Quiet Ones (Hellbent Book 3), page 3
Hunter stands on the other side of the counter, plucking a donut off the tray and handing it to his girlfriend. “We’ll take them,” he tells me, kissing Dylan on the temple.
“How’d you guys get in?” I look around at them. “I locked the front door.”
Aro won’t meet my eyes, Hunter gives me a tight smile, and Dylan leans her elbows on the counter, shrugging. “No, you didn’t.”
I cock an eyebrow as Hawke snorts, pulling a chocolate milk out of the fridge.
Hunter glances to him. “It’s time to tell her, man.”
“We’ll tell her when she’s ready to use it,” Hawke replies as if I’m not here.
Dylan stuffs her mouth with the pastry as she looks up at me with glee.
I point my finger around the room. “You know I’m older than all of you, right?”
They all laugh.
They’ve been hinting about something for a while now. I know there’s some urban legend they’re researching, and I know they’re in here after closing hours and off-season too. I gave them all keys because I might’ve needed any one of them to have access, in case a pipe burst while I was away at school, or if they were in need of extra space for holiday cooking.
But something is going on, and the only reason I don’t press harder about it is because I don’t want to know. If I know, then I’ll feel like I have to be the responsible one, because I’m the oldest. I’d rather not ruin their good time.
I shouldn’t feel like that, but I know I’m not fun. I’m the inexperienced one compared to them, and it sucks. I’ve got a college degree. My own business. I’m disciplined, punctual, and a taxpayer. Why do I feel younger than them?
“Come on, we’ve gotta get back.” Hunter dusts off his hands. “Lights out in thirty minutes.”
They’re all working at Camp Blackhawk, like last summer. They get a couple of hours of free time while the kids have campfire jamboree at night.
I hand Hunter the two boxes to drop off at the senior center. “Where’s Kade?”
“Tending to needs.” Dylan cleans her teeth with her tongue. “Whatever that means.”
“Even I know what that means,” I say as I lead the way to the back door.
Like Dylan, Hunter, and Aro, Kade is nineteen and would prefer to spend his summers doing one thing and one thing only. So suffice it to say, he makes the most out of his two hours of free time before lights out.
“Hey, what’s this?” Dylan asks.
She picks up the phone that the customer left, turning it over in her hand.
“Someone left it on a table,” I tell her. “I’m going to put it in the Lost and Found.”
“It looks like the one that was in my desk when I stayed in Weston,” she explains. “I forgot about it.”
A look passes between her and Hawke.
“Did you see who left it?” Hawke asks me.
“Some guy.” I take the phone out of Dylan’s hand and set it back down. “I didn’t get a good look. Why?”
Hawke’s quiet before he draws in a deep breath and shakes his head. “No reason. Just leave it in the Lost and Found. Someone will come for it, I’m sure.”
Aro throws him a look as I push open the back door, nudging them out. Not that I don’t love them, but I have exactly two hours before I need to be in bed.
Dylan takes another bite, groaning. “Quinn, seriously. You should go global.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“At least domestic shipping!”
I smile, giving her a little shove.
But then she spins around. “Or enter that baking contest!”
“Right!” I feign enthusiasm. “The Shelburne Falls Festival of… Reindeer…Chestnut...Silly Sweater Dasher Dancer Ice Miracle Angel Fest!” I tease. “Will do!”
Hunter laughs his ass off because I’m a baker in a small town, and I’ve heard all of the Hallmark jokes.
They wave, Dylan blowing me a kiss, and I catch it, closing the door and locking it.
I adore them all. I love how happy they are. They deserve it.
But I feel like the odd one out more than ever now.
And Kade doesn’t count. He loves being unattached.
I shake it off, needing some fresh air. And my earbuds.
Changing in the bathroom, I don a pair of black leggings, sports bra, and white tank crop top with a black jacket over it. I braid my hair and pull on the light blue Chicago Cubs cap before slipping my ID and shop key into the pocket on my leg and fit my earbuds into my ears. Tuning to my favorite list, I leave through the back door, locking it behind me.
It’s only after eight. Dark but not late. The streets will still be alive with activity. Especially on a warm June evening.
I leave the alley, heading onto First and turning onto High Street. I roll my shoulders, stretch my arms above my head, and let the breeze wash over my body as the scent of potted flowers on the sidewalks lingers in the air just a little.
I double-knot my tennis shoes and start jogging, passing my shop, Rivertown Grill, and the bowling alley. I take a right into the neighborhood, and feel a burst of energy in my legs, free at last. I sidestep trees and mailboxes, swerving around cars parked at the curb. Then, I cross the street and dive between houses.
Mr. Zellers sits on his back porch, and I wave as I descend the small grassy hill to the fenced-in community pool. I race past it, inhaling the chlorine and remembering the first and last time I swam here. I had a pool at home growing up—still do—but if you wanted to be seen as a teenager, this was the place. Turned out, I didn’t really want to be seen.
I pound the pavement, sweating already, and curving right onto Main Street.
A truck comes up behind me, passes, and I see the red paint and the JT Racing emblem on the tailgate. I hold my breath, dread setting in, but I keep running, even when I see his taillights brighten. Oh, no. The vehicle halts in the middle of the street and I square my shoulders, continuing on.
Jared steps out of the driver’s side. I don’t slow down. “Don’t worry. I’m staying in lighted areas—”
But my brother swoops me up and throws me over his shoulder.
Damn him! I grit my teeth together, but only kick my legs once in frustration. It’s no use fighting more.
Jared carries me around the truck, and Jax hops out of the passenger side, opening up the back door for him.
Jared deposits me inside, and I try to jump out, but Jax slams the door in my face. I yank out my earbuds and pound my fist against the window.
I don’t believe this.
I kind of loved it when I was six. Started to resent it when I was eleven. I’m twenty-one years old now.
“Run in the morning,” Jared says, climbing into the cab.
“My business is open in the morning!” I’m louder than is helpful. “This is the only time I have.”
He shifts the truck into gear and hits the gas.
“Shelburne Falls is a safe place,” I point out.
“Until a traveler comes through one night and slaughters a family,” Jax argues, “and people start saying ‘it was such a safe town, we used to leave our doors unlocked…’”
I drop my head back, locking my hands on top. “I’m in prison.”
“No.” Jared turns down his music. “You’re our little sister. And beautiful. A born target.”
For what? Men who might want to talk to me?
I meet his eyes in his rearview mirror and actually laugh. “Do you have any idea what your daughter,” and then I point to Jax, “and your son, for that matter, are getting up to at that camp with their significant others?”
“Don’t piss me off,” Jared bites.
“Don’t gross me out.” Jax scowls.
This is part of the reason I feel younger than my niece and nephews. Jared and Jax are well aware their children are in love—and acting upon it—but I’m too fragile to go out at night.
For a minute, I think he’s driving me back to the bakery—or to my parents, where I still live since I just finished school and haven’t had time to rent an apartment—but he stops a block over, in front of the new gym that popped up a couple of years ago.
Which I was interested in checking out, but again, haven’t made time for.
They drag me inside where a young woman is smiling at the counter. “Hi, welcome to Astrophysics. Can I help you?”
“Look, Quinn, a track.” Jared points above, and I see runners circling the building on the second floor.
Jax slips his hands into his pockets, nodding in approval. “Indoor, cameras, proper lighting…loving it.”
I give the girl a tight smile as Jared slaps down his credit card. “Set her up.”
I should fight it, and I have every intention of being quite the handful for my brothers when I have more time, but I’m just too tired. It takes twenty minutes to fill out my information and sign some papers. I bypass the tour, schedule a fitness test for another day, and grab a towel, heading through the lobby.
Jax works on his phone at a small round table near the doors. Jared sits with him, elbows on his knees as he peels a complimentary orange.
“You’re just gonna sit there?” I ask. “The whole time?”
Like he doesn’t trust me to get home on my own?
He just tips his eyes up at me but says nothing, and I remove my jacket and head into the gym. I wish Madoc was here. He’s a lot more reasonable. He’d get them to leave.
Sticking my earbuds back in, I restart “The Boys of Summer”, leaving my towel and jacket on a bench. I step onto the three-lane track, wait for another jogger to pass by, and quickly follow. An arrow on the wall dictates the direction we’re running, accompanied by a sign letting runners know that eleven-and-a-half laps equals one mile. I dig in my heels, loving the slight cushion of the ground, easier than pavement, and I pass under a digital timer above our heads that keeps minutes and seconds if we want to pace ourselves.
Not a bad set up, actually. I just want to go, though. There are mirrors on the outside wall, sporadically interrupted with windows, the inside walls occasionally giving way for people to leave the track and head into the workout areas. Two-dozen weightlifting machines sit on the oval floor at the center of the track, and I look around, seeing a few women, but mostly men. One huge guy with a long silver beard lifts a massive dumbbell over his head with one arm as he sits on a bench and watches himself in the mirror. Another props up his phone to film himself doing squats.
I float my eyes over the room, seeing a man in black track pants with a white hoodie doing pullups. I let my eyes linger for a second. Long, lean, broad… Blond.
A wall cuts off my view, and I blink, my heart suddenly pulsing a mile a minute.
I try to swallow, but I can’t. The wall breaks again, and I jerk my head, looking back into the workout area. He keeps going, pulling his chin up over the bar, and I stare at the side of his face and the back of his head…but it’s too far away to be sure. His hair is wet with sweat, and he has earbuds in like me.
I lose sight of him again. I can’t get a look at his face. Another wall, and then I enter the other side of the gym giving way to a different workout area. I try not to, but I find my legs moving a little faster to circle around again to the other side.
It’s been eight years since he left town. If he were back in town, Madoc and Fallon would’ve made a big deal about it. I would’ve heard.
The Cubs cap feels tight. His Cubs cap. I keep going, my braid bouncing over my chest, but when I come up on his weight room again, he’s gone. Runners pass me, and I scan the room twice out of the corner of my eye.
Then…
I see him.
My stomach flips. He lies on a bench, holding a bar over his body before bringing it down and pumping it back up, again and again. His long legs are bent, his shoes on the ground, and even though he’s wearing a lot more clothes than the other men here, I can’t stop staring at everything but his face. Built chest under the hoodie. Narrow waist. Toned shoulders and strong arms. The muscles on the top of his thighs bulge just a little under the black pants.
The wall separates us again, and when there’s a break, I glance quickly, seeing him replace the bar and sit up. He rises, grabs his towel, and lifts his head, meeting my eyes.
My heart plummets into my stomach.
Oh my God.
Lucas?
I look away, disappearing behind another wall and entering the other side of the gym.
My chest hurts. I stop, tapping my earbud to pause the music as I step through the entrance to another workout area. I stagger a little over to the water fountains on the wall and bend over, pressing the button. I drink, wetting my parched throat.
What the hell?
How can he be here? How can he be here for even an hour without me hearing it from someone?
But he’s just working out like he’s been here for days.
I stand upright, wiping off my mouth. Did he recognize me?
I should say ‘hi,’ I guess. I grew up with him, even if I was way younger.
After college, he worked with Fallon as an architect before transferring out of the country all those years ago to build skyscrapers in Dubai.
I was thirteen when he moved abroad, and his baseball cap is all I have left. I traded him my compass for it on his last night in town. Does he still have the compass? I guess he wouldn’t be wearing it. I dip my head down to hide the hat, my cheeks warming with embarrassment.
But I catch myself in the mirror behind the fountain. My hair’s a mess, makeup’s gone, and I’m sweating already. Thankfully, my tired eyes are hidden under the bill of the cap.
No, it’ll be awkward. This isn’t how I imagined seeing him again.
I walk to one of the Pelotons and climb on. Starting a Lanebreak workout, I mute the music and just follow the designated pacing and resistance while I absently read the headlines floating across the bottom of the TV screen above. Through my earbuds I hear barbells clanging and feet pounding the treadmills, and I almost settle into a pace until he passes behind me with a friend.
“Come on, cardio,” his buddy says.
His friend jumps on the treadmill on my left, Lucas taking the one on the other side of his friend. I pedal hard, glancing at them both in the mirror on the wall in front of us. His friend turns his head toward me, his short dark hair falling over his brow. He wears black shorts and a gray, sleeveless T-shirt with the sides cut out, showing off his tanned muscular arms and pecs.
Is that…Lance?
He turns to Lucas on his other side. “I fucking hate working out at night,” he says. “What do you do with the endorphins when you leave?”
Lucas doesn’t reply. Guess it was a rhetorical question. I keep facing forward, minding my own business.
Lance is an old friend of Lucas’s from college. I saw him maybe once or twice growing up, but Lucas kept his friend group largely separate.
“I need my wife,” his friend remarks with a smirk as he jogs. “Thank God, I married a woman with as much energy as me.”
“Girl,” Lucas corrects him. “You married a girl ten years younger than you.”
“I had to cast a wider net to find my soulmate.”
They obviously think my earbuds are on and that I can’t hear.
And if he’s the same age as Lucas, then his wife is older than me. That’s not a girl.
His friend is right, though. I hate working out at night. It takes longer to calm down when I go home and try to sleep.
Lucas taps his earbud. “Lucas Morrow.”
My stomach swims up to my heart, hearing him say his name. My hands almost slip off the handlebar, but I wipe the sweat from my palms onto my shorts and refasten my fingers around the bike. I hide my smile.
Why didn’t I know he was here? He didn’t stay in touch, walked away from us as if he just wanted to keep his eyes forward and the past in the past, but...we were all so close once. Wouldn’t he want to see me?
Why would he, I guess. I was just a kid. He’d probably be more interested in looking up an old girlfriend first.
His friend continues to run next to me, Lucas listening to the other end of his call.
“I won’t be away long,” he tells whoever he’s talking to. “Retrofitted? No. That boat’s fifty years old. He’s not paying for that.”
I watch him, his squared shoulders outlining the wall of his chest that’s bigger and broader than the last time I saw him. It would feel like I was in a cocoon if he wrapped his arms around me. I lick my lips, my blood warming at the thought.
He just told whoever he’s talking to that he won’t be away long. Would he just leave, without me ever knowing he was in town?
“He can have his dock outside his office building as long as the city sanctions it,” Lucas says. “Blame the timeline on them.”
His voice is deeper, and I try to see his eyes in the mirror, but they’re cast down. He hasn’t noticed me at all since he’s been on the treadmill.
He nods. “Bye.”
And he ends the call.
He jogs, taking a drink from his water bottle. His brow is pinched, and I don’t like that he still has that look on his face. One he didn’t have when he was in college but certainly developed before he left.
“You should stay longer,” his friend says.
“Come to Dubai more.”
“They look at me funny when they search my luggage.”
His friend grins over at him in the mirror, Lucas looks up, and I dart my eyes down.
“Stop traveling with handcuffs,” Lucas says in a low voice.
My mouth falls open a little.
But then his friend asks, “And use rope instead?”
My mouth is dry again. What the hell?
His pal smiles at Lucas in the mirror. “I guess it won’t set off the metal detectors.”
I slow my pace, the room tilting a little. I blink a few times to refocus. I remember the first time I learned that Lucas had a whole life outside of whatever he let me see.
