My truck bounced up the steep gravel drive that wound and climbed on and on. We climbed past the top of the trees, a full moon rising up to meet us and bathing the house in its own personal spotlight.
“The cabin” Liam had always called it. “Some fucking cabin.” I whistled through my teeth.
Willa stretched, groaned, then twisted her body with a soft pained hiss. “You okay?” I heard myself asking. “Sorry about the bumps.” I turned the wheel and parked in the turnoff, thought about it a second, then pulled the e-brake. I looked at her again. “We’re here.”
“We’re here,” she echoed in a strangely thick voice.
My one focus had been getting her here. I hadn’t really thought about what happened next.
She seemed to be realizing it at the same time I did. I pulled my key from the ignition and the interior light switched on, making us both wince. I blinked away from her. “You ready?”
“Yeah I’m jus -“ She twisted to reach her door handle in a way that had me wincing.
“Stop,” I barked. “I got it.”
I got out, slamming the door with more force than was necessary.
Above us, Liam’s family “cabin” loomed, a soaring three-story chalet. As soon as I walked close enough, the motion sensor lights switched on, bathing the house in a warm glow that highlighted the rustic stone and reddish timber that made it look like it hadn’t so much been built on the side of the mountain as planted in it.
I flexed my fingers and opened the door for Willa. “I knew Liam’s dad was loaded, but damn.”
I watched her as she slid out of the seat. Her eyes were wide, but there was something off about the way she was staring at the house. Not with wonder, but with… recognition. "So this is..." Willa trailed off, but I caught another word there, waiting to drop from her lips. She was about to reveal something.
“Is this your first time here?”
She nodded. “Yours?”
I debated about lying. After all, we were best friends, Liam very well should have taken me with him on family trips. But that’s never how it worked with Liam. He seemed to prefer to keep me away from his family, hated when his mom or dad called him “Billy Junior” in front of me. I’d always chalked it up to the usual teenaged embarrassment about families, but now I felt that weak spot in our friendship. Like a bruise on an otherwise perfect apple. And seeing that flash of recognition in Willa’s eyes sparked something I didn’t want to feel.
Jealousy. “You’ve really never been here before?” She recognized where she was. I could see it. This place was significant to her in some way.
“No.”
"Liam never took you here?"
She looked me in the eye. "No,” she repeated.
But it was there again. That thing she was catching herself before she revealed to me. A bruise I couldn’t help but press my thumb to. “Really?” I cocked my head skeptically. “You never snuck up here and had yourself a nice little getaway weekend?"
She laughed. “In high school? We could only drive for like a month total.”
"That's not true."
The house lights switched off, plunging us into darkness. She yelped, and I waved my hands to turn them back on again. When I could see her again, she was wearing an exasperated expression. “How long we could drive is completely irrelevant. I told you, I’ve never been here.” She looked at me. "Why are you being so weird about this?"
"I'm not. I just get the feeling you're not telling the truth."
Her face registered hurt, but she tried to mask it with a smile. “What is it? You don’t trust me?”
I straightened up and stiffly walked around to the cab to grab my bag. I didn't trust her. I never had. How could I? I was used to her. I definitely felt like I had a better handle on her.
But trust her?
She’d kept the secret about the engagement, yes. But she’d played the part a little too well. Her performance as my devoted girlfriend was so believable that I had started… feeling things for her. Feelings I knew were stupid. It was fake. She was fake.
Trust her? I wasn't sure if I ever could.
I cleared my throat. ”Sure I do,” I lied. "I guess it's just for his family then?"
“Guess so,” she agreed. I wasn't imagining it. There was definitely a note of "I-know-something-that-you don't" in her voice that rankled me.
I came up behind her and slammed her door hard enough to make her jump. "What's up with you all of a sudden?" she asked as I hefted her bag - her way too small bag - and started up the stairs carved into the rock without looking back to see if she was following. "Oooookay then." She sighed heavily behind me, and that fucking bugged me too. This whole situation was weird as hell, and she needed to hurry up and get well enough that I could be free of this and back to my life the way it was supposed to be.
She's not going to get better if you force her to hoof it up the side of a mountain with two broken ribs, you dipshit. "Fuck," I hissed through my teeth. I dropped our bags in the middle of the wide, terraced deck and stomped back down the stairs. "You okay down there?"
She was picking her way, slowly and carefully, along, but there was a pinched whiteness to her face that - fuck. "Hey, here." I hurried down the stairs and went to her, offering my elbow. "Just take it," I urged, but she was studiously avoiding my gaze. "Goddammit, Willa." I wrapped my arm around her waist - gently - and she leaned into me - stiff and involuntarily I could tell, but she leaned into me. "You okay?" I asked again, because up close her breathing was so labored it was painful.
"Ribs."
"Goddammit." I could stand there like an asshole, watching to make sure she didn’t fall. I could turn my back and rely on her stupid stubborn refusal to accept help to propel her into the cabin.
Or I could dispense with the formal bullshit and override her.
I chose option C.
"What the fuck?" She struggled, stiffening and splaying her legs straight out.
I almost dropped her. “Stop. You're going to hurt yourself."
"You're hurting me!"
"Just hold still for like ten steps, I've got you." I leaned over her and tried to feel my way up the steps without looking. Her body was distractingly warm against mine, and I was doubly conscious of how careful I had to be with her.
But she wasn’t. “I can walk,” she insisted.
"Hardly,” I scoffed. “There.” I tipped her gently onto the level deck. “Was that so bad?” Then leaned in. "What the, why are you crying?"
"You don't have to be all weird.” She knuckled away a tear and glared at her fist like she was angry at it. “Look, I know you don't like me, okay?"
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. Of course I didn’t like her, that instinct was ingrained in me as deeply as the ability to ride a bike. How could I like someone I didn’t trust, and yet… and yet I couldn’t form the words I needed to open my mouth and agree with her. “Yeah, that’s right, but we’re stuck together so quit crying about it,” wouldn’t come no matter how hard I tried.
Instead something else, something entirely unexpected came out of my mouth. "What makes you think I don't like you?” She blinked at me. I spread my hands. “I’m here aren't I? Doesn't that count for something?"
She shook her head and turned away. She didn’t believe me. She didn’t trust me. Why should she?
But I knew, with a sudden violence that made my breath catch, that I had spoken the truth. I did like her. In spite of everything, in spite of myself, I was starting to care deeply for Willa Harlow.
Chapter