I can’t hear the conversation between Gabe and his mother because it’s conducted in whispers (his mother), growls (Gabe), and hisses (Gabe). But I get the gist. He is not keen on having me around.
I get it. I really do. I’m a nuisance to him. And now I’m a threat to his business and infringing on his personal space.
He heads my way, and I brace myself for his anger and frustration. But if he’s feeling either of those things, it’s not evident as he approaches. His face is doing that Roman statue imitation, where whatever he’s feeling is buried under marble.
Easton’s still talking to me, but his voice has receded—like the sound’s been turned down. Even blank-faced and silent, Gabe fills up more space in my head than Easton in motion and at full volume.
Gabe stops in front of me and opens his mouth to speak, but I jump in. “Look. It’s probably not a good idea, for a number of reasons, for me to stay here—”
He cuts me off. “It’s fine.”
Easton is suddenly alert. “You need a place to stay?”
“She’s staying in the loft here,” Gabe says. Not quite a growl this time, but still, a thrill rolls through me.
“Keep your friends close and your consultants closer?” Easton jokes, but Gabe doesn’t laugh. He gives Easton a warning look that perversely makes me want to bare my throat to him.
That said, I so don’t love being talked about in the third person. “I’m perfectly capable of finding somewhere else to stay if it’s not convenient for me to stay here,” I tell him.
“It’s convenient.” Gabe’s tone is final.
I’d push it further, but I sense there are many battles ahead of me, and this one is going to be the least of my worries.
I vow that I’ll try to time my showers for when he’s not home, which, if his mother’s characterization of him as always in the barn is true, shouldn’t be too tricky. We’ll be two ships passing in the night.
And I won’t have to listen to my mother having super quiet sex in the Airstream behind the thin veneer door.
“Let me give you a tour,” Gabe says.
“Sure.”
He shows me how the main room breaks down by type of expedition—water, land, snow, and so on—and where all the equipment is stored. There are two types of gear for trips, he explains—group and personal. Sometimes people provide their own personal gear, but Wilder rents it for people who can’t or don’t want to.
He shows me the small kitchen, with its microwave and coffee maker, and the office supply closet. Then he points me toward the back office area. We’re headed that way, when he calls out, “Where’s the fire?”
I turn to realize I’m four or five paces ahead of him, moving at my usual city clip. I stop and he catches up with me at a slow lope, unhurried.
“It’s not going anywhere,” he says.
“This is how fast I move.”
“Try slowing down.”
I try, but it feels weird and unnatural, like talking quietly in a library. A strain. He laughs at me, a chuckle that’s rough from lack of use. It scrapes over my nerve endings like a calloused palm, and I shiver, hoping he doesn’t notice.
I’ve seen Barb’s office, but he shows me his, and I could have guessed what it would look like. A desk, a chair, a computer, everything else hidden neatly away in drawers or cabinets, except for a few family photos. All five brothers at the top of a snowy mountain, surrounded by even taller mountains. All five in a raft together. And one from when they were small, ranging from Easton at seven-ish to Gabe as a gawky teenager. He’s smiling, more tentatively than his brothers. This must have been not too long before his father died.
He sees me looking and picks up that photo. “Camping at Loon Lake,” he says. “One of our favorite spots. Easton was a pain in the ass on that trip. Moaning and complaining about how much weight he was carrying. I think he had about ten pounds. I had forty.”
But he’s smiling tolerantly, even a little nostalgically, and I decide that Gabe smiling is even more troubling than the marble statue version.
“You don’t really want to go on those trips, do you?” he asks.
I wrinkle my nose at him. “What do you mean?”
“Charter fishing: Fish guts stink. Rafting: Ass stuck to wet vinyl all day. Survival camping: You and ten pounds of gear against all of mother nature. And you—all put together the way you are. Pretty clothes, hair, makeup.”
The word pretty strikes a sweet chord in my belly, but I know he doesn’t mean what he just said—all put together—as a compliment. Not the way he says it. He means it the way Darren, my ex, meant it when he broke off our three-year relationship. Closed. Cut off.
I force myself past it, though. I’m not here to impress Gabe Wilder with my mountaineering skills. I cross my arms and frown at him. “This is why you aren’t making any money.”
He draws back, startled. “What?”
“Talking about your trips that way to me. You’re anti-marketing the trips. You’re dismissing me as a possible customer. Pretend I’m a paying customer. What would you say to get me to go on the trips?”
“I’m trying to convince you not to go on them,” he says. “I’m trying to convince you you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m trying to convince you to go back to New York, where your shoes make sense and you can walk as fast as you want.”
Another small pang of hurt vibrates through me. After we rescued the ducklings together, I felt like we were, if not friends, then something. People who saw the good side of each other. But to him, I’m just an overdressed city girl rushing through life.
At the same time, I appreciate his bluntness. With Gabe Wilder, what you see is what you get. There will never be any bullshit.
I give him the same. “I’m not going back to New York. I’m not going anywhere until I finish this job. But that’s not the point. The point is that the New Rush Creek isn’t going anywhere, and long after I’m gone, whether you’ve chased me away or I’ve finished my work, Rush Creek will be what it is. You’re going to have to learn to live with it.”
Nothing in Gabe Wilder’s whole marble self changes, except his eyes. They darken, the way they did last night in the bar, right before he kissed me.
“Lunchtime!” a voice calls, and I look up to see a woman who can only be the last member of the Wilder clan.
The last Wilder comes toward us, her arms full of a big tray of what looks and smells like lasagna. She thrusts it toward Gabe, and he takes it without question.
“Who’s this?” she demands.
She has the Wilder eyebrows, dark slashes, which in her case have been carefully plucked into almost-arches. She has the Wilder eyes, intent, long-lashed, and deep set. She has the soft mobile Wilder mouth, and the bone structure that makes her strikingly beautiful and her brothers ridiculously hot.
But she’s not dressed like a Wilder.
She’s wearing skinny jeans, a Christina Economou slip top I recognize from Stashd, and a pair of low-heeled boots.
“I love your outfit,” I tell her.
“I love yours,” she tells me.
“If the love fest is over,” Gabe says darkly, “I was going to introduce you two. Lucy, this is my sister, Amanda. Amanda, this is Lucy Spiro. She’s a consultant mom hired.”
“Mom did?” Amanda repeats.
“Mom wants Wilder Adventures to get with the New Rush Creek program and become more—” He hesitates.
“We’re trying to reach a broader market of adventure-minded vacationers,” I supply.
Amanda purses her lips. “You mean women,” she says. “I told Gabe he needed to join the twenty-first century.”
“I do market to women,” Gabe says. “It doesn’t work.”
I give him a look. That’s the first time he’s owned up to that. It would have been a handy thing for him to have said sooner, if only so I could address the big, pink, lavender-scented, be-ribboned elephant in the room. “Marketing your existing trips to them doesn’t work,” I remind him. “Not the way you’re positioning them.”
A knot of muscle forms in his jaw, which is weirdly hot.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Amanda tells me. “I’ve been trying to talk some sense into these guys for years. Not that it’s my business. I’m just the lunch lady.”
“She’s not just anything,” Gabe says. “Hardest working woman I know. She’s got two boys at home, and her own business.”
I raise my eyebrows at her, encouraging her to tell me about it.
“I’d been slowly trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself now that they’re in school some of the time. Lasagna wasn’t my plan, but I started cooking for these assholes, and somehow word got out, and now I have a lunch delivery business.”
“That’s fantastic!” I say.
“It’s working well for me,” she says. “I’m trying to figure out if I can expand into dinners, too, without cutting into my time with the kids after school.”
Amanda gestures to Gabe to set her lasagna down on the center table and starts unloading a bag with all sorts of side dishes and drinks. Immediately, we’re flocked with Wilders reaching for sodas and filling their plates. The Wilder brothers load up like eating is going out of style. Huge portions of lasagna, big scoops of salad, and garlic bread, whose scent fills the whole room and makes my stomach growl.
“They started eating like that when they were teenagers and never slowed down,” Amanda said. “Mom said they’d outgrow it, but they’re mountain men.”
They wear it well. Not an ounce of fat on five brothers. Not that I’m looking.
Gabe and Amanda and I wait for our turns, behind Hanna.
“So, Lucy,” Amanda says brightly. “Where are you from?” She looks me up and down. “Let me guess. New York? D.C.?”
“That obvious, huh?”
She shrugs. “You’re not from Portland or Seattle, that’s for sure. Way too fashion-forward.”
Hanna snorts, turning around to give me a once-over filled with signature scorn. She’s pretty, too, dark eyes, long lashes, pixie hair. I wonder if I could pull off that haircut.
“New York.”
“I’ve always wanted to visit,” Amanda says. “Someday. When the kids are older. I want to see the new World Trade Center and go up in the Statue of Liberty. And see Hamilton on Broadway.”
“Those are good ones,” I tell her. “I always tell people to get pastries in Little Italy, eat dim sum in Chinatown, go walking on the High Line, and shop in SoHo.”
“Shopping,” Hanna editorializes glumly, like we’ve brought up cannibalism. She loads up a plate with a Wilder-brother-sized portion of food.
It’s Amanda’s turn at the table. She takes smaller servings of everything; I actually feel relieved that I won’t be the only one who’s not eating like a bear.
Gabe and I reach the table. “After you,” he says.
Amanda nudges me. “He’s saying that so he can stand behind you and check out your ass.”
“You don’t need to say everything that comes into your head,” Gabe tells his sister.
“I’m saying everything that comes into your head,” Amanda says.
He gives her a playful shove, and she shoves back.
There’s the Gabe from last night. I knew he was in there somewhere. I just get the feeling he doesn’t come out very often.
It shouldn’t matter to me whether Gabe is playful or serious, as long as he lets me do my job. And it definitely shouldn’t matter what he thinks of me.
“Hey, Lucy,” Amanda says. “Anyone show you around town yet?”
I shake my head.
“Hey, Han,” Amanda says. “Let’s introduce her around.”
Hanna frowns.
“Come on, Han.”
The dark-haired woman hesitates.
“I promise, no shopping,” Amanda says.
“I’ve heard that before,” Hanna grumbles. “You say no shopping, but then you see something in the window and you have to try it on. Or we’re ‘just looking so it doesn’t count’ and before I know it we’ve been in Silver Rings or wherever for an hour and a half.”
“You know you love it,” Amanda says. “Hanna is one of the guys,” she explains to me.
Hanna nods. “When I was in college at Portland State, I spent a semester at Mount Holyoke, and everyone joked that I was spending a semester ‘as a broad.’ It was only a little bit of a joke.”
I laugh, and she does too. “Four brothers,” she explains.
“So basically, you fit in perfectly here?” I ask.
Hanna nods. “As long as Amanda follows the rules.”
“What are the rules?”
Amanda rattles them off. “No talking about clothes, makeup—what were the other things?”
Promptly, Hanna recites, “Netflix series based off romance novels, The Bachelor, jewelry, or nylon stockings.”
I’m ninety-five percent sure she’s not joking. I’m also relieved because it seems Amanda got distracted by the rules and forgot about her invitation to town. Simpler that way. I mean, what’s the point? I’m only here three weeks. I can walk into town by myself and get a feel for what I need to know—what’s making money in Rush Creek, who the tourists are.
I load up my plate and Amanda leads us to the table. Hanna hesitates, looking from us to the cluster of laughing Wilder brothers.
“Come on, Han, be a broad,” Amanda says.
They grin at each other fondly, and Hanna plops down next to her.
Hanna and Amanda are both watching me, and it takes me a second to realize they’re watching me chew, waiting for my verdict on the lasagna.
“Oh, my God,” I say, finishing my first bite. It’s quite possibly the best lasagna I’ve ever had. Tender noodles, rich, hearty meat sauce, tomato-y flavor, and soft, creamy cheese. “That’s amazing. No wonder you’re in demand.”
“Right?” Hanna cries.
“Aw, thanks,” Amanda says, blushing. She waves a hand. “Anyway, Luce, we’ll show you around today. We’ll meet you outside Oscar’s at four.”
My old instincts kick in, a horde of butterflies in my stomach—wondering if Amanda and Hanna are women I can trust.
Some women get nervous around guys.
I get nervous around prospective friends.
When all the stuff went down with my dad, and we found out who he really was, I found out who a lot of other people really were, too.
That’s why it took me almost the whole four years of college to settle into best-friendship with my freshman roommate Annie—who’s still my BFF even though she lives in San Francisco and we’re both so busy that we barely ever have time to chat. It’s also why I never went to any of those Friday night happy hours at work. I kept telling myself I would, once I had the lay of the land, once I knew who was easygoing and who was cutthroat, who had an agenda and who genuinely wanted to be friends. Who could keep a secret, and who couldn’t. And maybe I would’ve.
I didn’t get a chance to find out.
I open my mouth to say four won’t work for me. That I need to unpack my stuff and settle in. Make some phone calls, nail down some work stuff.
Wash my hair.
“Oh, and you forgot one rule, Amanda,” Hanna suddenly interjects. “No one is allowed to start a sentence with, ‘My therapist says.’”
“Which is basically like a gag rule for me,” Amanda says, tilting her head my way in a plea for sympathy.
Except, I realize, I like Amanda and Hanna. A ton. For once, I don’t want to be my usual cautious self, the one people mistake for an ice queen.
I think of Gennie. Not angry, but hurt.
I mean, I’m only here three weeks. I can afford to take a chance, right?
I push aside the nervous flutters and say, “Sure!” like I’m the kind of person who says “Sure!” a lot.