“Why?” Jackson asks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“I forgot to do something at home. Either you guys spend an extra four hours in the car with us, on top of the remaining three, or you go ride with Uncle Noah.”
Jackson and Jason look at each other for a moment before practically jumping over each other trying to get out of the car.
“That’s what I thought.” Aiden chuckles and closes the car door behind them.
I undo my seat belt and get out of the car, turning to see Aiden walk to the back of the car.
“Aiden, we don’t need to turn back, really. It’s okay.” I don’t want him to think of me as some burden, making him waste all that extra gas and time because my dumb ass couldn’t even remember to grab the most essential part of my nightly routine.
Aiden shoots me a look that says, Don’t be ridiculous, which is one part disbelief, and one part annoyance. He opens the trunk and hands his brothers their bags, then closes it again.
“What’s going on?” Julian asks as he and Noah walk toward us, everyone else waiting patiently in their respective cars but looking at us curiously.
Noah notices that the twins are holding their bags. “What did you monkeys do? You annoyed Aiden so bad that he’s decided to leave you here, didn’t you?”
“We only annoyed him for the first hour!” Jason defends himself.
Noah shakes his head, almost disapprovingly. “Only an hour? Clearly I haven’t taught you well enough.”
“I have to take care of some stuff back home,” Aiden clarifies, choosing to ignore Noah. “Can you take the twins? I’m going to go back and Amelia volunteered to keep me company. We’ll be there later tonight, don’t worry.”
He’s covering for me so I don’t need to explain or lie about why I need sleeping pills in the first place. Also, he’s saving me from looking like a complete dumbass for forgetting something so important to me.
“Aiden, I—” He quiets me with one look and I stop my protests.
Noah and Julian exchange glances.
“Sure, they can ride with me,” Noah says, eyebrows drawn together. “But can’t whatever it is you have to do wait until after the trip?”
“No,” Aiden replies, his body relaxed, as if he has nothing to hide, but his broad shoulders are set as if daring anyone to challenge him. “Some stupid police release forms or something, I don’t know. I just got a call, it needs to be settled now.”
“Okay, then, but you’re forfeiting your right to have first dibs on a room, you know that, right? Once we get there it’s an every-person-for-themself race to pick a room,” Noah adds, only half joking; I’ve seen the guy push a twelve-year-old out of the way for the best seat in a movie theater.
He opens the door to his truck so the twins can get in beside Charlotte.
“I trust Char to beat you all up in order to get the best room for us,” I say loudly enough for her to hear.
“Already got my elbow pads out and itching to use them!” she yells out the window, even though I know she has zero intention of racing for a room.
Noah closes the door once the twins are in and comes back over to us.
“Make sure they help you bring all the stuff inside, not just go straight to playing,” Aiden tells Noah and Julian, gesturing to the twins with a nod.
“You got it.”
“Guess we’ll see you in a few hours,” Julian says, and they start to turn back to their cars.
“Wait!” I say, remembering something at the last minute.
Aiden glares at me, thinking I’m going to undo all his work, but instead I run back to the passenger side of Aiden’s car and pull an envelope from my purse.
“This is some of the money from the race. You’re going to be hungry and we probably won’t be back in time to go grocery shopping with you, so here. Just get whatever.”
Noah holds out his hand to take the envelope and I’m about to hand it to him when I think better of it and hand it to Julian.
Noah scowls adorably and Julian laughs. “No problem. Text the group chat when you’re on your way back.”