Page 3 of The Best Wild Idea (Off-Limits #3)

Silas

Seven years later

My body feels like it’s vibrating as everything in me screams to turn around.

Just jump off the porch and run before Jules opens the door.

Sure, her doorstep would be empty if I ran now, but a doorbell ditch is probably a more welcome prank than me showing up here unannounced. I’m not exactly on the short list of people she’d like to see right now.

I stare at the little Ring camera mounted on her doorbell.

Fucking hell.

It’s too late. She already knows I’m here.

I shift back and forth. One foot to the next. Shocked I’m still standing upright after today. Everything about this feels unreal and wrong, right down to my fingertips that are just as numb as my mind.

I nearly called Grant on my way here, purely out of habit.

Flexing my fist beneath her porch light, I zero in on my right index finger, the one that had hovered over his name in my phone while Patrick drove me here.

I’m still wondering how my own hand hasn’t caught up to the fact that he’s gone, and how long it’ll take until the urge to call him disappears.

Never, most likely.

It feels just as surreal now as the day I got the call. Stepping off my plane to get here, to talk through his last wild idea face-to-face, before it was too late. That was the worst day of my life, and I have quite a few to choose from.

Quite a few now, including today.

And today’s not over yet.

Not by a long shot.

I stare at the little camera, wondering if she’s somewhere inside right now, staring back.

Probably still wearing that black dress she was in earlier today . . .

I look over my shoulder at the idling SUV where my driver Patrick is sitting behind the wheel. His face is illuminated by the exterior lights lining her house. He’s already starting to fall asleep. I’m not surprised. It’s late and I told him this might take a while.

Or, knowing Jules, this might take all of thirteen seconds.

Maybe seven. Probably long enough for her to get a glimpse of me followed by the guy sitting half-asleep behind the wheel, signaling that someone else drove me here.

Yeah, I give her about seven seconds before she’s shoving me back out toward the car and the driver I should have had park around the corner so she couldn’t see him.

She hates that shit. She hates everything about me now.

I turn to jog off the porch, ready to tell Patrick to park it further down the road, but I stop in my tracks when I hit the last step.

There’s a slow creak behind me.

Old wood on metal hinge.

Shit .

I turn around, and freeze.

It’s Jules standing in the doorway.

Her silhouette is outlined by the warm yellow glow behind her.

Our eyes meet and her face softens, then instantly morphs into stone. She stands up straighter, wrapping her arms around herself in a hug. She doesn’t have to say a word for me to know she’s not happy to see me here.

Fucking great.

I’m not happy to be here either, Jules.

I blink, and in the split second it takes to close my eyes, I realize this is the first time in years that I’ve been alone with just her and not him, too. The unshakable link between us now buried.

I was right about one more thing. She’s still wearing that black dress she had on at the funeral today.

His funeral.

My stomach twists like a knife. He was the last of my family, even if it was friendship that bonded us instead of blood.

“Hey, Si,” Jules says, blinking her eyes with a sniff, like the light on the porch is too harsh for her mood right now.

Her lips and nose are flushed red against the alabaster of her skin.

She was crying before I got here. Of course she’s been crying, you asshole.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. There’s a bite to her voice.

“Jules.” My voice cracks on the u as if I’m twelve years old again. A fitting sign of how this is going to go.

More words drain into the back of my throat.

I can’t say what I came here to say.

Not when she’s looking at me like that.

And not after today.

Before, she would have welcomed me in with a tight hug and a drink, ready to collapse on the couch. Talking for as long as it took for us to unwind everything that happened and all the words that still need to be said. But we both know those days are gone. Long gone, if you ask her.

“What is it, Si?” She swallows, like even that’s a struggle right now. “Can’t it wait until . . . until it’s not today ?”

“Can I come in?”

She doesn’t answer. Her arms squeeze tighter across her chest.

I fucking hate this but I press on gently. “For just a few minutes maybe?”

Her jaw clenches, but she swings the door open, stepping to the side so I can pass her on my way in.

She doesn’t close the door behind me.

I stand in the foyer, unsure of how to say what I need to say. This all could — and should — have waited.

She runs a hand through her hair, and I catch sight of a small crescent of dirt still stuck beneath one of her fingernails.

Jesus Christ. It’s from that handful she tossed onto Grant’s grave earlier.

Some type of honor or symbol as his fiancée, although watching her do it nearly broke something in me.

Probably broke something in everyone who was there.

The sound of it hitting that thick wooden box echoes between my ears.

“How are you?” I ask, immediately feeling like an idiot. “Sorry. That was a dumb . . . I mean . . . obviously you’re exhausted.”

She clears her throat to stop a sarcastic snort, but fails, and we both look down awkwardly. The black heels she was wearing earlier have been swapped out for a pair of fuzzy white slippers with Bride To Be spelled out across the toes.

Christ. I swallow a lump in my throat.

“Yeah, but I don’t know if exhausted is the right word,” she admits, then all but adds the word idiot at the end with a brow raise. Then she pulls at the neckline of her dress like it’s suddenly too tight. “Why are you here, Si?”

Because I seem to be a glutton for self-punishment, I nearly say. Because even after all the water under the bridge between us, you and I are all that’s left, and that has to mean something right now.

Instead, I take a harsh inhale and mutter, “Fuck it,” under my breath.

“I know this is probably the worst timing but before I leave town I wanted you to know that I’d be happy to give you, uh, whatever you want or need to get through the next year or so.

Longer if that’s what it takes. Seriously, take as long as necessary to get back on your feet, I won’t care.

There’s more than enough, um . . .” I pause, silently screaming fuck everything about this moment, but somehow manage to go on.

“Um, there’s more than enough. I know we haven’t really been in touch much recently, but I just want you to be able to take your time without having to worry about—”

“Are you kidding me right now?” she interrupts.

The words fire from her mouth like a cannon — one that was already loaded and ready to take aim.

“I don’t fucking need your money, Silas, but you never change, do you?

Not even . . .” She trails off, shaking her head like my offer revolts her.

“You know, when I saw you out there, before I opened the door, I actually thought that maybe, just maybe, the old you was showing up. Especially after losing him.” She points through the open door to the driveway.

“And is that a fucking driver out there? Did you take a fucking driver to my house tonight?”

I follow her finger to Patrick, who appears to be drooling now behind the wheel.

Shit .

“Jules, you know I didn’t come here to offer you money. There’s more I have to—”

“Do I know that? Really? Because it sure as shit sounds like that’s exactly what you just did.”

“Okay, not only that.”

I take a step toward her, but she matches it with a quicker one back.

Then she tightens her jaw, glaring up at me like she’s not afraid to take me on. Jules is a solid twelve inches shorter than me, probably a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, and from what I remember, she’s pretty damn scrappy.

I stare back, hands splayed by my sides, a white flag on the battlefield.

“Come on,” I plead gently, angry with myself for not using my better judgment and getting back in the car when I still had the chance. But that’s not what he would have wanted.

I shift back and forth then slip my hands into my pockets, darting my eyes around her foyer for a distraction.

A long table against the wall is covered in a collection of stark white flower arrangements and cards. Roses, daisies, gardenias, and tulips. Some I don’t even recognize. Like the whole damn flower shop was ordered to send every variety to her in the same stone-cold hue.

I hadn’t sent her any.

It’s a shitty trade, if you ask me. A show of support, but a glaring reminder of what — and who — was lost just sitting there, waiting to greet you each morning until they, too, wither up and die.

I would know.

“They forgot the lilies,” I tell her, gesturing to the table, rocking back on my heels, wishing I had the good sense to shut up.

“What?” She narrows her eyes at the table of flowers.

“Lilies. They brought every other kind of flower but it looks like . . . they . . .” My mouth goes dry.

She closes her eyes and inhales sharply, tucking her teeth behind her lips as if she’s ready to drag me back out to the curb.

“Silas, I really can’t do small talk right now.”

“Look, I know you don’t need anything from me, but I would feel like a real ass if I—”