“No rush,” she said, flipping on my overhead light. “I just got a text that this storm has delayed our flight anyway.”
And there it was—the real reason this was going to a shitty as fuck day.
Mia and her cousin were flying back to California. It was only for the weekend, so Nevaeh could celebrate her birthday with her family, but it reminded me that their time with me was limited.
Even more so for Nevaeh.
She had one more semester, and then she would graduate. Her parents expected her to come back to Cali for graduate school, and she hadn’t argued.
Once May arrived, my sweet little kitten was going to leave me.
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I groaned.
“We’ll be back Sunday night,” Mia reminded me, compassion in her voice.
“But Barrick and I aren’t going with you.” Tossing back my covers, I moved to the edge of the bed and reached for my prosthesis. The cold, wet weather was making my leg hurt even more than usual.
“Am I going to get a lecture from you, too?” she asked with an exasperated huff. “Look, Barrick is taking us to the airport, where Nevaeh’s grandfather’s jet is already waiting on us. Marcus is on board and won’t leave my side all weekend.”
It was a relief that one of her old bodyguards would be with her during this trip, but that wasn’t why I was having a hard time with them going without us this time.
Nevaeh was turning eighteen tomorrow, and I wasn’t going to be with her to celebrate.
We’d had a huge dinner the night before in her honor, with cake and a taco buffet in the kitchen. Lyla and her little family had shown up, along with a few of Nevaeh’s friends from school. Mia and I had spent the day making Nev’s favorite cake and decorating it.
Neveah had had so much fun that she’d passed out on the couch after everyone left. I’d carried her to bed, and it took everything inside me to turn and walk back out of her room.
I was so close to the finish line, I could taste it. But there was still a little bit more to go.
It didn’t matter that she was just days away from becoming legal. It wouldn’t have mattered if she were minutes away. She was still seventeen. I couldn’t touch her the way I’d been aching to.
Not yet.
And now, I had to fucking wait until she got back from visiting with her family before I could start showing her what she really meant to me.
“Are you guys going to eat or what?” Barrick called out from the kitchen. He sounded about as happy as I was, and I knew us not going with them was pissing him off just as much as it was me.
But both his and my parents were expecting us to show up later. Barrick’s mom and stepfather had flown in just for this damn family get-together, and my parents had already given me the whole guilt trip because I’d blown off all the other major family events over the past few years. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother’s and Father’s Days. I’d sent presents when I was supposed to, called them once a month to let them know I was alive, but I tried to avoid face-to-face contact with them.
I was about to say fuck it all, pack a bag, and go with the girls.
To hell with my parents and whatever this was about. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with their shit anyway. All they did was criticize and hover and make me feel like an incompetent ten-year-old who didn’t know up from down. As if I needed them to hold my hand to cross the damn street.
Barrick was going because my mom knew how to lay on the guilt like crazy, but also because he had my back—and Mia had yelled at him and told him he had to go with me or else.
I didn’t know what the “or else” entailed, but from the look on my cousin’s face, I figured it was something more horrific than death, in his eyes.
“I better get out there,” Mia muttered. “Mr. Grumpy is waiting on me to eat.”
She turned to go, her long red hair flying over her shoulders. At the door, she paused. “I can stay if you really want me to, Brax. I have your back, you know that, right?”
“I know,” I told her honestly. “And if anything, I’d rather you were out of the line of fire if things get ugly tonight. My parents aren’t fans of Barrick, and you know why. Whatever they shoot at him could hit you, and I don’t want to have to kill one of them if they hurt you in any way.”
A sad smile tilted up her lips. “Call me after, okay? Let me know you’re all right.”
I nodded, and she closed the door on her way out. Alone again, I finally stood and cursed the pain. It quickly faded, but I was still clenching my teeth as I limped into my bathroom.
Ten minutes later, I walked into the kitchen to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and bacon. A plate was already set at my usual place at the table, loaded with eggs, sliced tomatoes, and toast. A mug full of steaming coffee the way I liked it was beside the plate, and I was already picking up my fork before I’d even sat down.
I was halfway through my breakfast when Nevaeh walked blurry-eyed into the kitchen. She didn’t have her glasses on yet, and her left cheek still had the imprint of the lines from her pillowcase. Her long dark hair was pulled into a messy, tangled knot on top of her head, and she kept yawning in a way that was so damn adorable, I wanted to pet her.
“Where’s the orange juice?” she mumbled sleepily, looking around the table through her lashes.
“Here it is, Kitten,” I told her. Picking up the container, I poured some into the glass beside her plate that only had a single slice of toast on it.
As I set down the container, I noticed her jaw clenching and her eyes open fully. She shot me a glare before muttering her thanks and taking a sip.
Getting a hostile look from her set me on edge. What the hell had I done to earn a reaction like that just for pouring her damn juice?
Before I could ask what was wrong, Mia cut me off. “We have a little extra time, Nev. Momma texted me earlier to tell me Cole’s pilot had to delay takeoff because of the weather. It’s supposed to clear up this afternoon, so hopefully we can get in the air by then.”
“Perfect. Maybe we should just cancel and do this next weekend. My parents will understand.” She bit into her toast aggressively.
Yes, I wanted to shout.
But once again, Mia interrupted. “No, no. We should totally go this weekend. I mean, the jet is already here. It seems like a waste of resources not to use it like we are supposed to.”
“I don’t even care that it’s my birthday. This is more for my mom than me,” she complained. “I have so many finals to study for, Mia.”
“Oh, please,” Mia said with a roll of her big green eyes. “You already know more than your professors on every subject. You need to study like I need a hole in my head.”
“Whatever.” After another bite, Neveah tossed the toast back onto the plate and downed the rest of her juice. “I’m going to shower and finish up the rest of my packing.”
As she stood, she gave me a scathing look I didn’t understand.
“What did I miss?” I asked Barrick.
He shrugged as he shoveled food into his mouth.
No longer hungry, I pushed away my plate and stood. “I need to walk Sasha.”
As I left the kitchen, I heard Mia tell Barrick, “It’s going to be a really long weekend.”