“What’s wrong?” Crispin comes to stand behind me, crowding my space and smelling nothing like cedarwood. Before I can respond he asks, “Is that a trail map? Are you lost?”
“Yeah.”
I hate this.
I don’t want to admit that I’m lost, especially to this guy. Rain is pattering in the leaves overhead, though, and I’m out of time. My mind is already in survival mode: I have two apples and a water bottle in my backpack. My phone battery is at thirty-four percent. It wouldn’t be a fun night, but we’re not ending up on a missing-persons documentary after this. We’ll be fine. I wave my arm over my head, begging for one miraculous bar to appear and save us from an uncomfortable campout. I’ve never had this kind of difficulty out here.
With a huff, Crispin pulls out his phone. Of course he has a hiking app. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Relief flows through me—until he holds his phone up to the sky, too.
The rain is steady now, dripping through the leaves and into my hair. Crispin pulls out a fluorescent orange emergency poncho, shaking it out and sliding it over himself.
“You don’t have another one of those, do you?” I ask with a laugh.
“Uh . . .” He grimaces.
“I’m kidding.” I don’t mind getting my hair wet, unlikesome people.
Crispin resumes waving his phone in the air, aggressively now. “I thought you knew your way around these woods?” he mutters.
“I do.” I stomp a dozen feet ahead in the trees, looking for signs of a trail. “But we’ve had a lot of rain this year. Nothing looks the same.”
He grumbles something I can’t make out now that the rain is pelting the trees overhead.
“We need to move the direction we came from.” It’s the only thing that makes sense. I might be slightly lost, but my sense of direction isn’t totally broken. Surely I’ll recognize the path we’ve just taken.
Crispin passes me, moving ahead on the trail and muttering again. I miss most of it, but I catch the end. He says something about my inability to find a boyfriend.
“Excuse me?” I stomp after him, my boots huge and heavy with a thick layer of mud. I feel like a Clydesdale.
“Nothing.” He marches through the sloppy trail, glaring at the trees.
I’m so done with this guy. I don’t care how much he’s paying for this; it’s not worth it. As soon as we have cell coverage, I’m finding another ride home. For now, I’m looking for something that resembles the path we came from. Unfortunately, the rain is pooling on the ground, running in cold rivulets and erasing all evidence of the trail that brought us here.
Where are we? Nothing looks right. I turn in place, scanning the dripping trees for something familiar.
Then there’s a flash of light and an immediate rumble of thunder. Crispin's high-pitched yelp makes me gasp. The rain is dumping through the trees in sheets now.
“Geez.” I suck in a deep breath, trying to calm my frenzied heart. “It’s just thunder.”
“Right on top of us,” he hollers.
Oh, brother. This isn’t a date, but if it was, I’d add being afraid of thunder to Crispin’s list. There’s no time for that, though, because the path isn’t just running with water now. It’s washing away. Mud and rocks erode in front of my eyes, and I scramble backward before it takes me with it.
The closest thing we have to a walking path is washing downhill. We’ll have to hike the wrong direction. I assume it’s the wrong direction, anyway—I don’t know where we are. I’m not going to swear—I want to, but I’m not going to. Crispin does, though, and I add “swears when he’s scared” to his list.
Chapter 31
Adam
“Pick up,” I mutter, my phone buzzing in my ear.
A few hours ago I got a text from Stevie saying that she was leaving for another tour with Crispin and that I shouldn’t worry. Right. Of course, I spent the evening annoying the crap out of my sister with my agitated pacing.
I promised myself I’d wait until after dark to call Stevie. She’s strong and capable. She doesn’t need her oafish secret boyfriend checking in on her. So, I’ve had knots in my stomach for hours thinking about her out there in the rain with that guy.
“She’s still not answering?” Ruth sits on the rug in front of my couch where she’s helping Sammie stack a tower of my plastic cups. She’s trying to distract her daughter from the thunder and the roar of rain on the roof.
I grunt, jamming my finger to redial when my call goes to Stevie’s voicemail. “No.”
