Page 40 of Into the Mountains (Blue Grove Mountain #3)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ELIAS
JULY - FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
THE LAST DATE
T wo months. That’s all it took for me to fall head over heels for the red-haired woman sitting beside me in the passenger seat. I was a goner for her before and not much has changed it seems.
Our playlist filters through the speakers and cascades around the sound of the wind. A Green Day song comes on and Charlotte reaches for the dial, turning it up as loud as possible.
I glance over at her for a brief moment and all I want to do is sear it into my memories so I never forget it.
The way she looks with the sun shining on her face, accentuating her freckles, strands of hair coming loose from her low ponytail and the way she is unashamedly belting out the lyrics to “American Idiot.”
If I could safely stare at her for the rest of the night as she is right now, I wouldn’t hesitate to do just that.
But we have a date to get to. One that she mentioned last week she’s always wanted to try, but never had the chance to and since she found out about what her parents were keeping from her, I just want to see her smile and forget, even if it’s just for a few hours.
“Are you ready?” I turn down the music as we pull into our destination.
It takes her a second to figure out where we are and what I have planned, but when she does, her head whips in my direction, hair flying with it. “You’re kidding?” she exclaims, a smile fully reaching her eyes. One I haven’t seen in a few weeks. My heart has palpitations at the sight of it.
“Not in the slightest, red.”
She squeals and practically barrels out of the car with the seatbelt still strapped to her. I can’t help but laugh at the excitement protruding from her whole body.
When I join her side, I plant a kiss on the side of her head, but it’s not enough for her. She throws her arms around me and kisses me right on the mouth, uncaring that we are surrounded by people waiting in line.
“Are we on the same team or are we re-awakening our rivalry for one day?”
“Oh I don’t think I ever want to be on different teams again.”
“Deal.” She slides down my body as we wait to get a spot in the paintball arena.
There’s a group of five guys that look to be college age a few yards away getting ready for the next match.
A few of them are riled up and barking at each other, reminding me of the frat back at university.
That group would be Ash’s style. Another group consisting of three males and two females, a more subdued group I might add, sits on the other side of the field, lacing up their boots and laughing together.
My fingers are crossed we get into that one.
The last couple in front of us is pointed to the louder group and I think we are lucky.
Once we get to the front of the line, I pull out my wallet and pay for our tickets and gear. He motions us to the group of five other players and we make our way over to them.
One of the girls jumps up and starts to introduce herself before a look of recognition spreads on her face.
“Ahhhh!” She screams at the same time Charlotte does.
They descend into a fit of laughter and hugging and I’m not too sure what to do with myself until the blonde next to her comes up to me and makes an introduction.
“I’m Meredith,” she says, sticking her hand out. “And that,” she gestures to the brown-haired girl hugging Charlotte, “Is my fiancée, Andy.”
“Your what ?” Charlotte screeches and reaches for her—I’m assuming—friend’s hand. “When? How?”
Andy goes into explanation of their proposal and how she expected it, but didn’t expect it that day. They both look fairly young and I wonder if they’re the same age as us. Andy looks vaguely familiar.
“Have we met before?” I ask her and immediately regret it when her and Charlotte both roll their eyes at each other.
“Really? After I served you both coffee on your first date? And we went to high school together, Elias.”
And now I look like an idiot. Of course, Andy. She was always right there next to Charlotte, studying in the library or walking down the street to and from school.
“Andy. Of course. I’m sorry. It’s been a while and your hair is different.” She runs her fingers through her pixie cut and smooths it down.
“I needed to get my hair cut. Once I turned eighteen and graduated, I was able to make my own choices instead of my mom trying to make them for me. She was pissed I cut it, but she got over it. Once she found out I was engaged, that was the last straw, though.”
A flash of pain crosses her features before she shoves it away and looks over at Meredith, a look of pure bliss erasing anything that was there a moment before.
“I know the feeling when it comes to difficult mothers. And going no-contact.”
“That’s right. Yours is locked up, rig—ow.” Meredith elbows her fiancée in the ribs. Andy rubs the sore spot with a grimace.
“She is and she’ll be there for a long time. But I stopped visiting her years ago because she didn’t want me to. Stopped letting me see her, so I listened. She cared more about drugs than her kid anyway, so I figured why waste the effort.”
This is way too much trauma dumping on someone I am re-meeting and their partner.
“Anyway,” I draw out, ready to move past this conversation before it becomes even more uncomfortable.
“Anyway,” Meredith echoes, searching for an out. Thankfully one of the guys behind them gives us one.
“Hey, I’m Aaron.” A tall, black-haired man with some gray streaks threaded in-between who stands at least a foot taller than me reaches out to shake my hand.
A man my height comes behind him and puts his arm around Aaron’s waist. His hair comes to his shoulders and is almost all gray. “I’m Erin,” the shorter one says and waits for a beat as he assesses my confusion.
“Yes, we both have the same name. They’re spelled differently.
Mine is A-a-r-o-n and his is E-r-i-n. No, it’s not weird.
We have different middle initials so our mail or packages we order don’t get mixed up.
And yes, we love having the same name, but rarely call each other by our first names. Did I cover all of it, honey?”
“You forgot to mention that we are Meredith’s dads.”
“Oh right, that,” he waves it off as his daughter rolls her eyes at him.
“So, Meredith, Andy, Aaron, Erin, and you are?” Charlotte points to the younger boy struggling with the buckle on his helmet.
“My little brother. He insisted on coming even though he’s barely old enough to play.”
“We tried to stop him, but you know Jayce. He was determined. And he had FOOMOO.”
Meredith’s cheeks redden as she rubs her hand down her face. “It’s not FOOMOO, Dad. It’s FOMO. Short O’s, not long.”
“Well, thank you for the phonetics lesson,” he jokes. “I’ll be sure to pass that along to your students next time I come to visit for a book talk.”
“Meredith is studying to be a teacher and Erin is a children’s librarian at the local library,” Andy explains.
A grumble of shouts and grunts crosses the field as the other team is huddled up and rocking back and forth like they’re about to play in the Super Bowl.
“So we are totally kicking their asses, right?” Aaron asks.
“We are definitely pummeling them into the ground,” Jayce says with a kind of determination I wish I had when I was a kid. He looks to be no more than thirteen. At that age, I was nowhere near as confident as he seems to be.
“No fucking way,” a voice calls from the other team. A lean dark-haired man starts walking toward me and there’s a familiarity in the way he walks, an arrogance I’d know from anywhere. Ash takes off his helmet and goggles, barreling into me for a hug before I have a chance to react.
“What the hell are you doing here, man?” He pulls back and slaps me on the shoulder harder than is necessary in my opinion.
Nervously, I push my hand through my hair. The last person I would have expected to see here was Ash. The last time we talked in our group chat last week, he mentioned he was in Winnipeg and was going to be there for the rest of the summer. “I—uh, I’m on a date actually.”
“No shit? With who?”
“Me.” Charlotte comes to my side and sticks out her hand to Ash. “I’m Charlotte.”
“Dude, no way!”
“Charlotte, this is Ash, one of my college roommates.”
“Heard a lot about you, Ash. It’s nice to meet you.”
“All amazing things from our Eli, I’m sure.” He gives her a flirtatious look that she ignores as she withdraws her hand from his.
“All amazing things,” she agrees even though I haven’t told her much about Ash other than how privileged he seems to be and how uncaring he is when it comes to school.
“Well, may the better team win.”
“Oh, they will,” Jayce taunts from his place behind us.
“You’re cute, kid,” Ash calls over his shoulder in a condescending tone as he laughs his way back to his group of buddies.
“He’s gonna get his. I may be a kid, but he’s underestimating me,” Jayce says quietly.
“Sheesh, who the heck raised you, the mafia?” Erin jokes, mussing his son’s hair.
“Jayce, never let other people get to you, okay? That anger is never good for your heart.” Aaron gives Jayce a side hug which he grudgingly accepts and turns to us, ready to play.
Charlotte and I get our gear on and once we are covered head to toe, we jokingly start our own huddle. The others join in and we last about five seconds before the secondhand embarrassment becomes too much and we are clutching our stomachs from laughing at ourselves too hard.
We decided that our strategy is to just have fun.
Winning would be a bonus, putting the other team’s cockiness into place.
I’m more worried about what they will do when they see a smaller kid playing, thinking they can take advantage of that.
I make a decision to stick with him in case he needs backup.
Charlotte agrees with a nod when she sees me heading off with him in the direction away from her. I’ll catch up with her during the game.
A few inches behind Jayce, he tries to wave me off.
“You don’t need to cover my six. I know what I’m doing.
” And he proves that within the first ten minutes of the game.
We take cover nearby and he expertly pops up when he hears someone passing and shoots a paintball right at their chest, leaving a neon orange splatter behind.
Once he’s crouched next to me again, he explains where the others are from the opposing team, something I have no idea how he can figure out when everyone is spread in different directions in the area.
“It’s simple,” he starts explaining. “If you consider how many idiot guys are on that team, they probably learned all of their skills from Halo 3 and think they know exactly what to do. In reality it’s easy to predict their moves when they learn from a video game I mastered when I was nine.”
Turning his head slightly around the corner, he motions me to follow when he decides it’s all clear. I think I’m more of a hindrance to him than a help at this point as he starts to track down our other opponents.