The Beautiful Truth

// 103

Chase Fallen and Travis Briggs showed up at my hotel at eleven a.m. sharp.

"Um, seriously, I told you. I've got, like, a suitcase and a computer bag," I protested.

"We're not here to help you move," Chase grinned from the driver's seat of his jacked-up, 4-door, topless Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. "We're here to take you liquor shopping. We need a female's perspective."

I snorted. "I bet. Wait, I thought you weren't drinking."

"I'm not," Chase said as I climbed into his backseat after Travis had tossed my bags in the back. "But my fraternity is. You picked a great day to move in, Fitzgerald."

"Oh Jesus," I groaned.

"Yeah girl," Travis chimed in. "You better perk up! Phi Delt doesn't throw open parties."

Coincidentally, I knew this. I'd ended up there twice last year with Micki. Cheerleaders, apparently, were always on the list. "Ugh, kill me."

We spent the next hour at the local liquor mart. Travis Briggs and Chase Fallen emerged with enough booze to satisfy a whole battalion of sailors on leave.

"Oh my—" I squinted behind my sunglasses as we rounded the corner to my new summer home.

"Who's that in front of our house?" Travis asked Chase in the front seat.

"No idea," Chase shrugged.

"That's my dad," I sighed. "Great. And I'm buried in liquor boxes. Full liquor boxes, living with two football players...Christ."

Chase laughed, grinning at me in the rearview, once again wearing that stupid bandanna around his head. "It's OK, Fitz. We'll be on our best behavior."

My dad waved, smirking as we pulled into the driveway.

"Sweet ride!" Travis exclaimed, turning his head to stare at the car my dad was leaning against as we drove by.

I sighed again, and jumped out of the back, almost before we'd stopped moving, in an effort to put as much distance as possible between me and the bar supply...and the two giant athletes with whom I now lived.

"What...um...? I don't know where to start," I admitted, walking toward my dad with open arms.

He pulled me in for a long bear hug. "What, you're the only person that can book a last minute flight to California? Why don't we start with the obvious?"

He stepped away from me and slapped his right hand on the driver's side window sill of the top-down, navy blue BMW 3 series he'd been posted up against.

"Uh, OK. What is that?" I played along.

My dad chuckled. "It's yours. You said you needed a car, so—"

"What? I can't afford—"

"Shh..." he calmed my hysterics, laughing again. "I've always wanted to pay cash up front for a three year lease."

Woah, sooooo many questions. This thing was brand new? Shows you how much I know about cars. "But I—"

"I mean if you want, I'll take this and send you the Tahoe," he shrugged nonchalantly. "But gas is gonna get ridiculous, and going around those curves on the One...come on. You want this."

I wrinkled my forehead at him. "Who are you?"

"I'm Kerry Fitzgerald," he grinned.

What's with all the grinning today?