Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(77)
Right then, Ava walked over to Harley and handed her a long neck. When Harley took it in her hand, she seemed to study it as if she had never seen one before.
“Wait,” Wyatt said, taking it from her and moving her with his body to a corner away from the others. “Have you drank before?”
Harley had a sip here or there with a toast at an event. The only time she had really drank was that one summer night with Collin, and that ended with her in a fit of tears. Needless to say, she never went down that road again.
“Yeah,” she said with a slow smile, hoping against all hope that he would not ask her when or how much.
“Not beer, huh?” Wyatt asked, playfully narrowing his ice blue eyes on her.
Harley took the beer back from him and downed it, hating the taste of it, but she was skilled at not showing how she really felt outwardly. When she lowered the all but empty bottle, she gasped, “Not that kind before.”
Wyatt busted out laughing. “Just keep it slow. The fun is never worth the hell you feel the next day.”
“Never?” she said, lifting a brow and moving her body against his.
Just as he leaned down to let his lips brush against hers, Ava pulled her from his arms, wanting her to dance.
Wyatt just stood there for a second, watching her laugh, the way her eyes gleamed, the flow of her hair as she spun around.
His cousins and friends that had all been at the farm over those summers each found a way to say something to her. She’d stop her dance and pull them into a bear hug.
“I thought you were bringing Harley out tonight? Who’s that girl?” Memphis goaded as Wyatt sat down in the booth next to him.
“She looks happy, doesn’t she?” Wyatt said, downing his water. Harley and Ava had both had him on that dance floor for the last hour. Wyatt didn’t dance, at least he hadn’t before this night. Harley was still out there, only with Truman now, the only other guy in here besides Memphis that Wyatt wouldn’t be a little uptight about. He knew none of his brothers from the house that were out tonight would make that move; his family knew better, but he had a deeper trust for his own brother and Memphis.
Memphis only nodded as he sipped from his long neck and gave Wyatt a what the hell? glance as he asked the waitress for another glass of water, then all at once Memphis understood. Most nights when they would all go out, everyone would crash at Memphis’ place, which was in walking distance. Memphis had a good feeling the last place his boy wanted to end up that night was on his living room floor.
“Did you finally ask her to move in with you?”
Wyatt nodded and gave him a sly grin, one that didn’t need the words to explain that it was easier than he thought it would be.
Wyatt had wanted to do that from the first morning he came home and found his bed empty. In the weeks since then, it had almost killed him not to say something. On his last shift Truman was giving Wyatt hell about the musical beds that Harley was playing, and Memphis had overheard. He outright asked him what the deal with that was. Wyatt had said he didn’t want her to think it was too soon, when in truth that Collin guy was in the back of his head.
Collin had said Harley was living with him. Since that one day, Harley had not even mentioned the guy’s name, and the last thing Wyatt wanted to do was bring it up or even try to explain to his boys that his girl was faking a relationship with that rich guy before she came back to Willowhaven Farms. He barely understood why himself, and he knew they wouldn’t at all.
Even without spilling all the ugly details of where Harley’s address currently was, or even this future they never really talked about, Memphis managed to understand and get through to Wyatt just the night before.
He’d told Wyatt to see that time apart as one long winter. Winter was over, and endless summer had begun, a line Wyatt had planned to borrow and tell Harley if she hedged when he asked, but she didn’t. That gave Wyatt hope that whatever this game she and Collin had been up to was long over. For all he cared, they could keep whatever stuff she had up there, burn it. He’d make sure she had everything she needed here.
“You need some time off to go get her moved?” Memphis asked as if he were reading thoughts behind Wyatt’s eyes.
“Maybe in five or so weeks; that’s when her daddy’s birthday is. I know she’s going up for that party. We haven’t talk about much past that.”
“Maybe you need to, man.”
“Since when you are you the Mr. Sensitive, tell-me-how-you-really-feel kinda guy?” Wyatt teased, looking away before Memphis read his eyes once again.
“I’m not, I don’t think. But I was the one that chased your ass to Washington and lived in fear of being arrested for a good two days, all to figure out years later that the girl was walking around parking lot B and we were in A—not into repeating that hell.”
“That was different. They separated us.”
“Yeah, well, maybe if you two had talked about the risk of the shit you were pulling, then you could have come up with some fool-proof plan before they did that—how drastically would that have changed a few situations.”
Wyatt met Memphis’ stare. That night led Wyatt out on the road, with Easton at his side. Easton found a demon lurking in the various bars that they hung out in, and that girl followed him home. Wyatt did shoulder the blame for that when it happened, but now they all figured out that Easton came through that life change like a pro and was better for it.