westbrook friend,” Miller says, leaning in to hug the old man.
“You’re early,” he says without looking at us.
“Actually, we’re late. We stopped by Penny’s first. She has Eddy’s girls today too, so we helped settle them before we took off.”
“Not you, Matty. Dillon. He’s early. Wasn’t expecting him till next month.”
Miller turns to me with a wide grin but speaks to his grandfather. “You were expecting Dillon? Here?”
The old man finally turns my way and lowers the binoculars. He has round cheeks that are red from the elements and icy blue eyes that cut through my protective layers. His skin is leathered, like he’s never met a bottle of sunscreen, and it makes him look older than his seventy years. I feel like a kid in the principal’s office as he scans me from head to toe, but his expression stays the same. I have no idea what he’s thinking.
“Yup,” he says, then turns back to the window. “Not exactly what I was expecting, but we’ll see how he does.”
“How I do with what?” I ask.
“Finding your place,” he says cryptically.
