“Fine. I’m all yours for the next week.”
You, me, and right now.
Chapter Twenty-TwoMyles
“You aren’t going to tell me where you’re taking me?” she asked as we settled on the plane.
I studied her for a few beats. “You aren’t used to surprises, are you?”
“I’ve never really been surprised.” She chuckled. “I mean, my whole life is pretty planned out.”
“You never had a surprise party growing up?” I asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“No. My dad is a pretty logical guy, and he’d always worry about doing things right, because he was on his own. So we would talk things through. He’d ask if I wanted a birthday party or if I’d like he and I to do something special. So we’d plan things out. And I guess I’ve just always been that way.”
“I get that. I’m a planner. I live by a schedule and a calendar. I don’t like to be surprised. And I don’t normally surprise people, but I like the idea of surprising you,” I admitted.
Her gaze narrowed, and she smiled. “Why?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue, Honey Badger. But I wanted to take you somewhere special. You’ve been working long hours, and I thought it might be nice to take a break.”
“I just threw a bunch of different things in my bag, so I don’t even know if I have what I need.”
“You have what you need,” I said, because I’d already called ahead and made sure the house was stocked with everything she’d need. “Stop worrying. When was the last time you had a vacation?”
She thought it over. “I don’t really know. I mean, I’m twenty-seven years old. I don’t really take vacations. When was the last time you had a vacation?”
“I travel for work often. So I mix work and pleasure, because I’ll explore when I’m in different places, but I wouldn’t say it’s a vacation per se. But we’ve got three days, so we’ll call this a weekend getaway.”
“I’ve definitely never had a weekend getaway, unless you count my girls’ trip with Violet and a few of our friends from college to Cabo. But I needed a weekend getaway after that weekend getaway. It was like spring break gone wild.” She laughed.
“Did you go wild, Montana?” I asked, not hiding my curiosity.
“No. It’s not really my thing. And my friend Alana drank way too much and couldn’t stop vomiting on night one, so I was busy trying to hold her head up over the toilet all night. And then night two was spent with Violet insisting we do karaoke night and making fools of ourselves singing, until some guy came up onstage and got touchy, and Violet hit him over the head with a barstool, so we spent the night in jail. Night three, I stayed in the hotel alone and had room service.”
I laughed.
That’s my girl.
“You’re an old soul, Montana Kingsley.”
“I think I was born a fifty-year-old woman. I was making to-do lists for my dad in kindergarten.”
“I admire how close you are with your dad. The way he talks about you—it’s the way a parent should talk about their kid, you know?”
“How does he talk about me?” she asked as she popped a piece of blueberry muffin in her mouth.
“Like you set the sun. He’s so proud of you. You can feel how much he loves you just by the way he speaks. That’s rare. I notice the same with Charlie when he talks about Harper.”
“Yeah. They are both really great dads.” She cleared her throat, peeking up at me through long dark lashes. “Have you talked to your mom?”
“Yep. Apparently, Samuel was right. She and Gino have had an emotional relationship for many years. He’s her best friend, and she has feelings for him. She won’t consider dating him until her divorce is final.” I shook my head with a laugh. “She has this sense of loyalty to a man who has another child with a woman who works in our home. It’s insane to me that she would stick by him all these years, and feel the need to honor her marriage until a piece of paper tells her that it’s okay to move on. And do you know what she said to me?”
“What?” She was watching me intently, as if this was the most important conversation she’d ever had.
“She said that she stayed with him all these years for me and Samuel. She wanted to give us the perfect family,” I said, still trying to process those words.
“She thought she was doing the right thing. Sometimes when you’re in something, you can’t see your way out. I was in a relationship for years that was a dead end. There was no passion. It was just—comfortable, I guess. But sometimes when you’ve invested so much time into someone, you just don’t want to start over. It’s a cop-out and it doesn’t logically make sense, but it’s easier to see that when you’re on the other side of it. She was in this for so long that she probably justified it. She thought she was doing the right thing by you and Samuel. The right thing for her family.”
