And I should have been relieved.
Instead, all I wanted was to get Sienna alone and figure out what the hell we were doing, but she’d managed to make herself scarce and busy.
And then Beck came knocking on my cabin door two nights ago like he had purposefully timed it for maximum personal disruption.
I’d been sorting gear notes and pretending not to compulsively replay every second of the tent incident when I heard the knock. Three sharp raps.
“Carson!” Beck called. “I need to borrow you for a minute!”
Borrow me.
As if I were a wrench.
Or had Sienna told him about us?
I opened the door to find him standing there with his arms crossed and a weirdly solemn expression. For Beck, solemn meant either something genuinely serious or something so ridiculous that I should brace myself before reacting.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
A bad sign.
I stepped aside. “Sure.”
He walked in, hands on his hips like a man preparing to deliver a sermon he didn’t want to give.
“So,” he said, drawing the word out like taffy. “You and my sister.”
I inhaled slowly. “Beck—”
“No, no, let me finish. You and my sister.” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. “The one who has all the emotional processing of a caffeinated ferret. The one who, as a child, once ran away into the woods because she wanted to ‘experience the call of the spirit moose.’ The one who accidentally stole a kayak from the neighboring campground because she didn’t realize it belonged to someone.”
I blinked. “…She stole a kayak?”
“Borrowed,” he corrected. “But that’s not the point. The point is, you need to be careful.”
He wasn’t angry, not even close.
He was… protective. The way a brother should be.
“She’s not great at stillness,” he said gently. “And she gets overwhelmed. Easily. She’s got this instinct to bolt before things get too real.”
“The barista mentioned something like that,” I admitted.
Beck narrowed his eyes. “What did she tell you?”
“That Sienna picks up and leaves when she starts feeling too much. That she doesn’t always stay.”
Beck sighed. “Yeah. That’s… accurate.”
He braced a hand on the table. “Just—don’t make her feel cornered. If she starts to pull back, give her room. But don’t disappear on her either. She’ll think that means you didn’t care.”
My throat tightened. “Thanks for the warning.”
He slapped my shoulder. “You seem like a good guy. But if you hurt her, I’m releasing the squirrels.”
I stared. “…What squirrels?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said darkly.
