10. Soren
Soren
M y patience is a rubber band pulled tight enough to snap.
“Dude, if you aren’t careful, you’ll ruin your day. By yourself,” Aiden tells me. “Take a fucking breather.”
“I don’t want your advice.” My tone has a bite.
“Too bad. I’m here to be your voice of reason, apparently. Stop going caveman on me. Where the hell are we even going this morning, anyway?”
Aiden sounds amiable but I know I’ve pissed him off with my attitude. I glance over and smile, the tension taking a back seat.
“I have no clue. I needed to get out of the house before I strangled her.”
He reaches behind him for the pack he stashed. “Sounds like a personal problem to me.”
Within seconds he’s got music blaring from his phone and the classic rock we’ve always enjoyed does wonders for my mood.
I lift my foot from the gas and the vehicle slows. “I’ll figure something out. Hell, it wouldn’t hurt to do some hiking and spend a couple of hours at that waterfall. ”
“You mean the one where you got a blow job from Carley Marshall in eleventh grade?” Aiden teases.
“Ah, good memories.” My smile feels like it’s reaching my eyes.
Memories like those are one of the benefits of a small town and something I’ve missed living in the city. In Holly Brook, we all know each other. Even if I only spent summers here, the female populace was always more than happy to see me. And Aiden.
Happier still to show their appreciation for us.
“Carley Marshall used more teeth than anyone should ever use, but at the time I remember it being fantastic,” I reply. “If memory serves, Amanda Burkiss gave you her virginity when we were camping, right before we left for freshman year of college.”
“Amanda.” Aiden repeats her name with a low moan.
“Actually, we shouldn’t take off today. I saw a tree fall across the driveway this morning. You were talking about going to town?”
Aiden shrugs. “We can make it past.”
“But she might not be able to.” And the sooner she disappears, the better.
“You’re going soft and you don’t want me to know about it,” he says, whistling under his breath.
“Not soft. Responsible.” My brow furrows. “What if another vehicle needs to get to the cabin?”
Aiden twists to face me and our knees knock. “Expecting more guests? Hopefully the female variety.”
“Not today.” But maybe an emergency vehicle if I do end up strangling Gilli.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take my truck and head to the falls alone, then. Four wheel drive can take me farther than I’m able to walk.”
Just like that, his plans to go to the store are traded for better ones.
“Sure, go ahead. I’ll take care of the tree myself and then join you. We’ve got all the equipment. I’ll drop you off. Just don’t get into any trouble.”
“Me?” he asks innocently. “Not anymore.”
I twist the wheel. “You know, weirdly, I got a DM from one of the girls we hung with that summer, a couple of weeks ago. Natalie Shepard? I ignored it.”
“Did she send tit pics?” Aiden stretches his arms overhead.
I reach for my cell in my front pocket, patting the area and feeling nothing. “Nah, no tits.”
“Then what did she want?”
“Certainly wasn’t interested in selling her apartment, if you catch my drift. Seems she’s going through a rough divorce…” I trail off and pat both back pockets but come up equally short. “Fuck.”
Aiden snickers. “Forgot something?”
“I must have left my phone.”
“You can’t go a few hours without it? Seriously? Why you worried?”
I give no answer as I jerk the wheel hard, the tires digging grooves in the soft ground. The engine revs and a high-pitched-whir makes it impossible to hear “Highway to Hell” on our way back to the cabin.
We skid to a stop beside Gilli’s crappy car and I cut the machine off. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“Grab some snacks while you’re at it. The cookies,” Aiden calls after me. “I’ll pack up the truck.”
The man can eat anyone else under the table. He’s always been able to do what he wants because he practically lives in the gym. Things are tougher after the accident but his determination never falters.
I’ve always wanted to take a page out of his book. I’m too stubborn to spend hours in the gym, though. Not when my time is spread thin enough as it is. I’ve got a long list of shit to get done and not enough hours in the day to do it.
I jog to the door into the living room .
Gilli drops her eyes the moment I round toward the kitchen. “You’re back!”
My attention narrows on her fingers, clenched around my cell, and the way her chin trembles like she’s expecting a blow.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” My voice is deadly calm.
She looks guilty as sin as I cross the room and snatch it out of her hand. “I’m sorry.”
I keep the phone close to my chest as I unlock the screen, scanning through to see what apps she’s used. My fury mounts by the second. This little bitch .
“How did you unlock it?”
Her face falls. “Your passcode isn’t that hard to guess. I’m sorry,” she repeats.
Anger and disappointment mix together and churn like acid in my veins. She wasn’t alone in the cabin ten minutes before she did this shit.
I make a mental note to change the code, since she easily figured it out. I keep her pinned between my body and the counter as I check everything, then land on the phone icon.
My body tenses at the number at the top of the screen, the most recent outgoing call to the local police. A chill spreads outward from a center of ice in my gut and I stare at her, my grip tight enough on the screen to crack it.
“Why’d you call the police? What kind of trouble are you in?”
I hold my breath, waiting.
She doesn’t respond. Without a thought, I reach down and draw her into me fast enough for her to gasp.
“Gilli, answer me.”
She tips her chin up. “Relax, Soren,” she replies. “I’m just trying to get a handle on the local situation. In case there are any Jason Voorheeses out there in the woods.”
Goddamn lies.
I cock my head to the side and shoot her a wicked grin. “ There are real problems out there. You want to waste time worrying about imaginary ones?”
I shouldn’t expect her to be honest with me but somehow I do, and the disappointment grows. If she’s in that much trouble, she needs to fucking say something.
My instincts scream at me. Something serious is going down, more serious than I thought before.
I tower over her yet worry bubbles up, sharp and fierce, along with a desire to protect her from whatever creeps or ghouls are really there, imaginary or otherwise.
She’s shaking again and paler than I’ve ever seen her. The dark circles underneath her eyes have only gotten worse since her arrival.
She takes a step away but there’s nowhere to go.
I slide my grip from her wrist to her bicep. “Gilli, if you’re in trouble, you have to tell me.”
“It’s none of your business, Soren.”
The sweet primness of her tone digs directly into my skin. “Of course it’s my business. You’re here with us, aren’t you? If you bring trouble to our doorstep?—”
“Stop worrying about handling it,” she taunts. “The less you know, the better. I have it under control.”
I swallow and tamp down the rising frustration. Gilli has always been headstrong. I remember a couple of stories, when it was impossible for me to staple my ears shut, where her mother would regale us with things the girl did just to prove she wasn’t weak.
Climb trees and break bones.
Run out into the street to save a squirrel from getting hit by a car.
Real bleeding heart kind of crap, too.
What if this is another one of those times, but she’s in deeper than she can handle? I can’t bring myself to step away yet.
“Under control,” I growl. “Somehow I highly doubt it, if you’re in here sneaking around and calling the police with my cell. Does this have something to do with the one you lost? Or maybe why you bolted from whatever hole you crawled from in the first place?”
“My hole is an apartment in Baltimore and I had a break-in.” She glares at me. “That’s all I’m telling you and more than you deserve to know.”
A break-in?
Is she kidding?
“No more stealing. If you want to make a call, you ask one of us,” I warn. “This is the kind of crap we wanted to avoid.”
“Like you care what I’m doing.”
“Oh, trust me sweetheart, I care. I care greatly because you think doing some grocery shopping and cooking a meal is going to make me like you.”
Gilli juts out her chin. “I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that you abhor me. Why would I want to change that now?”
I hesitate against the snarky comeback burning my lips. Finally I release my hold on her, prying one finger loose at a time and standing still like I’m waiting for her to move first.
We stare at each other for a long time, her chest heaving and her eyes like ebony fire.
Her skin is soft. I never noticed it before. The curve of her chin, the sharpness of her cheekbones against the roundness of her body… It all combines into a potent combination and I’m a sucker who can’t look away.
She felt way too good in my arms. And I know myself. I know once I sink my teeth into a mystery, there is nothing I won’t do to see it solved.
Gillian is a mystery to me.
Damn me, but I want to make things better for her and get to the bottom of the secrets she’s keeping. She’s taking up way too much free rent inside my head for this to be healthy.
“You want something to do? To see that there’s no spooks in the woods? Then come with me. ”
She immediately balks. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You’ll take me out into the woods and leave me for dead.”
I smirk, chuckling. “To the contrary. I’m going to put you to work.” As I warned you .
“It’s my time off.” She pushes past me, heading for the couch. “I’ve earned rest and relaxation.”
“Or you can help me clear a downed tree in the driveway. Aiden will make it past in his truck but your car won’t clear it without serious muscle.”
Her eyes narrow. “When did it fall? There was no wind last night.”