A heavy fist slams against the front door in quick succession and my body goes ridged in bed. The last time someone came knocking in the middle of the night, I got the shock of my life.
“Henley,” dad yells. “If that boyfriend of yours doesn’t quit banging on my door in the next two seconds, I’m going to introduce him to my shotgun.”
Shit. It’s Noah?
“Spitfire,” Noah’s singsong voice comes blaring through the walls. “Get that ass of yours out of bed and open this damn door already.”
“It’s Noah,” Aria screeches from her bed. “I’ll get it.”
Dad’s booming voice is nearly enough to wake the dead. “Aria. Don’t even think about getting out of bed. There’s no way you’re getting up this early, go back to sleep. Squish, hurry it up.”
Oh dear.
I scramble out of bed and grab the blanket before wrapping it around me and heading down the hallway. Noah raps on the door again and I get to it just in time before he yells out again.
I hurry to pull the deadbolt free and unlock the door before pulling it open to find him more awake than what’s socially acceptable, standing here in all his tatted up glory, and smirking at me as though I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demand, grabbing the phone in his hand and checking the time. “Noah,” I growl. “It’s barely even four in the morning. Get lost.”
I all but throw the phone back at him and go to slam the door. “Nuh uh,” he says, jamming his foot in the door. “Go pack a bag. We’re going camping.”
I laugh in his face but my howling is quickly interrupted by a yawn that completely takes over me. “Are you insane? The only thing I’m doing is going back to bed. So, you can either come with me and risk my dad trying to murder you, or you can come back in a few hours when the sun has had a chance to actually shine.”
Noah shakes his head and gives me an ‘I really don’t give a shit what you want’ smile. “As tempting as going to bed with you right now sounds, you have about two minutes to pack your bag.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I groan.
Noah tsk’s me. “Don’t keep them waiting,” he warns. “You know how they get when they’re tired and cranky.”
“Huh?”
Noah steps back out of the doorway and I take in his car on the curb to find Tully and Rivers in the back seat of his Camaro, both scowling and certainly not impressed to be there. “You have about three seconds to explain to me what’s going on before I lose my fucking mind.”
“You wanted our pack back together and that’s what we’re doing.” I raise a brow, waiting for him to continue. “We’re going on a road trip and spending the night around a fire, hoping to talk through all our shit and get back on track. I can’t deal with their pissy attitudes anymore, so we’re forcing them to put it to rest, and if having a few drinks and spending the night in the woods is going to do that, then you bet your ass that’s how we’re spending our weekend.”
“In the woods?”
“You now have one minute to pack your back.”
“For fuck’s sake, Henley,” dad yells. “Get some clothes and get the hell out of here so I can get back to sleep. You know he ain’t going to leave without you.”
Well, I guess that answers that then.
I look up at Noah before letting out a heavy sigh. “Can you help me? I don’t know what to pack. I’ve never been camping.”
“Well, shit, Spitfire,” Noah says, stepping through the door. “You’re going to have the best fucking time. I bought marshmallows just for you.”
“Aren’t you sweet,” I grumble, dropping the blanket as I step back into my bedroom.
Noah’s hand instantly finds my ass as I stand before him in nothing but a pair of purple lace, Brazilian undies, and his old shirt. “Fuck, you look good,” he grumbles lowly so no one else in the house can hear.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn, slapping his hand away. “You don’t get this when you wake me up at four in the morning demanding I go camping. Are you nuts?” I ask, turning to my closet and searching out a bag. “I mean, did you really have to bang on the door until you woke me up? What’s wrong with texting or calling? Maybe then hit my bedroom window. Not the front fucking door.”
“First off,” he says, reaching over the top of my head to grab the bag at the top of my closet. “Shut the fuck up. I did do all that. If you bothered to look at your phone, you’ll find about twenty missed calls and texts from me, hell, even a few from Tully and Rivers. After you so miserably failed to wake with that, I tried tapping at your window but it was locked. I even scratched a tree branch across it hoping that if I couldn’t wake you the normal way, I could scare you awake, but noooo, that shit didn’t work either. Though, that’s something we need to discuss. I really need to get you some kind of security system for here, maybe even a big ass dog.”