Cheese follows me as I walk from corner to corner, turning his knickknacks over in my hand. It’s nosy, sure, but I’ve always been like this; wanting to know what kind of toothpaste someone uses, leafing through their newspaper, wanting to see what they’ve circled, whether or not they’ve done the crossword.
Nearly an hour passes like this, with me limping around, considering each thing on his shelves, until I reach the door that leads to the back porch. It’s still raining, but it’s cut to a light drizzle now. Maybe I’ll be able to leave today, after all.
Quickly, before the rain can pick up again, I step out onto the back porch. When I walk over to the rail, my heart catches in my throat.
The porch juts practically off the side of the mountain, leading directly to a scraggly, rocky decline nearly one hundred feet down. It makes me dizzy and slightly sick, and I step back from the railing, thinking of how it could have gone when I went sliding off the roof of his little hut.
Then, without much thought, I pull out my phone and start a recording. I want to remember how far down this is, be able to picture this moment in the future. I raise the phone and turn in a semi-circle, recording through the trees.
Rain dots the lens, making the whole thing hazy, but I like the effect. From here, I can make out the mist across the mountain, the breathtaking beauty of the rain at this altitude. Even with my drone, I never would have been able to see something like this from my campsite.
When the door behind me opens, I quickly drop my phone and tuck it back into my pocket. Rowan looks at me like I’m crazy.
“Lola,” he says, and I realize he’s breathing hard, his eyes finding me with an intensity I wasn’t expecting. His eyes dip down to my phone, which sticks halfway out of my hiking pants. “What were you doing out here?”
I swallow, then smile. “Enjoying the scenery.”
He stares at me for a long moment, then something changes in his face. “Well, come back inside.”
“Right.” I laugh, hobbling over to him. “Don’t want to add a cold to my whole situation.”
When I get to the doorway, he doesn’t quite move fast enough, and as I try to slide past him, my chest ends up brushing his. Our eyes catch, and the moment holds.
Everything with him seems to change so quickly. The look he gave me a second ago is much different than the heated one he’s giving me now.
“That’s not how colds work,” he says, finally, breaking the spell, looking away from me and clearing his throat. “I’m more concerned about you slipping. Again.”
“Touché,” I mutter, and much to my disappointment, it does not make him laugh.
CHAPTER 8
ROWAN
Itry to keep the anger off my face as we step back inside the cabin.
And I think I do a pretty good job of it when I show her to the bathroom, brandish the suitcase I found in her car, still filled with perfectly dry clothes. (Why one girl would need so much clothing for a single camping trip is beyond me.)
She goes into the bathroom, and I go into the bedroom, working hard not to slam the door behind me as I strip off the sopping wet shirt and shorts that cling to me.
Out there in the rain, I found her stuff —somuch stuff. Lights and bags and even a little faux fur rug, all completely drenched and washed halfway down the hill. To her credit, the tent was still staked in place, but completely flooded through. I brought everything back to her car, then brought the suitcase to her, and the whole time I was thinking about the way it felt to have her here last night.
To not be alone.
I walked back with her bag in the drizzling rain, trying to steel myself against her. To not talk to her, no matter how much I wanted to ease into the comfort of having another person around.
Is it about that? Just the companionship of another person?
Or is it her, specifically? Lola. A woman who would hop a fence and bring all these clothes out into the wilderness. The woman who climbed up onto my roof and nearly broke her neck, just trying to win asponsorship.
The woman who was just standing on my back porch, recording. And who lied when I asked her about it.
This whole thing — the late-night talk, me feeling sorry for her because of the storm — is not going to end with me losing my spot, like it did last time. I’m not going to let her post my location to the world, expose me.
She has to know something. She must be a stellar actor.
At least I know, for certain, that her ankle is really hurt. I’m the one who examined it, bandaged it up for her, after all. It was swollen purple, definitely not a joy to be walking on.
I pull clean, dry clothes from my dresser and put them on, grumbling to myself as I do.Thisis exactly the kind of thing I wanted to avoid.
