Time to Bounce (Carter Brothers #6)

Chapter 6

Bashing him isn’t enough. I need to talk to his mom to explain, in detail, what he did.

— Athena’s secret thoughts

ATHENA

The tickets on my counter mocked me.

I had two tickets to Okinawa , Japan .

I also had a trip for two planned.

Four years ago, when I’d booked this trip, it’d been with the understanding that I would have Gavrel with me.

Years ago, when I’d told my brother I wanted to visit where I was born, he’d immediately started planning out our trip.

Our first stop would be Okinawa , where I was born. Then we’d hit up all the other historic landmarks in a two-week vacation, not including travel time.

I’d forgotten all about this trip after he’d died, and hadn’t remembered until a few days ago when the reminder to check into my flight arrived from my travel planner, as well as her letting me know that she charged my card for the tickets.

In four days, I would be going to Japan .

And I wanted to ask Gable to go with me.

We didn’t have a relationship.

Sure , we had some awesome chemistry.

However , I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking we had more.

He hadn’t called once since we’d spent that night together.

Nor had he made any indication that he wanted anything more to do with me.

But , without giving myself time to overthink it, I dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and my Nike Air Maxes —that may or may not have been child sized—and headed out to my car.

It was just after six in the evening, and it took me twenty-two minutes to drive back to the bar.

After talking to Shasha the next day after going to the bar, he’d urged me not to go back, that he didn’t want to mess with a police investigation.

I’d agreed, because I didn’t want to mess with it either, and stayed out of it.

But that was before the tickets popped up in my email…

Truthfully , it would make more sense to ask Garrett .

He was pretty friendly with me.

At work—my job was a dispatcher for DPD — I’d really gotten to know him, as well as the rest of his family.

Though one Carter still remained elusive to me.

Gable was the only one out of the entire family that I didn’t see.

Since dispatch was in a different building from the PD , it wasn’t often that I saw them.

But they still stopped by to say hi.

You tended to make friends with the men and women you talked to, day in and day out.

They also stopped by to bring treats to thank us.

I guess I should’ve expected to not hear from, or see, Gable , though.

I mean, he was undercover, and had been for months.

He was undercover more than any cop I’d ever known.

He’d been in two such stints since I’d known him, and from what the Carter family had shared in my presence, Gable stayed fairly hidden in case he was needed to go undercover again.

My car puttered into the parking lot, and I quickly took a look around to see if I could spot Gable’s bike.

I couldn’t believe I was back at the bar, but it was the only way I knew I could get ahold of him.

It took a lot of courage for me to ask him.

I mean, we’d had sex two times.

Sure , it’d been in a single day, but on his way out he had said if I needed anything, to just get in touch with him.

This counted, right?

I found his bike—and him—in the corner of the lot, standing underneath a streetlight that’d just turned on for the night.

He saw me instantly and narrowed his eyes.

My eyes were locked on the woman in the circle of his arms.

My heart shattered in two at the beautiful woman.

She was everything that I would never be.

Tall , blonde, big boobs, and fantastic legs.

She looked like Carrie Underwood .

Was she his type?

Was …

“ What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.

When had he walked toward me?

How had I missed that?

“ I’m , uh, here…” I didn’t know what to say.

There was no way that I could tell him what I’d actually come to tell him.

I had to make something up. Fast .

Only , the longer he looked at me, the more I felt like I was most assuredly not wanted, and that made my tongue tie up even further.

“ Why are you here, Athena ?” he pushed.

I opened my mouth, closed it, then just blurted it out.

“ I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to Japan with me,” I babbled. “ I have these tickets. They’re paid for fully. I’m going. Next week. By myself. So I thought I’d ask if you wanted to go. With me. There .”

He was already shaking his head. “ Thanks , but no thanks.”

Wow , he was short.

“ But it’s a free trip,” I said. “ With me.”

Wow , I sounded desperate.

But to my credit, I really didn’t want to do this trip by myself.

He patted my shoulder like he was consoling a sullen child, then said, “ Go home, Athena .”

I looked down at my lap, then nodded once.

Reaching for my window, I started to roll it up, but his angry words had me halting.

“ Don’t read more into it than there actually was,” he snarled.

With my tail tucked between my legs, I rolled the window the rest of the way up, put my car in drive, and sped out of the parking lot.