“Stop,” he said, right behind me.
Without a thought except the need to avoid this conversation until I was calm again, I took one of the paths into the woods at my right.
Once upon a time, when I was a kid, I’d camped in these woods with my Boy Scout Troop. The trees weren’t dense, not like they were out by Pickett’s Campground, where you could walk for hours without finding a sign of civilization and possibly tumble down a rock face or into a fucking waterfall if you weren’t careful. Here, there were low stone walls crisscrossing the forest, signs that someone had once cleared this space. Farmed it. Made it a part ofO’Leary’s agricultural heritage.But somewhere along the way, they’d stopped trying. And the forest had restored the natural order of things and reclaimed its territory.
“Con, what the hell?” Micah called. “You’re mad at me for what I said to your mom? Okay. Tell me so. Explain it to me. Yell at me. Tell me your side of the story. But don’t avoid me. Stoprunning.”
“You are tellingmeto stop avoiding things? For fuck’s sake, Micah,” I called over my shoulder. “I need a minute. Go away.”
“A minute for what? To convince yourself you shouldn’t have said what you did back there by the parking lot? To figure out twenty-seven new ways you can deflect and pretend it never happened? You can tell me anything. You know that.”
I stumbled over a tree root and swore as Micah grabbed my wrist and steadied me.
“Listen,” he said. “I didn’t know she was coming by just then. I swear I didn’t. Just let me explain.”
“Jesus Christ. You’ve done nothing but lie, and you expect me to trust you? No more explanations. No more stories. I’m done with…”
He kissed me. No games, no hesitation, no questions. Just his lips on mine, his fingers wrapping around the back of my neck, and the tiny, needy moan coming from the back of my throat.
It was tempting—God, so tempting—to let myself get caught up in it, but my mind was still racing, my heart beating inside my chest like a trapped bird, and I couldn’t give into it. I couldn’t.
I pushed him back,hard,and took a giant step away…right into a fucking tree branch.
“Ahhh!” I grabbed at my head, where I’d managed to clock myself, like a fucking idiot who’d never been in the woods before. I was losing control—maybe it was already gone—and I hated this feeling. Hated that it always seemed to happen around Micah.
“No more,” I said softly, holding out my palm to ward him off. “Just no more. It’s done.”
I turned and stomped back the way I came.
A second passed. Then ten or fifteen. I was almost sure he was going to let me go, which was what I wanted. What I needed. Itwas.
But when I heard him yell, “Fuck!” and stomp after me, I knew I’d been lying to myself again, because my stomach twisted and something settled in my chest and I… stopped trying to walk away.
“Con.” Micah stopped a few paces behind me. “Look, I’m not going to touch you, okay? But what you said back there… I haven’t lied to you. So whatever thing you’ve built up in your mind, whatever you’ve tried to convince yourself is the truth, you’rewrong. I… care about you.”
I lowered my chin to my chest and breathed in and out. “I know,” I said.
He paused, like my admission surprised him and he had to regroup, which was good since it had shocked the shit out of me, too.
I knew it was true, though, the same way I knew I liked football and that my mother, for all her faults, would take a bullet for me any day of the week.
“What did you mean?” Micah hesitated. “About me lying? Because everything I told you—”
“I heard what your sister said,” I told him without turning around. “That she’d told you to get to know the competition.”
“That was… that was ajoke, Con. One she made way before I knew you. Before I offered you a job.”
I nodded and ran my fingers over the sore spot on my face. “Yeah. I couldn’t quite talk myself into believing it either. I think my powers of deflection are fading.” I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
He stepped closer. I could hear his feet crunching in the carpet of pine needles. “Is your head okay?”
“Yeah.” I turned around and dropped my hand so he could see it. “Not a fatal wound.”
He cupped my jaw in his hand and frowned at the injury. My heart skipped a beat.
“You know, I’m kind of a mess, Micah,” I said. “It’s worse than I thought.”
His fingertips brushed over the bump. “Nah. Not as bad as you think. You’ll be okay, Con.”
