CHARLIE
Roman's telling everyone about the Shred Shack's 'romantic history.' There are stick figures involved as visual aids. Nick’s crying laughing.
I stop walking.
The Shred Shack's romantic history.
A laugh escapes before I can stop it.
The kind of laugh you make when the universe delivers a punchline so perfectly cruel you have no choice but to acknowledge it.
Stick figures. Roman drew stick figures of the Shred Shack's “romantic history.”
I wonder if he gave them little stick figure blankets. Little stick figure nervous laughter. Little stick figure hearts breaking in slow motion while they promised each other things they couldn't keep.
The laugh clogs in my throat.
My eyes sting.
Don't. Don't you dare cry over stick figures, Sierra Barrett.
But it's not the stick figures.
It's the fact that my brothers have been joking about this place all night—making up stories, inventing scandals, turning sacred ground into content—and they have no idea.
No idea that the “romantic encounters” they're laughing about include me.
No idea that the cabin they're using as a punchline is the place where I fell so completely in love that I've never fully recovered.
They'd stop laughing if they knew.
They'd stop laughing and start shouting and nothing would ever be the same.
I press my fingers to my mouth, to my swollen lipsand the ghost of his kiss and the weight of a secret that gets heavier every single day.
Some things never changed. Not for me.
I believe him.
That's the terrifying part.
When he said it, I believed every word.
Because some things haven't changed for me either.
Eleven years. Three brothers. One impossible secret.
And I just made everything so much worse.
I take a breath. Square my shoulders. Arrange my face into something that doesn't scream 'I just made out with the forbidden man in a historically significant love shack.'
Then I walk back into the chaos.
The lodge still buzzes with #MountainDaddyTour energy.
People compare plaque photos.
Jake signs autographs. Someone starts a petition to make “Mount Me Everett” the official festival slogan.
