When I pull my attention back to Miles, it dawns on me that we’re alone and his smile has faded.
“You didn’t come back,” he says, sounding disappointed.
I knew this part wasn’t going to be easy, reliving the last four years without Bear Lake.
But then I remembered our last day in the bunkhouse. How Miles had trusted me with something he hadn’t told anyone else.ThatMiles I could tell anything to. So, I motion for him to follow me to the end of the dock, and we both rest on the edge.
And I tell him everything.
CHAPTER NINE
NOW
Ijust slammed the door into the one guy I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again, and here I am running into him for the second time in the same day.
I can still feel the aftershocks from this morning. The throbbing of my palms from where they slid down that rope swing. Those dumbfounded eyes that zeroed in on me the moment I turned around to face him. The way my words tripped over themselves in his presence. That same look of alarm stares at me now, but my eyes slip from his face and glue to his torso.
He replaced his running shorts with jeans and a T-shirt, yet the memory of sweat trickling down his bare abs is as if nothing is covering themnow. My mouth goes dry.
“Teddy, are you okay?” Reed asks from behind, startling me.
When I rotate to acknowledge him, it gives a clear shot through the doorway.
“Miles,” he hisses with disgust.
Miles acknowledges him with a nod. “Reed.” Then he rubs the back of his neck, averting his eyes to the wall next to us.
An unsettling silence rests between the two of them.I think I just stepped into the middle of something.Reed tightens his hand into a fist.
If I shift at all to my right, will a brawl break out?I’m not sure I want to stick around to find out.
Without a word, I do my best to squeeze around Miles’s tall frame as he shields the doorway, ducking under his arm and out into the parking lot. I chance a glance back, and… Yeah. They’re both ignoring each other and lasered in on me. I forgo goodbyes and book it out of there as fast as my short legs will carry me.
I don’t even know why I’m running, or what I’m so afraid of. One of them chasing me? Both chasing me?
When I’m sure I haven’t been followed, I slow to a walk and try to clear my head. Setting my sights on the shoreline to ground me, patches of turquoise flicker in and out of car windows. I come to a stop in front of the one car I was hoping not to see in this parking lot. There may not be a pair of binoculars pressed to the rearview mirror, but there’s no denying the family hatchback with its uncanny brake lights illuminated.
Great.This is the last thing that would clear my head—my mom and her sunny disposition in the front seat of this car. There’s no walking past it without her seeing me, so I knock on the passenger window. She promptly rolls it down.
“Mom, what are you doing here?”
I squat low enough to see her in the same paint-covered apron I left her in this morning. I rest both hands on the frame of the car and fix my gaze on her.
“I thought we could go get some LaBeau’s together. We haven’t done that in a long?—”
“Mom,” I interrupt, pinning her with a glare.
I can see right through her. She may have made some small compromise with bacon this morning, but there’s no way she’s dropping the full act for greasy fast food.
She drops her hands from ten and two, letting them fall in a heap in her lap.
“I don’t like the thought of you walking home alone on that busy road, okay?” she admits.
“I did it just fine this morning.” I demonstrate my safety, splaying my arms for her to inspect.
“Yeah, and I didn’t like it,” she argues.
“Mom, you promised you would let it go.”
