Chapter 17
Chancing Your Arm: Irish rugby slang for taking a wild gamble instead of playing it safe.
Translation: Fuck it.
Everly
compound. It was just after ten when we all got home from the hospital. Stevie went for a sleepover with Grandma, so it was
just Dakota, Calder, Trista, Wyatt, and me who came back up the mountain together in two vehicles. All the lights have been
out in the cabins for almost thirty minutes, so everyone is probably fast asleep.
Must be nice to just fall asleep without a care in the world. What would that kind of peace even feel like?
I check my phone to see if Wolf has texted me back, and still nothing. The fucking asshole. The audacity he has to open up
to me like that, kiss me like the world was burning, and then bring sandwiches to the hospital, and then not text me back when I ask him if he is still up is infuriating.
I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. I kissed you because you’re fucking gorgeous and kind and nothing like those girls
or the cunts who bullied me. I kissed you because if I didn’t kiss you, I knew I’d regret it for quite possibly the rest of
my life.
Does he just say shit and kiss girls like that all the time, so it’s no big deal to him?
He probably does. He probably kissed a new girl at Trinity every weekend.
Maybe even on weekdays. I bet he kisses girls on a random Tuesday, even.
Just gives them that dark, smoldering look of his, shares a little about his childhood trauma, and they just pucker up and play tonsil hockey all night long with him. Tonsil rugby? Is that a thing?
The red barn sits at the bottom of the hill like a large, ominous shadow taunting me in the night sky. The yellow security
light out front casts a warm glow on the dutch double doors, practically demanding I go down there and give that boy a piece
of my mind.
“Fuck this,” I growl and open my front door. If Wolf can’t text a girl back, he deserves to have me banging down his door
after eleven at night.
My breath hitches when a light flicks on inside Wyatt and Trista’s cabin, so I beeline off the deck to duck into the forest
on the mountainside. Wyatt’s cabin has these huge, angular windows, basically making it like a snow globe. He can see everything
on Fletcher Mountain, and I do not want to get busted skulking down toward the barn at this time of night. I’d never hear
the end of it.
I survey the sloped landscape that overlooks Jamestown and note that it’s not too steep if I stay up here, close to the top,
but far enough down that I’m out of the eyeline of Wyatt’s cabin. I could probably manage to walk this tree line and make
it to the barn with very little exposure to any lurkers.
Determined to accomplish my mission, I flip on my phone flashlight and crouch down to navigate the treacherous terrain through
the darkness, as that sliver of a moon above me isn’t providing nearly enough light to make me comfortable. Although turning
a flashlight on the nature freaks me out even more. Maybe what I don’t know can’t hurt me.
The pine needles crunch under my Birkenstock sandals as I walk with all the stealthiness of a rabid raccoon.
I have to crawl over a huge fallen tree and murmur, “God, this is so pathetic,” as I cross below the lookout point bench that my uncles installed years ago.
It’s a gorgeous, civilized little area with a pergola and flowers all around it.
It has our grandpa’s favorite catchphrase engraved on it.
We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time.
There is nothing good about the number of branches scraping my ankles and arms and snagging into my hair as I traverse this hilly area. But I am
a woman on a mission. A mission to chew the ass out of an Irish rugby player who thinks it’s okay not to text back the girl
he tongue-fucked mere hours ago. If he were one of my matchmaking clients, this never would have happened. He would have seen
my rules and known better.
A rustle of leaves has me freezing mid-step, heart lurching up in my throat as I glance behind me. A loud snap of a twig echoes
in the canyon, and I can’t help but expel a weird, inhuman sound as I scurry away in search of shelter behind the large oak
tree ten feet away.
I think it’s oak, but I really don’t know. I’m not exactly an outdoorsy girl. I enjoy the idea of nature but in the sense
that I like to go for leisurely walks on flat surfaces that end in an overpriced coffee. Not nature hikes where I need to
pack my own water or survival tools. Any kind of hike where I have to wear my water on my back and drink from those long fluid
straws? Absolutely not. I’d rather die. If I can’t wear my Birkenstocks on the hike, I’m not going.
Bug spray? Sure.
Bear spray? Fuck no.
I like to be next to nature, not inside nature.
And as my heart thrashes in my chest and I hug an oak tree for dear life while mentally telling myself that Bigfoot isn’t
real, I realize that I am very much inside nature right now, and I do not belong! Why did my uncles have to build their compound so far from civilization?
Another crunch of leaves, followed by a strange hissing sound, has me shrieking in a very undignified manner, and like a shot,
I turn on my heel and tear through the forestry to get the hell away from whatever bit of nature is trying to end my life.
A fluttering noise echoes behind me, and I look back to see what it is, only to stub my toe on a stump that sends me toppling
down into the brush. My shoulder connects hard with a boulder, and I groan as I roll onto my back, my hair dragging through
the dirt as I rub my aching arm.
Heart racing, I shine my flashlight into the darkness, expecting to see evil glowing eyes emerge from the darkness. Bared
fangs. Raised hackles. Whatever a mountain lion does before it attacks. And I’m not proud to admit I’m even concerned that
Bigfoot could be coming for me because my mind is dark and full of irrational terrors.
Why am I too prissy to carry bear spray? If I were outdoorsy, I would be prepared for this kind of danger.
A bush trembles in the darkness, and I crab-walk backward on my hands and feet. I open my mouth to scream for help when a
white beastlike creature emerges. It opens its mouth and releases a deep, bellowy honk that reverberates down the canyon,
and I drop my arms when I register the animal in front of me.
“Fowl Pacino!” I hiss, my voice just above a whisper. “You scared the shit out of me!”
He flutters his wings and shakes his head, staring at me with a look of undiluted judgment before he turns and marches his way back down the mountain, his ass waddling side to side.
I wipe my filthy hands off on my hoodie, noticing my bare legs are covered in dirt as I attempt to slow my racing heart from the adrenaline rush of almost being murdered . . . by a goose.
“I suddenly understand why Dakota hates birds so much,” I grumble as I stand and turn around to see I’m just twenty yards
from the barn.
My shoulder aches, my lungs are burning, I have dirt all over my hands . . . But all that pales in comparison to the fire
in my belly over the fact that I’m about to give Conri Reilly a piece of my mind.
In seconds, I’m marching through the barn, ignoring the stirring of all the animals as I disrupt their peaceful slumber. I
stomp up the long wooden staircase and pound hard on the door, not even attempting to be quiet anymore. My rage doesn’t give
a shit who hears me now. I just merely avoided death, and it’s all Wolf’s fault.
The door swings open during my third pounding session, and there he is, dark rumpled hair, bare chest, and sweatpants hanging
indecently low on his hips.
His eyes are heavy with sleep as he rasps, “Everly? What’s going on?”
“Sandwiches is skipping some valuable steps,” I exclaim, my voice sputtering as my brain short-circuits over his pecs, his
abs, his shoulders, and those hip bones. Focus, Fletcher. You’re big mad right now.
“What?” Wolf’s voice is gravelly as he runs his hand over his hair, tousling it and somehow managing to make it look even
better. He’s one of those assholes whose hair looks better the messier it is, not worse. He can roll out of bed and be photo-ready.
Not me. My hair turns into a nest in my sleep. Probably because I toss and turn as I rethink the day, so by the time I knock
out, it’s already a disaster.
Yet another thing that irritates me about the tortured boy before me.
“Sandwiches,” I repeat, my eyes roving over the ink on his sinewy arm before snapping back to his. “You brought sandwiches tonight. Are you fucking crazy?”
He blinks. “What’s wrong with sandwiches?”
I jab a finger into his soft, meaty chest. Only it’s not soft. It’s hard. The skin is soft though. Incredibly so. So soft
I get this weird, intrusive urge to rub my cheek along it.
I push my way into his dark apartment, noticing he smells like soap and sleep. Apparently, he had time for a leisurely shower
when I was a sleepless ball of anxiety. A light is on over the stove, and it only further adds a sultry, sexy appeal to this
ridiculous godlike figure in front of me.
“Sandwiches is arguably a soft-launch boyfriend move, Wolf. Are you my boyfriend?”
His face instantly turns into the bug-eyed emoji.
I roll my eyes. “Relax, I know you’re not my boyfriend, and I hate to be that girl, but like . . . what are we? Are we dating? A situationship? Friends with benefits? Sum this up for me because I like
my rules, and I don’t know what kind of guidebook to go off for all this.”
I gesture to his whole body because it’s a lot. He’s six foot five, half-naked, and standing there like a fantasy brought
to life. And he told me mere hours ago he wanted to kiss me. Like for real-real. And then we did kiss. Like for real-real.
I need to know what this is.
“Okay . . .” Wolf replies, his brows furrowed in confusion as his eyes drift from my face to my hair. “Did you lose a fight
with a Christmas tree?”
“What?”