Page 13 of Hurry Up And Wait

“I don’t care, Isles! I want all of them!”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Isla? Riley?”

They both turned to me, but it was Isla who rushed at me, throwing her arms around me as she climbed me like a tree. “I missed you, Kavanaugh.”

5

ISLA

I didn’t expectto run into him so quickly, nor did I have a plan for what I was going to say to him. But the moment I saw him, I just did what came naturally. Maybe leaping into his arms and wrapping myself around him was a little presumptuous since I hadn’t seen him since I was fifteen, but it felt right.

I squeezed my eyes closed and relished the feel of his body against mine. His veryhardbody. Holy shit. Kavanaugh was no longer the scrawny kid I used to climb trees with. In fact, it felt like he kept climbing trees since the last time I saw him, and then ran up a few mountains. I ran my hands over his massive shoulders, my eyes widening to saucers as I took in every inch of his very nice body.

A throat cleared behind me. It was Riley letting me know that I was being entirely inappropriate. I stepped back, my face turning the same color of my red hair. “Hey,” I waved foolishly.

“What are you doing here?” Kavanaugh asked. “In Kansas!”

“Well, funny story,” I chuckled.

“She totally followed you out here,” Riley cut in, giving me away.

I laughed like it was a joke, but it was better to come clean. “I did.”

“You…how?”

“Well, I contacted my mom, who may have done some snooping into your family, and…well, here I am.”

His face furrowed in confusion as he tried to piece together why I was here. I sighed internally as I let my eyes wander over him. He’d gotten so freaking handsome as an adult. When we were kids, he was just the scrawny kid I played with after school and in the summer when he wasn’t busy being a politician’s kid.

Gone were the lanky arms and legs. His hair wasn’t styled like a preppy kid and he no longer wore those sweaters draped over his shoulders. Not that I ever minded. He was nice to me and that was all I cared about. But now…now he wore cargo pants and a T-shirt that rippled across his shoulders and barely contained his arms. It was…

“Why did you follow me?”

I yanked my gaze from his broad chest and cocked my head at him. “Huh?”

He smirked at me, clearly seeing where my mind was actually going. “I said, why did you follow me?”

“Well, nasty divorce, change of scenery, and in desperate need of good people,” I nodded as if it was that simple, which it really was.

“Divorced, huh?”

“Not yet, but in the process. And anyway, Riley and I were moving me out of the house and the decision was made,” I shrugged.

“She made the decision,” Riley jerked her thumb at me. “I was a bystander in this whole escapade.”

He grinned at her, pulling her in for a hug that made me entirely too jealous. She was always there with us, getting into scrapes that inevitably got us into trouble with his parents. But we never cared. We were the best of friends until we moved away. And then we kept in touch as best we could until one day, the letters stopped and we never heard from him again. Yes, it hurt, but we were adults now and there was no room for games in my life.

Kavanaugh laughed, running his hand over her hair. “Same funky style as always. I half expected you to have blue hair the next time I saw you.”

My sister was always a little wild, wearing anything she wanted with no regard for what was in style. She was always ahead of thetrend, and by the time it was cool, she’d moved onto something else, deeming the rest of us nerds.

“So, you just got to town?” he asked.

“Yep, about an hour ago. We stopped by the house, but we couldn’t go on without some food.”

He looked in my cart and shook his head. “That’s not food. That’s candy.”

“Same difference,” I shrugged. I peeked in his cart and quirked an eyebrow at him. “Are you some kind of fruit fanatic now?”

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