And on top of everything else, the FaceTime alert on my phone chose that exact moment to start ringing.
I grunted and slapped my hand over my pocket, then yanked the thing out with a growl, only catching myself at the last second before I inadvertently lost my shit on Liam.
"Hey, man." His face materialized on my screen, and his big smile fell the second he saw me. "This a bad time?"
I grabbed the back of my neck and spun around to face Willa's house again. The sun beat down on my shoulders but had nothing to do with the boiling rage inside of me. "Yeah, no. Not a good time, man."
"I thought..." he paused, and the screen changed as he slid his phone down, then brought it back up again. "It's eleven thirty. We're supposed to be FaceTiming, right? You said you'd be at the hospital by now."
I gripped the back of my neck harder. "Yeah, well, I'm not."
"I can see that," he observed drily. "Hospital rooms usually don't have trees in them, and I know for a fact they're too small for you to park your ridiculously big truck in them either." He furrowed his brow, wary recognition in his eyes. "Wait. Where are you?"
"At her house."
Liam looked as confused as I felt. "Are you getting Mrs. Harlow or something? Wait, why are you -"
"Because she's here," I exploded.
"She's...?"
"Here, Liam. At her house. Instead of at the hospital where she belongs." I wanted to reach through the screen and shake him. This feigned confusion... what the hell was he surprised about? Didn't he know her? Of course she'd pull a stunt like this. It was just like her to choose to make things as hard for herself as she could. "She checked herself out..."
"Discharged," Liam corrected numbly.
"Whatever. Whatever it is, she did it, and now she's back in that trailer with a broken arm and a gash in her head that's still bleeding in spite of the fact that she's the most thick-headedly stubborn person I've ever met."
"Cooper, slow down. Listen to me."
Slowing down was out of the fucking question. "She fainted! Passed out and fucking fell down right there in front of me and still had the nerve to say she didn't need to go back to the hospital." Blood thumped hot in my ears. I paced a stiff-legged circle as I struggled not to lose it completely, then gave up and brought the flat of my hand down hard on the hood of my truck. "Fuck!"
"Cooper." The louder I got, the quieter Liam got. It'd always been like that. His voice was barely above a whisper now. "Cooper. Listen."
I took a breath and held it, then nodded. Waited for him to tell me what to do next.
Whatever I was expecting... walk away. You did all you could, I absolve you, you're right she's crazy for rejecting a great guy like you... it wasn't what he said next.
"You have to get her out of there."
I stared straight ahead, unseeing, unaware of the world around me, frozen to the spot as I tried to make sense of what he was saying. "What?" I finally managed to croak.
"I mean it. She's not going to get better if she stays there. You want her better, right?"
I looked away and wished like hell we were on the phone instead of FaceTiming so he couldn't see my face. I could feel how red I was getting. I could see it in the little window on the top right of the screen and that was bad enough. "Sure," I mumbled, half into my shoulder. Why was the connection so crystal fucking clear way the hell out here in the boonies anyway?
"So you have to get her away from her house."
"You want me to kidnap her?"
"Don't be dramatic. I want you to get her somewhere she can get better. Where she won't feel like she has to take care of anyone else but herself."
The thought danced through my head, a filmy gauzy thing of pure fantasy, a picture of Willa sleeping peacefully in a huge white bed, her hair splayed out in a halo around her head. And then me lifting the snow-white sheets so that I could slip in next to her.
I banished that idea with a laugh. "Where the hell is that? You want me to take her to my parents' house? No one is getting better there, and you know it." But even as I was saying it, I remembered, "If only it was the end of the month..."
His eyes widened. "Wait. You found a place?"
I was suddenly flooded with guilt when I realized he didn't know. I hadn't told my best friend yet. But I had told Willa. "Sort of."
"What's sort of?"
"I mean, it's a piece of shit.”
"Where is it?"
"The place on Mill Street, by the jewelry store."
"Nice," he said. He did a good job of masking his horror. I'd expected it. Liam couldn't help coming from money. Couldn't help he grew up the mayor's son, couldn't help that his mom kept the house so elegantly perfect that you'd be understood for mistaking their living room for a museum. He couldn't imagine living in a dump, and he couldn't imagine why I'd think it was preferable to the nice house I was living in now. I got why he reacted the way he did.
But Willa had been thrilled for me.
"But the first of the month isn't for another three weeks," Liam went on.
"No shit." I really wanted to set my phone down and just go walking straight into the woods. Never see another human being again. "So where the fuck do you figure I should take her, huh?"
He was right there with an answer. "My cabin."
I blinked. Let my hand drop. Looked at the woods and considered. Then exhaled and picked my phone back up. "What?"
"Take her there."
"Your family's place?"
"I'll tell you where the spare key is. Nobody is there right now, my dad's gotta stay home, be at all the Fourth of July parades and barbecues and shit. He's not going to be up there until, well, the first of the month, actually."
Slowly I turned away from the woods and back to my phone. "You're seriously asking me to take Willa to your big, fancy cabin in the mountains?"
He looked at me levelly. "I am."
I got that squirming hot feeling I used to get when my dad would catch me in a lie. I had the strongest desire to drop the phone and make good on my woods fantasy, only instead of walking, I would straight up run. "Me," I repeated. "Take her to your cabin and take care of her. Alone. Liam, you know how I feel about her."
Yeah, but do I? a small voice inside of me wanted to know.
Liam looked away. I heard the nervous tap of his fingers on the tabletop as he seemed to weigh something very heavy in his mind. Then nodded and looked back at me. "Do for her what you'd do for me."
It was like he'd reached through the phone and punched me in the gut. "Aw, what the fuck," I protested.
"Cooper. Please."
I looked at my phone. And looked at the trailer.
"Goddammit." I started back up the steps.
Chapter