Hidden Miles Bonus Epilogue Read online

  Hidden Miles: Bonus Epilogue

  Claire Kingsley

  Copyright © 2019 by Claire Kingsley

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, or incidents are products of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental or fictionalized.

  Edited by Elayne Morgan of Serenity Editing Services

  Cover by Lori Jackson

  www.clairekingsleybooks.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Leo

  Gaining Miles: Chapter 1

  Also by Claire Kingsley

  About the Author

  Leo

  I eyed my phone with suspicion as it buzzed. Again. It was the third time in the last few minutes.

  “Are you going to check that?” Hannah sat cross-legged in her office chair at our shared desk, one hand on her belly. She had the cutest little baby tummy. I loved how she rubbed it all the time.

  “I think it’s Cooper.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Is that bad? Maybe he’s giving you details about tonight.”

  Tonight. I suppressed a groan. “That’s what I’m afraid of. I think I need to cancel.”

  “What? You can’t cancel.”

  “I told him I don’t want a bachelor party,” I said. “It’s not my fault he didn’t listen.”

  “He’s been planning this for weeks,” she said. “Just humor him.”

  “You don’t understand.” I picked up my phone and opened his latest texts. “He’s been texting me crazy shit for the last two days.”

  “Like what?”

  I held up my phone and scrolled through the texts. “Mostly stripper gifs and alcohol memes. Hannah, I’m not going to a strip club. There’s no way.”

  She giggled. “I don’t really think Cooper would take you to a strip club.”

  “The shit he’s been sending me suggests otherwise. Like this.” I scrolled to the image. “A guy tossing dollar bills. And this one, a flashing neon sign that says girls, girls, girls. Oh, and here.” I scrolled again. “A ten-second video of a stripper. She has tassels on her nipples, Hannah.”

  She put a hand over her mouth and her shoulders shook with laughter.

  “This isn’t funny. You can’t be okay with this. A strip club?”

  “It’s your bachelor party. I know you’re not going to do anything.”

  “Wait a second.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “The girls aren’t taking you to a strip club, are they?”

  “Why would the girls take me to a strip club? I don’t need to see boobs when I have these.” Winking at me, she grabbed her chest and squeezed.

  Seeing her touch herself, I was torn between wanting to clarify—I hadn’t meant a female strip club—and wanting to drag her to the bedroom, tie her up, and play naughty girl.

  I cleared my throat. “I meant a male strip club.”

  She giggled again. “Oh. No, we’re not going to a strip club, male or female. We’re going to dinner at the Lodge and then to your mom’s for manicures and cheesecake. It’s a good old-fashioned pregnant-bride bachelorette party.”

  “Well, you can have fun tonight, but I should’ve stopped Cooper from planning this weeks ago. Did you know he threw Brynn a bachelorette party? He baked a penis cake.”

  Hands on her belly, she nearly doubled over laughing. “Of course he did. But Leo, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to bake you a penis cake. If anything, he’ll bake a boobs cake or something. You should be reasonably safe.”

  I got another text—a picture of a stripper on a pole. “Nope. Not safe.”

  She reached over and patted my leg. “Cooper’s just excited. You know how he is. He means well, he just doesn’t always know where to draw the line.”

  “There’s no way Amelia’s okay with this. I’m texting her.”

  Hannah just shook her head and laughed, the little traitor.

  Me: Can you use your magic on Cooper and get him to chill out?

  Amelia: Why, what’s wrong? He’s in a great mood.

  Me: Do you know what he has planned tonight?

  Amelia: Yeah

  Me: And you’re fine with it?

  Amelia: Sure. You guys are going to have a blast!

  “Well, she’s no help,” I said, tossing my phone back on my desk.

  “Did you expect her to be?” she asked. “You know she’s always his co-conspirator.”

  “True.” I took a deep breath and leaned back in my chair.

  Hannah came over and climbed in my lap, straddling me. Her belly pressed against my stomach and she slid her fingers through my hair. “You’re going to be fine. Your brothers are fun. They just want you to have a good time tonight.”

  I closed my eyes, enjoying the way she massaged my scalp. Her hands on me felt so good.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll go.”

  “That easy? I didn’t even have to take my shirt off.”

  I opened my eyes and looked down at her boobs. “I mean, I refuse. You should try to convince me.”

  She placed her hands on either side of my face and leaned in to kiss me. I slid my arms around her, tasting her sweet lips.

  “I do have to go soon,” she said between kisses.

  “I know.” I kissed her again. “If tonight sucks, will you make it up to me?”

  Smiling, she bit her bottom lip. “Yes, I’ll make it up to you. If tonight sucks, you can come home and tie me to the bed.”

  “Maybe I should just stay here and tie you to the bed.” I brushed her hair back from her face.

  She groaned. “That’s not fair. You know my hormones are going crazy right now.”

  One corner of my mouth turned up in a hint of a smile. I did know that. Now that she was feeling better, pregnant Hannah was fun.

  “Later.” She tapped my nose. “I’m meeting the girls in fifteen minutes. That’s not nearly enough time.”

  “No, it’s definitely not.”

  I let her up, but before she could walk away, I wrapped an arm around her waist and placed my hand on her belly. She laid her hand over mine and leaned her cheek against my head.

  “Don’t let Mommy get too crazy tonight,” I said.

  Hannah just laughed.

  I watched her hips sway as she walked back to the bedroom. It looked like I was stuck going to the bachelor party Cooper had planned. Our wedding was this weekend, and despite the fact that I’d told him no approximately eight hundred times, my brother had insisted we needed to celebrate. I’d have been happy with having a few beers with my brothers and calling it a night. But of course, Cooper didn’t do anything small. It was go big or go home for that guy. And in this case, go big apparently meant boobs, judging by the texts he’d been sending me.

  This was going to be interesting.

  “You ready for this, bro?” Cooper asked. His grin was about a mile wide. Even though I had a feeling he was about to make me miserable, it was hard to be mad at him. His cheerfulness was infectious.

  I shut my front door behind me and hit the lock button. “I guess.”

  “Whoa, Leo, temper the enthusiasm,” Cooper said. “The night hasn’t even begun yet. I don’t want you to use up all your excitement before we leave home.”

  Roland stood next to his car, grinning at me. Clearly he was in on this. Chase was next to him, doing something on his phone—probably texting Brynn. Cooper took the blame fo
r most of their stunts, but I knew Chase was responsible at least half the time.

  Yeah, I was stuck.

  Chase looked up from his phone and put it in his back pocket. “Hey, Coop, don’t forget the shirts.”

  “Good call.” Cooper went around to the back of Roland’s car and brought out a shopping bag. He pulled out a shirt and tossed it to me.

  I caught it, then held it up. It was gray and had my name on the front. On the back it said, Sorry ladies, I’m getting married in navy block letters.

  “You got shirts?” I asked.

  “Of course I did,” Cooper said, his brow furrowing like I’d asked a stupid question. He tossed shirts to Chase and Roland, then pulled one out of the bag for himself.

  “What do yours say?” I asked.

  Chase grinned and held his up. “Name on the front.” He turned it around. “Team Leo on the back.”

  Cooper was already changing into his Team Leo shirt. Sure enough, it said Cooper on the front.

  I eyed Roland. Was he really going to go along with this?

  “Cool,” Roland said. He pulled his shirt off and tugged on his new one.

  I froze for a moment, my back clenching, and stared at the shirt. It had short sleeves. And if they were going to change out here in the open, what was I going to do? Duck back inside and put it on? Find a shirt to layer underneath it so I had sleeves?

  Fuck it.

  I pulled off my shirt, letting it drop to the ground, and quickly put the new t-shirt on.

  My brothers didn’t make a thing out of it—thank god—but I did catch Cooper mouthing Awesome. And yeah, okay, I was kind of proud. I’d just done that.

  Wasn’t sure how I felt about short sleeves, so I did go back into my house to grab a hoodie. When I came back out, Cooper just patted me on the back.

  Ben walked over, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt and jeans. “Hey, boys. You weren’t leaving without me, were you?”

  “Hell no,” Cooper said. He dug into the bag and got out another shirt. Tossed it to Ben.

  Relief swept over me. There was no way Ben would come to a strip club with us. Cooper must have been fucking with me.

  Ben looked at the shirt, then glanced at the others. He took off his flannel, replacing it with the t-shirt. Naturally, his said Ben on the front, Team Leo on the back.

  “We ready?” Roland asked.

  “The plan still the same?” Ben asked.

  “Hell yes,” Cooper said, his eyes flicking to me. “We’re gonna get crazy tonight.”

  “Good.” Ben pulled a wad of dollar bills out of his back pocket. “I’m prepared.”

  “Fuck yes,” Cooper said, laughing and pointing at Ben’s cash.

  I stared at him. He had to be kidding me. Ben had dollar bills for strippers?

  “Dude, Ben’s the man,” Chase said.

  Roland opened the driver’s side door. “Okay, let’s go, I guess.”

  I could not believe what was happening. My brothers—and Ben—were actually taking me to a strip club for my bachelor party?

  Too bewildered to argue, I got in the car. Roland drove out of Salishan and across town. I hadn’t even realized there was a strip club in Echo Creek. But sure enough, over near the industrial area, Roland pulled into a half-empty parking lot. A sad-looking sign proclaimed The Boobie Trap with a cartoonish silhouette of a woman with huge tits.

  “This is going to be so awesome,” Cooper said.

  I shook my head. Hannah knew where I was. She couldn’t get mad at me for this. I’d told her I didn’t want to go. I’d just have to suffer through while my brothers had their fun. They were probably just taking me here to see what I’d do.

  Everyone piled out of the car, so I followed. I glanced at the faded sign, the pink paint chipping. This was going to be a shit show.

  “You guys, I can’t,” Roland said.

  I whipped my gaze over to him. Was he laughing?

  Chase started in and pretty soon Cooper was laughing so hard he had to lean against the car to stay upright. Even Ben was chuckling.

  “Dude, you’re fucking amazing,” Cooper said. “I can’t believe you let us get this far. Seriously, you’re a badass. I didn’t mean for us to get all the way over here. I figured you’d tackle me in front of your house and I’d tell you the truth so you wouldn’t break my arm. But then you got in the fucking car and Roland actually drove over here. Holy shit. I can’t breathe.”

  Roland put his hands up. “I was just improvising.”

  “This was a joke?” I asked.

  “Obviously,” Chase said. “We weren’t going to take you to a strip club.”

  Ben grinned at me. “We were just having a little fun with you.”

  “Dollar bills?” I asked.

  “That was a really nice touch,” Chase said.

  I shook my head, but I wasn’t mad—not even a little. The fact that they’d known they could pull a prank on me was kind of awesome. No tiptoeing around me, worrying about what was going to freak me out. Just my family, fucking with me like guys did.

  “Okay, you guys got me,” I said. “I really thought this was what we were doing.”

  “Fuck no,” Cooper said. “We are having a bachelor party tonight, but there’s no way I’d plan something so lame and predictable. You should know me better than that, Leo.”

  “Fair enough. So what are we doing?”

  “Follow me,” Cooper said, and got in the car.

  We drove back to Salishan and parked in front of the Big House. I didn’t bother asking more questions, just followed them inside. They led me to the main event room and for a terrifying second, I thought they might be about to spring some kind of awful surprise party on me.

  But that wasn’t it, either. Cooper flipped on the lights, revealing three tables in a U-shape in the center of the room. Five computer stations were spread out around the tables, each fronted by a chair.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Game night,” Cooper said.

  “Holy shit, are you serious?” I walked to the tables, my eyes traveling over the cables. “Are these networked?”

  “They should be,” Cooper said. “I mean, it’s totally not my area, but between Roland and Chase, they said they got it working. These aren’t the best computers or anything, and don’t even get me started on how hard it was to sneak all this shit around without you finding it. But we’ve got internet, and a bunch of games loaded and ready to go. We even have headsets so we can, like, talk to each other and shit. Not that we really need those, but they looked awesome, so I bought five.”

  “We’ll get the supplies,” Chase said.

  Ben and Roland followed Chase out. They came back a minute later with two coolers and several grocery bags. It took another trip with all four of them to bring the rest of the stuff.

  They unloaded a shit ton of snacks—every junk food imaginable—onto the tables. Chips, donuts, candy bars, a huge bag of M&Ms, beef jerky, and pepperoni sticks. Roland opened one of the coolers and pulled out a beer.

  “Well, what do you think?” Cooper asked. “I’m shit at video games, but we have beer and grub. And we figured this would be your jam.”

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  Cooper stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Be honest. Did I do good?”

  “Yeah, Coop. You did great. This is awesome.”

  He smiled and lifted his eyebrows. His arms twitched.

  I knew what he wanted. I lifted my arms and stepped in for a hug.

  He hugged me, patting me on the back a few times, then moved back. “Congratulations, bro. I’m really happy for you.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Dudes, I got a Leo hug,” he whisper-yelled, his eyes wide.

  I just laughed.

  We spread out the food, grabbed beers, and picked stations. Everything seemed to be working fine, so I picked a relatively simple game and helped them all get set up. We put on our headsets—even though Coop was right, we didn’t really need the
m—and got started.

  We’d only just gotten through the first level when a familiar name popped up on my screen, asking to chat. I clicked accept.

  “Hey, Badger.”

  “Hey, Gigz.”

  “How’s the rowdy bachelor party? Had a lap dance yet?”

  “You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You’re not mad, are you?”

  “No, I’m not mad. It was pretty funny, actually. We got all the way over there before they told me it was a joke.”

  She giggled. “Did you really? Cooper swore to me he wouldn’t push it if you seemed like you were genuinely uncomfortable or getting freaked out.”

  “No, that’s the crazy thing—I wasn’t.”

  “Is it weird that I’m proud of you?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but I’m kinda proud of myself, too, so I guess we’re both weird.”

  She laughed again—music to my ears. “So, I won’t stay on. I just wanted to pop in and see how you were doing.”

  “I thought you were with the girls tonight,” I said. “Pregnant-bride bachelorette party?”

  “Nope, we’re hanging out tomorrow,” she said. “I was just getting out of the way so your brothers could mess with you.”

  “Do you want to stay on and play? They won’t mind.”

  “Yeah?”

  I covered the mic so I wouldn’t be too loud in Hannah’s ears. “You guys don’t mind if Hannah plays with us, right?”

  “Hell no,” Cooper said. “Bring it on, sister girl.”

  “Sounds like you’re in,” I said.

  “Awesome. Let’s do this.”

  I glanced at Ben and my brothers, all outfitted with headsets, playing a computer game. For me. Because that was how these guys rolled. They always had my back.

  And in a few days, that feisty gamer girl on the other end of the headset—the woman who had once been just a voice in my ear—was going to be my wife.

  We were a family. All of us. None of us were perfect, but I wouldn’t have traded any of them. Not for anything. And with Hannah in my life—marrying me and having my baby—I really didn’t know how things could get any better.