Who needs sleep? I apparently don’t. My head is full of Donovan and Hunter and Spanish lyrics andDonovan.
Reliving what almost happened yesterday.
Trying to find a way to fit her into my life without taking her out of hers.
Failing.
After the third time I accidentally kick Hunter as I roll over in the small space of our tent, he mumbles something about leaving if I’m going to be a jerk. I owe him some peace, so I slip from the tent, crawling out to a dusty blue sky teasing the coming dawn.
Passing the soft snores rumbling from the tents surrounding mine, I make my way across the beach toward the boats at the river’s edge and take a deep breath of the cool, fresh air around me. This time of day—the calm, starlit moment between night and day—has always been one of my favorites.
Back when Bonnie and I were faking a relationship to boost her public image, we used to sit on my patio all the time and watch the world wake up like this.
We would talk for hours when we did that, and I loved our conversations. She spent those early mornings confiding in me about her life and her struggles with being in Hollywood, and I…
Sighing, I settle in the sand and watch the water flow downstream. Irarelytold Bonnie anything personal. She’s one of my best friends, and for a year and a half she was closer to me than anyone except Hunter, butshe still knows next to nothing about my past. Aside from knowing that my stance on marriage is one of permanence—it’s forever or never—who I am at my core is a mystery to her.
Just like it is for everyone in my life.
Freya knows me a little more than Bonnie does, mostly because she’s stubborn and not afraid to push, and Cole is the only person I can really let myself relax around because he’s known me for close to a decade at this point.
But I think about Liam, a man who trusted me from the moment he met me, and something heavy settles in my stomach when I consider how he knows so little about me that he genuinely thinks I might be a spy. He knows better than anyone how it feels to fight for what you want in life like I had to, and his dad was almost as awful as my mom and disappeared on him. But Liam has no idea how much of myself I saw in him when we first met a few years ago, just as he has no idea that his positive outlook on life is how I badly wish I could view the world.
My closest friends don’t know me at all.
And yet it only took a few days for Donovan to slip past my walls and get a good look at all of my broken pieces. I meant it when I said that my secrets are safe with her, something I desperately needed.
I never thought I would find that, but how am I supposed to hold on to her when our lives are only going to intersect for a couple more days? How am I supposed to go back to my normal, chaotic life when it could be so much better with her in it?
“You’re up early,” a soft voice says, breaking me from my thoughts.
I turn as Maverick plops into the sand next to me and gives me a small but friendly smile. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him at our last camp when I made my rounds through the group, but I’ve been itching to have a conversation with him ever since the moment with Brody on the hike.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I mutter. “You?”
He shrugs. “I’ve always been more of a morning person, and it’s nice to get some space from…” He glances toward the tents and chuckles lightly. “Everyone.”
“I know how that feels.”
“You don’t get much time to yourself, do you?”
“Not as much as I would like sometimes,” I admit with a sigh.
“Can…” He digs his heels into the sand, the tips of his ears turning red as he avoids my gaze. “Can I ask you something?” I’d guess he’s similar in age to Liam, somewhere in his mid-twenties, and his nerves bring a smile to my face. He’s bold enough to ask but not over-confident like Brody, and from the little I know about Maverick, there’s a lot more to him than what he lets people see, which means I have no idea what he might ask.
“Go for it,” I say, too curious not to.
With his eyes on the river, he swallows and speaks without the hesitation I expect. “Why Donovan?”
My eyebrows jump up. “Why what?”
Though the muscles in his jaw flex, he smiles in an amused sort of way. “You could get the attention of anyone in the world, so what is it about her that caught your eye? I’ve…” He shakes his head, then peeks at me. “I’ve been watching you.”
When he tenses, as if waiting for me to get angry over his admission, I chuckle. “So your interest extends beyond the people you brought from your website?”
He shrugs. “I can’t help it. People are fascinating, even if they’re usually pretty predictable. Usually,” he repeats, looking at me more directly now. “You’re not.”
This is normally when I make an excuse to leave the conversation, when someone sees beneath my masks, but nothing in Maverick’s demeanor makes me nervous. He’s a calm person as it is, but he also has a strangely calming presence. People like that are rare, especially in my life.
