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As quickly as possible, I pull the clothes I got out to visit my parents and slip them on before finding a sensible pair of shoes. I don’t bother looking around as I scurry through the house and out the front door – if he needs me, he’ll call me. There’s no way I can be here for another second after what just happened.
I send a quick text to Elias to let him know that I’m on my way to our parents and for him to meet me there with Luna saddled up for me, then peel out of the driveway without a backward glance. If I see him standing on the front porch, watching me pull away, there’s no guarantee that I’ll keep going.
I can’t believe I just did that.
My parents live about thirty minutes away, which gives me enough time to get all these emotions out of my system before my mother takes a good look at me. Melanie Grace is like a ninja when it comes to her kids, always knowing what’s going on with them before they’ve even got it figured out.
One look at my flushed cheeks, mussed hair, and swollen lips is all it will take for her to understand what happened. Luckily, I’ve got my favorite lipstick tucked beneath my radio – at least, that will give me some sort of advantage against her scrutinizing stare.
Don’t get me started on Elias. If there’s anyone I’m closest to in my family, it’s my big brother. He’s the one I would run to about all my boy problems in high school and also the one who would handle them. I remember talking to him on the phone about my job, complaining about Ryker, and I could tell there was something he wasn’t telling me.
God, if he were to find out I’d done something with Ryker when he knows I shouldn’t have – I’d never hear the end of it. Which is another reason I need to get these pesky emotions locked tightly away and save them for a later date. All I want and need right now is to get on the back of Luna and ride to my heart’s content.
***
When I pull up the winding driveway, Elias is leaning against my parents' front porch, his arms crossed in front of him as he frowns at my car, and I’m not surprised when my parents throw open the door.
My mother smiles brightly at me and bounces in place next to my father, who’s shaking his head with a soft chuckle. He drapes an arm over her shoulder and pulls her against him as I make my way over to the two of them. “Honey, you act like you didn’t see her just last week.”
She swats his arm playfully and pushes away from him with her arms held out for me, which I step into with a warm smile. When it comes to my mother, no one can be in her vicinity without feeling like the sun is shining even brighter on their face. I’ve watched her interact with groups of strangers, never having met them a day in their lives, and end up calling her up to connect.
“We’ve missed you around here, sweetie,” my mother says softly as she tightens her arms around my small frame before pulling away. “Your brother said you came here to ride. Is everything okay?”
And there it is.
As much as I ride for the fun of it, my mother knows that most of the time, I do it to relieve my stress. This means even though I’ve gotten hold of my emotions after my moment with Ryker, she’s still going to pick apart my head to see what’s going on. I give her a small smile and nod. “Everything’s great.”
I can tell she doesn’t believe a single word I’m saying by the way her eyebrow rises curiously, but Elias clears his throat before she can keep questioning me. “Ready to ride? I saddled Rocky up too and figured we could do it together, that okay?”
“Definitely,” I say with a bright smile.
Riding with Elias was always one of my favorite things to do growing up, and it’s kind of become our thing. I expected to come here with the full notion that he would be joining me on whatever adventure I choose to go on this time. Except, I can see the silent questions lingering in his gaze, and it makes me want to backtrack on my words.
“Awesome, let’s head out before Mom decides she needs to take you into the house for an hour-long conversation disguised as a simple glass of sweet tea,” he says with a chuckle.
“I can never win with you guys,” my mother responds with a shake of her head as she heads back into the house with my dad following closely behind her.
Before he disappears into the house, he turns around and flashes me the smile Elias inherited from him. “Good seeing you again, baby girl.”
Elias clears his throat while we head to the stables, where Luna and Rocky are saddled up. “So, what’s going on?”
“Does something always have to be going on?”
He chuckles. “Sis, you’re in the middle of working and decided you needed to go on a horseback ride in the middle of the day.” I groan when he nudges me. “Talk to me. You know you can tell me anything.”
“Except, I can’t talk to you about this because I don’t even know what this is.”
Elias pulls me to a stop, and I look up, finding his mouth pulled down into a frown. “What does that mean, Wren?”
I shake my head and groan. “I don’t want to talk about this right now, Eli. That’s the whole reason I came here to ride Luna, can we just table this for another day?”
“Not a chance,” he mutters. “What the hell is going on?”
“Don’t get an attitude with me. What’s your problem anyway?”
“Is this about him?”
I blink in surprise. I’ve never known my brother to talk about people with such disdain in his voice. “What’s your problem?”
