“Yes. Okay.”
“Would you mind taking Andi home?”
I looked at my grandmother wondering if she suspected anything. I couldn’t read her. “Yes. Of course.”
When I left her office, I called to have one of my motorcycle’s brought over and then went to check on how my brothers were doing with the takeover of Chen’s company.
“Why are you still here?” Hunter said when I joined him and my brothers.
“If I wasn’t, you’d call me a slacker,” I said, coming to look at Carter’s computer to read the financial details.
“Well, yeah,” Hunter said. “But we’d say it with love.”
I shook my head at him.
“You did good work, here Noah. I know you’ve made a deal with Gran, but if there’s a chance you’ll stick around, I know we’d all like that,” Ryan said.
“Thanks.” I hadn’t changed my plans, and yet, a part of me wasn’t feeling as gung-ho about them now. Instead of dwelling on that, I went to find Andi to take her home.
I had a profound sense of déjà vu along with the knowledge that I needed to do this ride differently. If Andi and I were going to attempt this, we both had baggage we needed to deal with. Me? I had to accept that my grandmother might not approve or that I might fuck up and cause strain in her and Andi’s relationship. Plus, I had to let go of the hurt and anger that Andi thought I was capable of betraying my f
amily. I knew she felt bad about that, but it still stung. Even so, my yearning for her outweighed the hurt, but it didn’t alleviate the fear that she’d do something like that again.
On Andi’s side, she’d need to learn to trust me too. It seemed to me that we both were coming into this with some serious deficits, so I had to hope that her interest in seeing where things went with us was as big as mine otherwise this would crash and burn pretty quickly.
I pushed my worry again and focused on the fact that Andi’s arms were around me as I drove through town and out along the coast. At one point, when I picked up speed, she laughed and the sound of it was like music.
Finally, I turned back inland and headed to her house. I parked in her little drive and helped her down.
She took the helmet off, handing it to me tentatively. “Thank you for the ride, Noah.”
I frowned. “Aren’t you going to invite me in for lunch.”
“I don’t have any food, but you can come in.”
“Thank goodness I thought ahead,” I said as the pizza delivery guy pulled up in front of the house. “Right on time too.”
“You ordered pizza?”
“Don’t you like pizza?” I pulled my wallet from my pocket and paid the young man. I took the pizza and walked back to Andi.
“I do like pizza.”
“As it turns out I have a pizza. I’ll share if you want.” I wished she’d stop worrying so much about the past and go back to being the Andi I knew…and loved.
She smiled. “You’re too kind.” She led the way to her house. It was a nice little bungalow. Neat and tidy, like Andi.
Once inside she opened windows to let in fresh air since we’d been gone.
“It’s small but mine.”
“It’s nice. And a smart investment,” I said putting the pizza on the little table in the kitchen.
“You said I was boring for buying this,” she reminded me. She got plates and napkins, setting them on the table with the pizza.
“I said you were boring for not traveling,” I clarified.
“Hmm. I don’t have anything to drink but tap water,” she said, getting some glasses.