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Because I have no fucking idea what’s going on.
I do love seeing my sister so happy though. It sparks the curiosity to take over the panic— if only for a fleeting second.
“So you need to pack something totally you, totally sexy, and you need to do it now.” Cedar pushes me off the couch with a hand to my lower back and leads me back into the extra room I use as a closet.
“Wait, what?” Things are moving fast. So fast, that I didn’t get a chance to shut down the idea. Or hell, agree to the idea.
Muse! Where are you? I need a back out plan!
“It’s going to be good for your line, Aria,” Cedar says to me, disappearing between the mobile racks I have set up in the room full of blouses and slacks and dresses I’ve altered or made myself.
I’m pretty proud of my collection. But that’s not the point here …
“C …” I shake out of my stupor and move to her as she gently folds an article and settles it into the bottom of a suitcase.
“You don’t have much time. Grab your favorite undies and let’s go!” She shoos me away from my own crap and my feet follow the orders much to my brain’s protest. I find my sister in the hallway holding out another, smaller bag, full of undergarments. Those I don’t alter; I just buy a shit ton of the ones I like. I nod before my eyes and my brain catch up to the event as she snaps the thing shut, zipping it into the case Cedar has already brought out.
Was there lace in there? I’m pretty sure I saw lace. Oh, fuck …
“This better not be a lingerie shoot!” I curse my sister’s giggle as the girls crowd me, pushing me back out the door of my apartment and into my car on sluggish feet.
My suitcase is slammed into the trunk, my body stuffed into the middle of the back seat and my captors’ asses parked in the passenger and driver’s seats, and we’re off before I can even snap my seatbelt in place. Aurora turns the car at what feels like ninety miles an hour and has my head snapping up once my body is secured, except I recognize that my sister is not heading in the direction of town.
No, we’re going the way that leads out of town.
And what’s on the edge of town?
Nothing—
The fucking airport.
“You’re both mad.” I shake my head and catch Aurora’s eye in the rearview as I grip the seat with one hand, the other coming up to wrap my fingers around the belt across my ribcage. “Completely insane. This is kidnapping.” I massage at the tension building in the center of my chest and pray that she doesn’t kill us before we get there.
I know they aren’t kidnapping me.
But it sure as fuck feels like it.
“You never protested.” Cedar amends, blowing me off with a smirk over her shoulder. “You had every option to say no, and you didn’t. So not kidnapping.” She shrugs, nonchalant, and turns back to watch the road.
I didn’t stop them.
She’s right.
Dammit.
There’s nothing in me that I wouldn’t do for these two. No matter how crazy they can get sometimes. I know deep down that I’ve been stuck in a lull and maybe this is just the thing to break me out of it.
Whatever the fuck this trip actually is.
Something other than fear of the unknown and anxiety nags at me, though. I try to read the two of them, but I don’t see anything past the sweats on my best friend and the professional look from work on my sister. Not to mention the lack of bags for either of them in the trunk where mine currently lies helpless to my sister’s erratic driving.
We’ve been on several trips together before. In fact, that’s one of the first things that we did as a group after Chip’s death. It was one of the hardest moments of my life, to lose someone so close to me, and it took months for me to get out of the house again.
I had just turned twenty-four when he started to get sick. He finally had a diagnosis the day I turned twenty-five. My husband since the age of nineteen (he was twenty), my high school sweetheart, didn’t get to see me turn twenty-six.
That’s right, folks. I’m a widow at the ripe young age of twenty-nine.
The thought sobers me in the back seat of the car he gave me shit about buying. He would joke about the size and I would laugh when he tried to squeeze into the driver’s seat. It’s funny how he thought it was too small for us to tote kids in considering I’m back here now with enough leg room to keep my feet steady around another wicked fast curve. On my way to who knows where. For some shit my sister and best friend set up so that I can start moving on with life.
