“I’m a complete package,” I said with a wink. “Take it or leave it.”
My effortless banter with my childhood friends was reminiscent of the same easiness I shared with my college friends, Avery and Ella. Except with Dakota and Shane, the easiness was real. I was someone different with my friends from school. Someone bolder and unattached—because if I was bold and unattached, I didn’t have to be me. Coming home had knocked some of that newfangled fire out of me, stripped me down to who I really was.
Dakota fingered the yellowed, peeling sticker on the truck’s bumper. Life’s a bitch and then you die. The adage found everywhere—widely accepted, even—from coffee mugs to greeting cards. I agreed it was a fair summation. Apart from the fact that I’d cheated death, which meant that bitch had spared me, so maybe she wasn’t so bad after all.
“You miss the city, Rachel?” Shane asked. He was ruggedly handsome, and he and Dakota would definitely make a sweet couple. He was kind and cool and never an asshole, which endeared him to me most of all. He still felt guilty about that night. I could see it in his eyes. But it had been my decision to hop on the back of his bike with no helmet for the ride of my life with Miles—only to return as wrecked as the motorcycle.
“It’s not like we’re in the boonies.” Dakota snorted. “The city’s only a train ride away and I’m guessing it wasn’t such a big change for her after all. Right, Rach?”
“Only a change of scenery, really.” I took a sip of my beer and returned to stargazing.
Dakota knew I’d left for college dejected, after Miles had broken things off while I was still laid up in the hospital. I left for a place far away, where no one would know to treat me differently, as everyone had been doing since my recovery.
I’d gone through months of rehab by the time I left, and despite occasional headaches, a slightly off-balance gait, and numbness in my fingers from time to time, nobody at college suspected I’d suffered a near-fatal subdural hematoma—in other words, a brain bleed, caused by the impact of the accident.
“Always wanted to hang at the less touristy places,” Shane said. “But Dakota didn’t invite me on her trip during winter break.”
Dakota bumped Shane with her hip. “That’s because I needed girl time with Rachel. I was afraid she’d forgotten about me.”
That little dig was for my benefit. I’d kept my distance, even from my best friend, because she was impossibly perfect and I felt like I couldn’t measure up during my recovery. She’d become an unrelenting cheerleader in rehab, constantly pushing me to try harder, do better—rah, rah, rah!—but I had practically caved from the pressure.
“I’d never forget you, babe.” Still, she was the one person who knew me best.
Or at least she used to. Little did Dakota know I’d spent my college years erasing Miles from my mind by becoming a new person. A different person. With a second chance at life. I hadn’t let things tie me down, so I’d never let anyone get too close. I’d bedded whomever I wanted and I always up and left them after they helped me take off the edge.
That’s why Avery and I saw eye to eye. She had the same attitude about guys. Until she met Bennett. And then Ella met Quinn—but that was just in time for me to leave town for the summer, anyway.
Avery and Ella accepted me for who I was even though I’d never let them get close enough to learn about my past. I’d become the free-spirited girl I’d always dreamed of being, with no worries dragging me down. It had worked until the phone call came from Mom, begging me to move back home this summer. Before that, I had been able to avoid prolonged visits since high school.
But Mom had been there for me, and now I needed to return the favor. I needed to revisit my old ties and responsibilities.
“How do you think your bro’s adjusting to being home?” Shane asked, and my head immediately snapped up at the mention of Dakota’s older brother.
When Dakota convinced me to live with her, she hadn’t told me that Kai had returned from studying abroad in Amsterdam and was crashing at her place this summer. During the past week I’d spent with the two of them, I couldn’t help smirking at the pseudo Dutch accent he’d picked up or secretly drooling over his new physique. I mean damn, he must have bench-pressed some serious windmills or shit over there.
Not that he was my type. I’d always had a thing for jocks. And Kai—with his rotating selection of Vans sneakers and pants that fit his lean thighs like a second skin—was most certainly not a jock.
Still, Kai and Dakota were my oldest friends. I needed to rein in my thoughts. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d admire Kai from a distance and it wouldn’t be the last.