Page 90 of Edged
My eyes rolled back and I groaned, minutes away from throwing the three of them—and all of the spray cheese—out of my house.
“Just go.” Flynn shoved my shoulder and I let the force of it push me over onto my side. Grayson snorted a laugh and fisted my collar, hauling me back up. “Just take a shower, get dressed, and go. Then find out for yourself one way or the other. If shit hits the fan, come home and I’m sure Val will let you shoot some of this cheese up his asshole.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“I mean, yeah. It probably would be, but you know what I mean.”
“If I agree to this, will the three of you leave me alone?” I asked.
“For now,” Grayson said.
Flynn huffed a laugh and agreed with the sentiment.
“Fine.” I stood up, shoving the grocery bag of cheese onto the floor. “I’ll go.”
* * *
An hour later I was at the airfield, and five hours after that I stood in front of Owen and Mandy’s childhood home. It was Monday, just before dinnertime, and while I studied the wreath on the front door, a late model car pulled into the driveway. Owen and Mandy’s parents had never had a wreath on the door. They’d never even had flowers in the front yard, but now there was a planter box overflowing with vibrant marigolds.
“Can I help you?” A delicate, if not tired, voice asked from the driveway.
I thought I’d forgotten the sound of Mandy’s voice, but hearing her talk for the first time in a decade offered me a rush of feelings as intense as when I’d seen Owen for the first time. I turned, hands shoved in my pockets and expression as downcast as I could manage without looking sullen.
“Archer?”
“Hey, Mandy.”
Her shoes tapped against the cracked concrete as she walked around the front of her car and came to stand in front of me. She was as tall as she’d been in college, just as put together and beautiful as I remembered her. But time was a funny thing, and it was weird to look at her with eyes that now favored men. Mandy had been breathtaking, all dark curls and wide obsidian eyes, and of course she still had those features, but I found myself longing for the sharper angles of Owen’s jawline, the broader set of his nose compared to her more elegant slope.
She still had great tits, though.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
I scratched the back of my neck, nerves very close to getting the better of me. “It’s kind of a long story. Can I come in?”
“I don’t know, Archer.” She looked over her shoulder to the front door. “My fiancé isn’t home.”
“I prefer men, Mandy. It’s not like that.”
Color flooded her cheeks and something settled in the tightness of her jaw.
“I know you do,” she said, words clipped. But then she sucked in a deep breath and let it out, her massive tote bag sliding down her arm toward her wrist. I reached out and caught it before she lost her grip on it, and for that she gave me what almost passed as a grateful look.
“Let’s sit on the porch,” she offered, turning away from me and making her way up the cobblestone path that cut through the front yard. There was a bench under the front window, taking the place of what used to be a swing.
I set her bag down by the door and sat on the bench, looking up and finding the telltale eyebolts still screwed into the exposed beams. They were rusted beyond repair, it looked like. Proof somehow of how much time had gone by.
“I hear you’re getting married,” I said, not sure where to start.
She gave me a tired look from the corner of her eye. “Where did you hear that?”
“Can I backtrack first?” I asked, scrubbing a hand down my face. I should have shaved. Not because I was trying to impress her, but because I felt more like myself when I was put together. And even though I had showered and put on clothes, I didn’t feel balanced. I didn’t feel right. But a voice in the back of my head told me that didn’t have anything to do with the hair on my face.
That was all Owen.
“You don’t need to,” she said. “We don’t need to revisit the past.”
“At least let me apologize, then.”
