We wind down and slide into the warm water. It hits right at my shoulders. I can’t smell the sulfur anymore, so at least my nose has adjusted.
Candy sits beside me and leans her head against mine. “It’s been a fun night, right?”
I pat her head. “The best, Can-Can.”
“Good,” she whispers.
“Hey,” Tom walks up to us, holding a girl’s hand, “are you guys cool with catching a ride with Carter? I’m taking Jiah home.”
Candy’s head pops up. She scans the other pools and yells out, “Carter! Can me and Les drive back with you?”
“Yeah!” he yells back.
She pulls my arm until I’m standing. “We’re good. Thanks, Tom. See you back at home.”
Weird dynamic, those two.
She stomps through the water, not letting go of my hand until we’re in front of Carter. “I’m ready to go.”
Carter is sans-Sports-Illustrated-model, and he waves to the group of guys he was talking to. “Your wish is my command, little sis.”
“We’re twins.”
“I was born first.”
Candy hands me the empty beer bottle she’d been holding and crosses her arms. “By like thirty seconds.”
“Still counts.”
“Hardly.”
This is going to be a fun ride home.
Chapter Four
Halfway through the hike back to Carter’s car, Candy proclaims that she’s too tired and makes him give her a piggyback. Let’s just say that Candy is a very high maintenance drunk.
“Is she asleep?” Carter nods his head toward his back.
I take a peek at her squished up face on his shoulder. “It would appear so.”
He laughs. “She’s the worst drunk. I don’t even want to say she’s my twin when she gets like this. She’s snotty, lazy, and—”
“I heard that,” she mumbles.
“I know.” He winks. “That’s why I said it.”
“So,” I kick at a rock as we hike downhill, “Candy said you weren’t coming to the hot springs.”
Candy’s legs slip, so he readjusts her, and she mumbles something incoherent. “Keeping tabs on me, huh?”
“No,” I protest.
He bumps me with his shoulder and quirks up the right side of his lips. “Nah, I hadn’t planned to. It’d just been a while since we’d been here. I used to come here all the time as a kid.”
“Oh, no way? That’s cool. I didn’t realize you two were from around here.”
“Yeah,” he hikes her legs up once more, “born and raised. What about you? You from around here?”
Thankfully, no, but I’m not going to insult the guy. “No, I’m from Glenbrook, Nevada. Little town on Lake Tahoe. About three hours northeast. My mom really wanted me to go here, and since I got an internship with a really good doctor up at the hospital, it just made sense.”
Crickets chirp, and the sound of frogs echo. My thighs burn from going downhill in flip flops and playing those three games of volleyball. I’m going to be sore tomorrow.
Carter nods. “Is it just you and your mom?”
I trip on the same rock I’ve been kicking. He reaches out his arm before I slam into the ground, holding Candy up with his other. “Ah, ha. Ah, yep. Yeah, just me and my mom.”
“Cool. Are—”
“My dad actually passed away in March.” I hate saying it. And I’m apparently a super awkward person because who just drops that into the convo?
Carter squeezes my arm before gripping Candy’s legs again. “I’m sorry. That sucks. Were you guys pretty close?”
My smile wobbles, and it feels like I get an uppercut to the chest. “Yeah, we were.” I don’t tell him of the irony that a neurosurgeon’s husband got inoperable brain cancer. I don’t tell him that most days, I sit at home staring at the wall nervous that I’m going to make a wrong decision without his advice. I don’t tell him about the last six months of therapy and how I thought I was fine, but now, I’m not so sure.
Thankfully, I’m spared from the rest of the pity-filled conversation because we step up into the parking lot, and he points out his truck with his chin. “I can’t wait to put her down. My back is burning something fierce.”
“Oh, is it, Mr. Baseball?”
He presses the unlock button, and his headlights flash, making it easy to see his smile. “That’s Mr. Baseball Captain to you, Les.”
I laugh sarcastically. “Wait, are you really team captain?”
As he puts Candy in the backseat and buckles her seatbelt, I go to the passenger side and hop in. Again, his car has the same strong cinnamon smell.
“Yeah, but don’t get your panties in a bunch. It doesn’t mean the same thing in baseball as it does in other sports. It’s really not a big deal. Pretty sure they gave it to me out of pity.” He pushes the ignition, and the engine fires up with a loud purr.
“Pity, huh?” I pull on the glovebox handle ’cause I’m nosy. It clatters open. The little light inside illuminates a few juice boxes, fruit snacks, honey sticks, and applesauce packets. “Geez, are you an Uber driver on the side? Talk about hooking up your ride.”
He looks in the rearview mirror as he pulls out and starts on the gravel road. “Ha, yeah. No, I’m not an Uber driver.”
“Ah, I see. Breakfast for your hookups, right? Well, at least you’re a gentleman.” I hold up the applesauce. “I’m stealing this, by the way.”
“Help yourself.”
I didn’t realize how hungry I was. Correction: Am. I am hungry. This applesauce isn’t going to do anything for me. Nor did I realize how late it is. It’s a quarter past midnight, so not much is going to be open.
“You hungry?” he asks the same time I say, “We should get food.”
We look at each other with mock-horror expressions. I gasp. “Oh gosh, I’m taking on the twin telepathy since Candy is asleep.”
He reaches over and taps my nose. “I dig it.”
“You dig that I’m like your sister?”
His lips scrunch up. “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds weird.”
Because it is weird, weirdo. “Alright, we got like, what? Forty minutes till the first In-n-Out pops up? Give me that phone. Let’s get some tunes going.”
“Tunes?” He cackles. “You sound like an old mom trying to be hip.”
I can’t help the big grin that comes on my face. “Phone. Now, por favor.”
He hands me his phone. His lock screen is a photo of him with two young boys. They’ve got curly mops of light brown hair and green eyes. One boy is missing a front tooth, and the other boy still has all his baby teeth. All three of them wear backward baseball caps. “Those are my nephews. Mateo and Adrian.”
I can’t help but stare. Carter looks so happy next to them, like they’re his entire world. What would it be like to have family like that? I can’t imagine because I don’t. I meant what I had said. It’s just me and my mom. “They’re adorable. Twins?”
“Oh, yeah.” He glances at me sideways from the road. “My sister, Carlotta, was pissed. You should’ve seen her.”