Page 46 of Somewhere Only We Know
“Please,” Kam starts as Mason gets back in the car. “He wouldn’t let me anyways.”
“You spoiled princess.”
She throws a smirk over her shoulder as Mason drives us towards the airport. I’ve always loved the city at night and especially in the early morning. It’s still in a way life never is. Of course, I’m rarely awake during those times so to see the city with sleepy eyes is a new experience. I quickly take out my phone and record a bit of the drive so that I can revisit this moment when life gets too busy. And when the familiar signs of the airport make itself known, I begin preparing myself for what’s to come.
The rules of this trip are simple: get the earliest flight for more debauchery. Not my idea, but I can’t deny that the happy couple has a point. It’s so easy to get lost and caught up in the hype of Vegas. You drink too much, spend toomuch money, or God forbid you come home with a horrible tattoo. I for one, won’t be participating in anything that follows me around.
We have the first flight of the day and I see a few other cars are here at the same time we are. The car in front of us opens and out comes the groom-to-be with his bride-to-be and his butt buddies. I straighten in my seat at seeing Nate unloading his things, along with Bryce and Chance’s bags, from the Uber. Curse our timeliness to be early. But I can’t deny that the idiot is fucking sexy as hell in joggers and a sweatshirt so I’m able to stare at him unabashedly.
Mason pulls forward and puts the car in park.
“Be good for Uncle Mason.” I tell Sully and give her a kiss.
Kamryn and Mason snort at my reaction to saying goodbye.
“What!? Like you don’t do the same to Lucy and Poppy.” I say pointedly to Kamryn and climb out of the backseat but put the back window down before I shut the door.
“You two made it!” Chance bellows and rushes over, taking us in his arms.
“We wouldn’t miss this,” Kam tells him.
Sophie rushes over and tackles me in a hug like I haven’t seen her in a year. Which to be fair, I haven’t seen her in a while due to working as much as possible to avoid Nate. But from what I’ve seen on socials, they all do a lot of group outings when they have days off. Which is rare, but since the season ended they’ve all gotten closer and I’ve made so many excuses as to why I can’t hang out with them. Over Sophie’s shoulder, I see Nate watching us with a look that can only be described as wistful. And maybe a little bit of regret.
“Woah.” I hear Sophie say and she pulls away from ourhug and moves a few steps away. “You’re Mason Brooks.” Chance laughs and comes up behind her.
“Guilty,” he responds.
“I’m a huge fan,” Sophie gushes.
I move back over to Mason’s car and give Sully some pets behind her ear. It’s not that I’m sad to leave her for the weekend. But I am nervous about how this weekend will go.
“Alright gang are we ready?” Chance asks after introductions are made and he’s pulled a drooling Sophie away from my brother-in-law.
As we’ve all gathered off to the side at the front of the entrance to the airport, the sun has begun to rise and I conclude I need coffee as soon as possible.
Once we’re all checked in, I make a beeline straight to a cafe. And when I take that first sip of caffeine, I close my eyes in caffeinated-bliss and my mind stops running. I head towards our gate to find a spot along the window and take a seat. Good thing about early flights is that it’s relatively empty. Bad thing is that I have a lack of options to look at for people watching.
I look at my phone to mindlessly scroll and when I feel the seat next to me jostle, I assume it’s Kamryn so I look up from my phone to look at her and the words fail to launch.
“Are you going to ignore me this whole trip?” Nate asks.
“Are you deciding that I should stop ignoring you? Or am I allowed to make that decision for myself?” I ask and I know I can’t mask my anger.
“Bee.” Nate starts and I look up to see him look around to make sure our friends aren’t eavesdropping. “If I could go back in time I would. You have no idea how much I regret ending us over text. Making that decision for you…because if any guy did that to Kayla I would beat their face in.”
I look blankly at my phone as he says this and it takeseverything in me to not cry. Unfortunately when I get angry, I cry. It’s a character flaw that I deeply hate.
“What do you want me to say, Jax?” Nate asks pleadingly.
“It’s not about what you say Nate. Because as you said, your promises, which are also your words, don’t mean much. And you can say you’re sorry until you’re blue in the face. But it’s your actions that hold more weight than your words ever could,” my words come out as a whisper towards the end. We sit in silence. It seems to be our default setting as the world around us in the airport moves on. “Why didn’t you come back to me?” I ask and feel the familiar stinging of tears as they threaten to make an appearance the more I speak.
His expression drops and Nate opens his mouth to respond, but the call to board our flight is made. I quickly stand up from my seat and pull up my ticket on my phone. I smile to the attendant and make my way down the breezeway, tossing my empty coffee cup as I go.
“Hey.” Kamryn says as she catches up with me. “I saw you and Nate talking. It looked tense.”
“We got in a fight.” I keep my voice low as I tell her.
“What? When?”
