The dark in the back of her eyes wasn’t completely gone, and the bitterness she felt still existed through her interactions with Beck, but I knew that Team Redford and Jake helped her mourn and try to move on.
We were obnoxiously persistent that way.
“All right, Rowena told us what she’s going to miss about us, but what are we going to miss about Scotland? Rowena and Maggie, obviously, but what or who else?” Claudia smiled around, her eyes jumping over Beck like he didn’t exist.
I resisted the urge to throw my napkin at her.
“I’m going to miss the accents,” Denver said.
“Ooh, good one.” Claudia nodded. “I’m going to miss Digestive biscuits.”
“Irn Bru,” Lowe named the Scottish soda drink that was surprisingly addictive.
“Milk.” Beck referred to the bar they played all the time.
“Scottish girls with purple hair.” Matt grinned at Rowena.
“Aw, that was kind of sweet.” Claudia looked as surprised as the rest of us.
He shrugged. “I can do sweet. I do know how to tone down all this raw animal magnetism.”
Claudia groaned. “Annnnnddd… he’s back.”
Laughing, Jake relaxed against his seat, his arm across the back of mine. “I’m going to miss,” he shot me a mischievous look, “Arthur’s Seat.”
Chuckling, I nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to miss that too.”
“Well,” Lowe scratched his chin, “I just learned more about Jake and Charley than I wanted to know.”
As everyone laughed, I leaned forward, looking at my friends, memorizing their faces. “I’m going to miss this. Right here.”
We were silent a moment, soaking it in, knowing that there would probably never come a time when we’d all be together again. Making great friends and saying goodbye—it was a bittersweet certainty of college.
My phone blasted in my purse and everyone groaned.
“Way to ruin the moment, Charley,” Lowe grinned, teasing.
I rolled my eyes at them as I pulled out my phone. “It’s my dad, I’ll be a sec.” I answered his call, laughter in my voice, “Hey, Dad, can I call you back, I’m—”
“Charley, something’s happened,” he interrupted, his words so grave, unease rolled up from my stomach.
I stuck my finger in my other ear to block out the noise around me. “What? What happened?”
“You need to come home, Charley. It’s Andie.”
The world narrowed, black shadows creeping in at the edges of my vision and my chest… my chest felt so tight. “Dad?”
“She’s been in an accident. She’s in a coma. You have to come home, Charley. You have to come home.”
“Oh Go—” The black swarmed my vision and I couldn’t breathe.
“Charley?”
“Oh my God, what’s happening?”
“Charley? Charley!”
“Jim, it’s Claudia. What’s going on?”
“Charley, are you okay?”
“Oh God… no… we’ll get her home.”
“Charley?”
“It’s going to be okay. We’re here.”
“Charley…”
Chapter Fifteen
After almost nine hours on the road, we pulled into a motel in Laramie, Wyoming. Beck had driven this time, while Jake and I nursed hangovers in the backseat. The three of them had joined me in the bar last night but only Jake and I had alcohol. We got a little wasted at dinner and I could only put it down to strained nerves on both our parts.
Waking up early to get on the road was not fun but our pale faces and self-pity seemed to amuse Beck, and I was okay with anything that kept him in marginally good spirits.
For the most part Jake and I were quiet in the back of the car because we were feeling ill. Even when we stopped at Ogallala, Nebraska, for lunch, we were monosyllabic. Food seemed to help though and as Beck got us back on the road, Jake attempted conversation. He updated me on his little brother Luke who’d gone from total player to devoted boyfriend when he met his match in his first year of college. Apparently the she-player he was dating didn’t give up playing like he did, however, and they broke it off when they started sophomore year.
“He’s dating a library assistant now. Really quiet, shy. Luke’s a different person around her.”
“Good different?”
Jake grinned. “Yeah, definitely. I think my little brother might be growing up. How scary is that?”
“What’s scary is the part where we’re growing up,” I said dryly. “Do you feel it? Grown up, I mean? Because I don’t.”
He gave me a consoling smile. “No. I’ve been applying to different grad schools—molecular engineering. Every time I take a minute to process that that’s where I am right now, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.”
Suddenly concerned by the anxious tone underlying his words, I turned toward him. “You’re happy, though, right? It’s what you want to do with your life? This is the next step that you want?”
He thought a moment before answering. “Yeah. It’s what I want. It just sometimes feels like it’s come at me all too soon. Before I’m ready for it. But I guess we all feel that way. We just have to suck it up and get on with it.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
Jake’s eyes reassured me. “I’m sure. There’s just a huge part of me that wishes I could go back a year or two—pause the inevitability of responsibility and adulthood. I’ve f**ked up the big stuff before. I don’t want to do it again.”
It was my turn to be reassuring. “You won’t. You won’t because first time around, you weren’t even considering whether you’d f**k anything up. Your head wasn’t anywhere but in the moment you were in. Now you think about consequences, how everything we do affects our future. It’s called the learning curve, Jake.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it without even thinking. “You won’t repeat the same mistakes. You’re not that guy.”
I felt his fingers slide through mine and just like that, the handholding went from friendly and comforting to something more. It was the whisper of skin sliding against skin. An innocent touch somehow turned sensual between us.
Jake rubbed his thumb lightly over mine and I felt that barely there touch between my legs.
Biting back a gasp, I wrenched my hand from his and rolled my head on the cushioned headrest to stare determinedly out at the passing scenery.