Chapter Eleven

Davis sat outside on the tent’s steps that evening, unable to decide if he needed a sweatshirt. One moment he felt perfectly content, not warm or cold—it was the absolute perfect temperature. The next moment, he was freezing, wondering if he needed not just one sweatshirt but two. Except, it felt like he was freezing from the inside out rather than the other way around. And it was whenever his thoughts drifted to his conversation with Chloe Rodgers earlier in the day. The look she’d given him when he’d voiced what he’d been thinking for the past couple of days. That he should leave early.

It haunted him.

It was a look of disappointment and anger and loathing all rolled into one. Like he was the most disgusting person she’d ever laid eyes on. At first, she’d tried to hide it under a layer of politeness.

And then there were her final words, where all pretenses had disappeared.

The ones where she’d accused him of not being as good a person as his mother thought he was.

Was he really that horrible a person for wanting to go home early? He knew that many people tired of a vacation and wished to leave prematurely. The only difference was that most of them didn’t actually do it. They stuck it out because that was what they were supposed to do—they were on vacation, for crying out loud. They should be enjoying it. They shouldn’t want to leave early. And so, they didn’t.

At least Davis was being honest about it. He didn’t want to deal with the noise and chaos that accompanied being a tourist. It sucked the life out of him, and as much as he’d be trying to enjoy spending time with his family, he’d be miserable. Why stand in line to see something that everyone was supposed to but he didn’t at all care about?

Why couldn’t they go camping or somewhere quiet to finish off their time together?

Because there are pythons here, he reminded himself.

Okay, that was a good point.

But he still didn’t understand why this made him such a bad person.

Except, Davis did know. Because he was in Thailand to see his family. And it wasn’t going home early from vacation that was the issue. It was that he was going to leave them.

Davis shook his head, trying to clear it from the demons that plagued him. Working with Chloe’s organization that past week—it had calmed him. Building huts with his family by day, eating outdoors at night—it had been nice.

Why ruin it all?

That was what Davis was most afraid of. That leaving this place would remind his brothers what Davis was really like. They’d remember what would happen when he strayed too far from his comfort zone. Was it too much for them to remember the man he was at that moment? The one who knew how to work hard but could also relax and have fun?

Davis heard the raucous laughter of his brothers inside the tent. They were probably cleaning everyone out of their M&Ms. They’d always been a little too good at poker, and Davis wouldn’t doubt that they wagered real money when their parents weren’t looking.

A deep love for them swelled, overtaking the panic and anxiety. And in that brief moment, he understood what Chloe had been talking about—what had angered her.

Davis was ready to leave his family after not seeing them for two years, not knowing when he’d see them again. And they wouldn’t recognize his love for them, only that he couldn’t escape fast enough.

Was he really willing to let his discomfort overshadow everything else?

Davis thought his mom and dad would understand. They always did, which was why he hadn’t thought it a big deal to leave a bit early. But his brothers wouldn’t. They were the ones he was worried about—maybe the ones that Chloe had been thinking of too. She’d said they’d feel betrayed.

Maybe she knew them better than Davis did at this point.

That was a sad thought.

He heaved a long sigh and stood from the step he’d been sitting on.

Time to cancel his early morning ride.

Davis would be staying another week.

Anything for his family.

“How much longer?” Davis asked as they drove to Chiang Mai.

“Another thirty minutes,” Travis said.

You love your family over discomfort, Davis told himself.

They mean more to you than someone’s knee in your butt.

Or your head repeatedly hitting the ceiling.

Why isn’t Will or Randy sitting on someone’s lap? They’re the youngest.

They are almost as tall as I am, Davis reminded himself.

But Davis was also the one who got the most carsick. Really, he thought he should have had dibs on the front seat, except his dad had a bad knee that acted up occasionally and needed to be stretched out. And this morning it had had the audacity to rear its ugly head.

Fine. Davis would suffer.

But if he puked on anyone, it wasn’t his fault.

It was a longer drive than the first one from the airport. Chloe had traveled to a storage unit in Chiang Mai with the site’s gear the previous afternoon. She had a business meeting first thing that morning, and it hadn’t made sense for both her and Travis to go. Except, Travis was ending up going anyway. Davis’s parents had decided that Chiang Mai would be a good place to start their adventures, so here they were, bouncing around in a Jeep that was meant for five people but was holding six.

Once they pulled into Chiang Mai, Davis relaxed a little bit. Part of it was that he knew he’d be able to stretch his legs soon. But also, Chiang Mai wasn’t as big as he had imagined—not as crazy. He might be able to enjoy himself there.

Travis pressed hard on the brake, even though they weren’t yet at their destination, and Davis had to brace himself against the front seat to avoid flying forward. Davis couldn’t figure out why the man was driving so slowly. He had assumed Travis didn’t even know where the brake was, based on past experience. Then Davis realized that a dozen mopeds were weaving in and out of traffic, going where they pleased, and Travis was attempting not to run them over.

“Aren’t there traffic laws?” Davis asked as he noticed a blue moped driving in the opposite direction of traffic. No one seemed to give the motorist a second glance.

“If there are, people don’t follow them,” Travis said with a good-natured laugh. Apparently, this didn’t bother him as much as Davis thought it should. It left him feeling queasy.

Travis pulled up in front of a building with strange writing on the front. Usually Davis could recognize letters in other languages, even if he had no idea what the words meant.

This was not the case for Thai. It looked more like art than writing.

Travis pulled out a cell phone and sent a quick text before pocketing it. “I hear you’re driving up to Chiang Rai. You’re brave this time of year.”

“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Kara answered, because Davis had no idea what the man was talking about. “We were in Bangkok last year, and you had to go searching for the festivities. I heard Chiang Rai is much better for it; it lasts a whole week. Besides, small towns are more Davis’s speed.”

An uncomfortable lump settled in Davis’s throat. What lasted a whole week? What were they going in search of? And more important, why did Travis think of them as brave for going to Chiang Rai for it?

“I wish you’d clue me in,” Davis said while readjusting his position. One of Will’s knees was currently jabbing one side of his butt, while Randy’s knee was jabbing the other. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see his parents share a look.

Davis had been on the receiving end of that look many times in his life, but he was in his thirties now and was no longer blind to it.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Kara gave him the same expression that usually went along with the look. The one where she was trying to placate him and get him to stop asking questions—to stop worrying. “Nothing. Just that we’re catching a bus up to Chiang Rai, where I think you’ll better enjoy things. It doesn’t move as fast as the rest of the country.”

“Unless you visit during Songkran,” Will muttered under his breath.

Davis’s mother shot Will a warning look, and Davis knew his brother had hit on what everyone had been hiding from him.

“What happens during Songkran?”

And that was when Chloe showed up at the passenger side door, and everyone released a collective sigh, mistakenly thinking that her sudden presence meant that no one needed to answer the question.

“All right, everyone out,” Chloe announced. “Bus station is only a couple of blocks away, but Travis has big plans for our week off, so we’re going to let him get going.” Her gaze settled on Davis. The last time they’d spoken was when he’d confessed he was planning on leaving early. He couldn’t decipher what she thought of him now, and he wished he didn’t care.

To his surprise, her eyes crinkled in amusement, seemingly without Chloe’s permission, like she was trying to keep herself from laughing. “Comfortable?” she asked.

Davis was sure he must look ridiculous, sitting on his brother’s knees, all hunched over and holding onto the driver’s seat so that he didn’t scrape the roof with his head.

He smiled. “Very.”

She smirked, then tore her gaze from his. “We have about an hour before our bus leaves. Plenty of time to stop and get some food on the way.”

“I could join you,” Travis said. He said it like an afterthought, but his body was rigid, and there was a tension between him and Chloe that Davis hadn’t noticed before.

“You have places to be, remember?” The last word came out more as a warning, and Davis wished they’d work out whatever this was in private.

Travis finally relented and released a long sigh. He looked out his window and muttered, “Whatever.”

The tension was so thick that Davis and his family didn’t need any reminders to unload. They couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“There’s a place I like just around the corner from here. They sell just about everything,” Chloe said as Randy jumped out last and slammed the door shut.

“See you in a week,” Randy said to Travis through the open passenger side window. He’d always been the thoughtful one, aware of others’ feelings and wanting to smooth things over. Though usually it was to smooth things over that both he and Will had inadvertently done, never purposely hurting anyone’s feelings.

That was not one of Davis’s talents. He was the avoider of the family—the one who always hid.

Travis mumbled something to Randy and then drove away. This time it wasn’t slow or cautious. He peeled out, the scent of burning rubber following him.

Chloe watched after the Jeep for a moment longer than necessary before giving a quick shake of her head. “Food. Right. This way.” And just that quickly, she seemed to have put whatever awkward moment she’d shared with Travis to the side, her smile returning. And Davis would have believed it if it wasn’t for Chloe popping her knuckles as they walked. It was something Davis always did when he was anxious. Chloe didn’t even need to use both hands for it, instead popping the knuckles on each hand simultaneously.

“Where are your bags?” Davis asked as he and his family picked theirs up from the sidewalk and followed her.

“In a locker at the bus station. Didn’t want to lug them into my meetings.”

The city that had seemed relatively peaceful as they drove now assaulted Davis as they walked, distracting him from Chloe’s knuckle popping. The scents from multiple food vendors all competed for the same space, and mopeds skirted around vehicles, kicking up dust.

One moped drove dangerously close to the edge of the road, enough so that Davis had to take a step back. A teenage girl sat on the back, both legs dangling to one side. She was in a uniform and held a bag, like she was coming home from school. A wave of panic moved over Davis and his breathing shallowed. He closed his eyes in an attempt to push down the nausea. That was a mistake because images of Bridgette popped into his mind. The ones after the motorcycle accident. Someone should warn that girl.

Davis opened his eyes and pointed the girl out to his brothers, but they just laughed, like they’d seen it a hundred times.

“That’s a motorcycle taxi,” Randy said. “Cheaper than regular ones, and more fun.”

Davis watched as it weaved in and out of traffic, just like the others. That didn’t seem the least bit fun. In fact, it looked like a nightmare just waiting to happen. His brothers must have seen the horror on his face, because they laughed again, and Will clapped him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, you’ll be a pro in no time.”

“I don’t want to be a pro,” Davis said. “And I don’t want to be dead.” It came out stiff and unyielding, and Chloe glanced back, surprise in her features. She hadn’t seen the full extent of Davis’s charming personality yet, and he hoped she would never have to.

He just had to hang in there for another hour. Then he and his family would be on a bus to Chaing Rai, apparently. Davis pushed away any feelings of disappointment at the thought of not seeing Chloe again. It was better this way, though, for everyone.

They rounded a corner, and Chloe beelined for a food vendor set up on the other side of the street. Davis checked both ways to make sure a rogue moped wasn’t going to run him down before crossing, his duffel bag thwacking him as he went.

“What are you going to do with your time off?” he asked Chloe after she ordered for the rest of them. She had told him to trust her, but judging from the slabs of meat dangling from the top of the vendor’s cart, he wasn’t sure he was ready to do that quite yet.

Once again, Chloe looked at him in surprise. It was getting to be a regular expression whenever she was with him. “Didn’t your folks tell you? I’m going with you. I don’t usually have time to play tourist, but I managed to secure funding for this project last time I was in Chiang Mai and was just here to sign a few forms. I even managed to squeeze in a second meeting to get funding for our next three projects.” She grinned, like this was quite the feat, and paid the man behind the vendor cart. Chloe stepped off to the side so the next person in line could order. “It has been ages since I’ve been to Chiang Rai, and your family invited me to join them.”

When Davis didn’t respond right away, she sent him a curious glance, seemingly trying to decipher how he felt about that. Davis tried to meet her gaze, but he couldn’t do it—she’d have seen what that news did to him. How it made his stomach flip-flop and his breaths a little more ragged than before.

“Is that okay?” she asked.

“Sure.” Davis said it like it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. He had to.

But when he saw a hint of disappointment flash across her open features…and then how those same features closed up…he immediately regretted it.

A new type of fear settled over Davis as realization washed over him.

After all this time, after all the safeguards he’d put up to protect himself, he was falling for someone he’d only known for a week. It was completely against his nature, and against everything he stood for.

And yet, his rational side didn’t seem to care.

And that scared him worst of all.