Page 67 of Ashes of Us

The drive to the airport the next morning was silent and awkward, at least on Danica's part.

She knew she would have to address it but wasn't sure how to bring it up.

Even though it had been a complete accident, it was still very embarrassing for her that she had essentially flashed her boss.

After a very silent boarding and take-off, she couldn't handle it anymore and got up from her seat, moving over to sit in front of him.

“Listen, about last night.” She chewed her lip and waited for him to look up from his laptop at her.

“I didn't mean to, you know, bare myself to you like that.” She shifted uncomfortably under his blank stare and pushed on, stumbling over her words a little.

“I woke up to you knocking and was flustered, so I just grabbed the robe without drying off...” She fell silent as he continued to look at her without changing his expression, feeling a spike of annoyance that he wasn't acknowledging that it was a mistake.

“Anyway, I'm really sorry, and I don't like how quiet you're being about this.”

He still didn't answer, and Danica sighed, shaking her head as she stood up.

“I mean, I've seen you topless and I didn't make a big deal out of it.” She muttered as she went back to her seat, dropping down next to the mildly sedated Indie and stroking her head as she looked out the window.

She wasn't sedated because she couldn't handle flying; she was good for that.

Turbulence, however, was a different story and made the poor dog very motion sick.

The veterinarian had explained she could take Gravol to keep the motion sickness at bay and told her how much to give her based on her weight.

However, one of the side effects was that it made her very drowsy and resulted in her napping for the entire flight.

Alex cleared his throat, and she looked up to see him closing his laptop.

“My reaction had nothing to do with your robe showing off...” He paused, and she saw him look her over again, his expression going from unreadable to impressed.

“Okay, scratch that. It had mostly nothing to do with what I was treated to when you opened the door, but that was more of a surprise than anything else.” He corrected himself.

“You said you were getting a bath and didn't answer my texts asking if you were out of the tub yet so I could bring Indy back.

You also didn't answer the door the first two times I knocked.

I was worried sick and debating whether breaking the door down would be faster than getting someone up to the room with a key, and then you opened the door, admitting you fell asleep in the bathtub, like it wasn't a big deal. You could have drowned, Dani.”

“Oh.” Danica's annoyance immediately went away, replaced by a hint of shame.

“Yeah, sorry. I can see why that would upset you.” She swallowed.

“I didn't realize how exhausted I was last night.” The hot water had been incredibly soothing and had taken away tensions she didn't know she had.

“I'm sorry for making you worry, and I'm also very sorry about essentially flashing you, too.”

Alex shrugged. “Don't worry about it. I'm sorry for not being able to articulate my thoughts in the moment.” To her surprise, he smirked as he reopened the laptop and continued typing.

“But in my defence, I was pretty distracted.

You should really consider wearing clothes that aren't at least two sizes too big occasionally.”

He said it with such nonchalance that Danica felt her mouth drop open and found she had lost her voice for a second.

Her brain was scrambling to figure out how to respond to that, and she finally decided to fall back on joking about it, partially because she didn't want to make things awkward, but also because she found herself liking what he was saying.

Jasper hadn't liked it when she wore clothes that were fitted and showed off her figure.

He never told her to change or tried to police her clothing, but he would hover around her when they went out, like he didn't trust other men to keep their hands to themselves.

At first it had been flattering and a bit of an ego boost that he was so possessive over her, but as time went on.

When she became aware of his hypocrisy when it came to what he thought was appropriate behaviour when he was around other woman, versus how he expected her to behave around other men, the jealous responses had become more annoying than flattering.

“That's hardly an appropriate thing to say to your assistant.” She responded playfully, throwing Indie's duck at him. He snorted as he caught it and tossed it back at her without looking at her, forcing her to duck to avoid taking the drooly toy to the forehead.

“So says the woman who opened the door for her boss, soaking wet and practically naked.”

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Early Thursday morning, Danica dropped Indie off at Antonia's place in Salem.

Maverick had offered to pick her up on his way there the previous night, but Danica hadn't wanted to give her up earlier than she had to and said she'd bring her to him.

She wasn't upset with Alex and Xavier for choosing a campground that didn't allow dogs, they hadn't known she would be coming when they reserved their spot and since it was the last camping weekend for the summer, it had been impossible to find a site at a dog friendly campground in the area, not for a lack of trying.

She'd watched Alex spend almost three hours trying to find a campground that accepted dogs and had available sites.

She finally told him it was fine, Maverick was happy to take Indie for a few days, and not to worry about it.

After dropping Indie off and having a quick conversation with Maverick, she headed back to Emilia and Xavier's place to meet with them and Alex and load her things into Emilia's Buick.

She was told not to worry about bringing anything other than her clothes, toiletries and anything else she might need to be comfortable.

The plan was to get to the campsites, set up the tents, and put things away.

Then, they would go pick up groceries, check out the campground and surrounding area, have dinner, and spend the evening around the campfire.

Xavier and Alex were getting up early Friday morning to go for a day ride up the coast, while Danica and Emilia planned to hike one of the trails near the campground.

Saturday, they were going to spend the day on the beach.

Sunday, all four of them were going for a motorcycle ride, and then they would pack up to leave and come back on Monday.

Danica had tried to pack lightly but had failed completely.

Not sure of what she would need, she checked the weather, saw it was supposed to be good weather, except for Saturday night, which was supposed to be cool and rainy.

Between the three different types of shoes, clothes for warmer weather and clothes for the cooler weather, towels and her toiletries, she ended up taking a whole duffel bag plus her pillow; way more than they would have been able to pack away in Alex's motorcycle.

She arrived at Xavier and Emilia's place, a two-story New England worker cottage-style house in Eagle Hill and followed the alley around to the back, where she found Alex and Xavier loading things into the back of the Buick, which was looking pretty full.

She parked to one side and popped the trunk before getting out to grab her bag and pillow.

“Morning!” Emilia appeared on the back step, holding an empty cooler in one hand and hoisting a backpack over her shoulder. “All ready to go?”

Danica nodded, obediently passing her bag over to Alex when he approached and held out his hand for it.

“I think so.” She smiled as she closed the trunk, feeling a little nervous.

She wasn't sure about the whole camping thing.

She liked sleeping in a bed, having a full bathroom and a fridge full of food nearby.

She also enjoyed her technology, and the campground they were going to didn't have electrical hookups.

They would have chargers for their phones in the car, but otherwise, it was four days completely unplugged, and she didn't know how her brain was going to handle it.

Alex must have picked up on her hesitation because he grinned and nudged her as she brought her pillow over and wedged it into the trunk. “It'll be fun.”

“I'm sure it will be.” She murmured, agreeing but not really believing it. Xavier put the cooler in the trunk and closed it while Emilia put the book bag on the front passenger seat, then came over and handed Danica a small Bluetooth headset.

“So we can communicate on the bikes.” He explained as he passed one to Alex and Emilia, too.

“They've already been connected and are voice-controlled. If you want to talk to all of us at once, say call group, and if you want to talk to one person in particular, say call whoever it is you want to talk to.” He moved to the front of the vehicle to connect the headset to the car stereo for Emilia and Alex motioned for her to follow him over to the small shed, where Danica saw several helmets sitting on a table just inside the door.

“We borrowed a couple of helmets from people,” Alex explained as he bent over and picked one up to pass to her.

“We need to find one that fits and is comfortable for you. I prefer closed-faced helmets because getting hit with bugs or pebbles hurts like a bitch, but some people find them claustrophobic.” Danica looked down at the one he passed her, saw it had an open face, and immediately handed it back to him.

“I don't want bugs or rocks in my face,” she told him adamantly, making him chuckle and put it down, passing her a black, closed face one.