“What did you want then?” I ask. Because I know for a fact she would have jumped at the chance to be close to him had he let her.
The muscles in his jaw harden with his swallow. “I wanted her mother back. Can you just do it, please?”
The reality of his answer hollows out my chest cavity. It had nothing to do with Hailey.
“Okay,” I agree. “I won’t say anything. But respectfully, it’s because I don’t want her to hurt over the past any more than she already does.”
He winces.
It’s a truth he already knew, but nonetheless one that needed to be said.
So why does this feel like a bad idea?
A gloomy shade of gray hovers over our crew. It seeps into the long drag and pull of ax swings and smothers the banter of eighteen men. We’re simply a metronome, keeping time with the sky. A hot, barren wasteland of doubt with Jack as our guide.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the back of Dean’s dingy shirt for the sixteenth time.
The silent treatment was not a part of my plan.
“We’re supposed to be?—”
“A team,” Jack finishes for me. “It seems the two of you have forgotten how to work together in the last twenty-four hours. Good news!” He claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder, his ax overhis own. “We’ve got a rogue section of the fire burning a mile up that slope. Figure out your escape route and work your shit out while you’re there,” he says, slapping the extra radio against Dean’s chest.
Tandem hiking.This ought to be good.
Thank you, I mouth to him, but his acknowledgement is a flash to Hailey. A reminder to hold up my end of the deal. A promise I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep.
Twenty feet in front of me is the distance Dean retains on this climb.Thp, thp, thp. I sputter against the onslaught of debris showering my face. An avalanche of dirt and foliage fragments follows the careless clunk of boots and hack of his hand tool.
“Do you think you could?—”
That sentence is silenced with a snarled ball of sagebrush tumbling toward my face. I catch it one-handed in midair and dump it with the others in staggered heaps along our path.
No talking.Got it.
“Let’s start here,” he says when we come upon a section of the fire that juts out like a finger. He tags a tree bough with a brightly colored strip of ribbon. Hot pink, to be exact. That’ll be hard to miss.
“Does this mean you’re talking to me now?”
Everybody knows silence is my version of torture, so I’m certain I imagined it when he says, “You were right. That first day we met…” he starts, and I slam my eyes shut, knowing exactly where he’s going with this. I didn’t want to be right. Not about this. “You said I shouldn’t waste my time with a girlfriend who would probably cheat on me while I was here.”
I lean my weight against my hand tool and blow out a breath. “I was an asshole when I said that to you. I didn’t know the first thing about your relationship with Madison. It was coming from a place of insecurity.”
“Well, I’m not sure anyone can be more insecure about itthan me. The first time she cheated was only three weeks into my first summer on the job.”
“Firsttime?” A breath gusts from my lungs.
And he stayed with her? Then again, I remind myself,you didn’t up and leave when your girl picked the other guy either.
“I have no idea who you saw her with, but he’s at least number five by now.”
In the interest of being fully transparent from here on out…
“It was Ben.”
An amused look transforms his face. “As in that twat from the medic tent?!”
“I don’t like him either.” I smirk.
