Chapter 3
Austin
“I told you, Logan, I’m not interested.” Austin let out of huff of air and set down his beer bottle. His anger rumbled underneath the surface of his skin, and he ran his hands through his slightly wavy brown hair. Austin and the rest of the guys were sitting in the common room in the apartment building. “Come on, man,” Logan said. “It is just a vacation. What is the worst that could happen?” Austin let out a forced laugh. Just a vacation, he thought. More like a setup for gold-digging women to hook up with men.
Logan and the rest of the guys had signed up to participate in Date Week at Mystic Breeze Resort, an all-expenses-paid vacation where men were paired up with women in the hopes of finding their true love. Apparently along with dating apps, blind dates at singles resorts were now a thing. Austin thought it was a pile of crap. Even the name sounded cheesy as hell. There were so many ways to find so. How his friends thought this would be a good idea he would never understand.
“You really think that you are going to find someone at something like this, Logan?” Austin asked. “I mean, come on, it looks like the set of the fucking Bachelor.”
Logan let out a laugh. “No, I don’t think I will actually find someone. But I know I will probably find some great ass that is more than willing to get into my pants, and who can pass that up? Plus as an added bonus, it’s a fucking secluded island. How many times in your life do you get to say you stayed on an exclusive island?” The rest of his friends sitting around the room let out a roar of laughter, and a few of them high-fived Logan.
Austin let out a small smile. He had once been as carefree when it came to love as the rest of them. Now, however, he had no interest in finding a piece of ass. He was content where he was. His shot at love was already destroyed, and he was fairly sure he couldn’t truly love again, so there was no sense in trying to fake it for some chick on an island.
“There is no way in hell I’m going,” Austin said. “If you guys are that desperate for ass, which from the sounds in your room every night, Logan, I highly doubt you are, go on without me. You don’t want me there anyway, I would just bring you all down.”
Logan looked at their other friends and then back at Austin and cleared his throat.
“Here’s the thing,” Logan said. “We can’t go unless you do.”
“What the hell do you mean, you can’t go unless I do?” Austin asked.
“Well…” Logan hesitated. Austin glared at him, and Logan awkwardly cleared his throat again. “We already signed you up.”
Anger bubbled up inside Austin and he shot a glare in Brendan’s direction. Brendan immediately looked down under Austin’s hard-set eyes.
“What the hell, Logan?” Austin asked.
“Man, relax,” Logan. “It was the only way for us to score on the discount on the vacation as well. The more people coming, the higher the discount. Besides you could use a vacation. Get yourself out of your head for a bit.”
It was true. Austin had felt it was harder to control his anger lately. He had always been able to hide it from his friends, but now he was starting to snap at them too and he was sure that they were getting frustrated with him. Austin had hoped it was just a phase, and deep down he agreed that a vacation or some form of relaxation would benefit him, but why the hell did they have to drag him into something like this?
While Austin was not always the sharing type, most of his friends knew that he had lost Callie and was not the same since. Hell, Logan even knew that Callie’s death was the reason why Austin was joined the Army.
The thought of Callie made Austin’s anger return in full force. Austin stormed out of the common room and went straight to his apartment, almost pulling off the doorframe from its hinges.
He let out a loud growl and fell down onto the bed. He needed to get a grip on his anger. He knew his friends were just trying to help him but he couldn’t stand the thought of having to interact with any of those idiotic girls. Not one of them would be able to hold a candle to Callie. Austin dropped his head into his hands as memories of Callie rushed into his thoughts.
Why can’t I just let her go? Austin thought. It had been so many years since her death, he should have been able to move on, but his heart wouldn’t let him. Every girl he saw was compared to her, and none of them stood a chance. Austin let out a long sigh. Callie would not have wanted him to be like this. He let out a small laugh at how she would have reacted if she saw him now. She would be dragging his ass to the plane and telling him to let someone else in. She would have wanted him to be happy.
But how could he be without her?