Blair
Cecily saunters through the screen door holding two of the largest pitchers full of sangria I’ve ever seen, then points her chin toward the river trail, and our girl gang starts toward it. Odessa’s running far ahead, insisting she get to the riverbank before we show up and “scare the frogs away.” Kate—with Rhett on her shoulders—is loaded up with sand toys, sunscreen, and beach towels. Cass has Hazel in a baby carrier on her chest, and a cooler backpack on her back. Cecily’s carrying drinks, with a sleeve of plastic cups precariously tucked under her chin. And I’m packing enough food to keep us fed for a full week, on the off chance we somehow can’t find our way back to the big house. Though those pitchers of sangria might be the trick to accidentally getting lost.
A ragtag bunch, sweating and struggling to make it to the river in the sweltering July afternoon. When we finally drop our things on the rocky shore, I’m immediately stripping down to my bathing suit and gingerly stepping across hot rocks until the cold water rushes around my legs. Then I plunge into the glacier-fed river, letting it clear my mind and rejuvenate my body like it has so many times in my life.
I emerge with a body spackled in goosebumps, watching as the best group of girlfriends I’ve ever known sits together, laughing and drinking. I didn’t get to know Kate as well as I would’ve liked to before I left Wells Canyon back in the day, and I only met Cecily a few months ago, but they’ve welcomed me in with open arms, giving me some much-needed relaxation amid the chaos in my life.
After wringing the water from my hair, I settle into a spot beside Cass. Cecily passes me a red plastic cup filled to the brim with sangria—so full, in fact, that the liquid sloshes down my arm when I move it.
“So, I’m sorry the invite is super late, but Aus and I would love it if you’d come to our wedding in three weeks.”
Lowering the cup from my lips, I swallow the sweet liquid and nod excitedly. “Of course I’ll be there. I’m honored you’d invite me.”
“I was worried you’d be offended because I waited this long!” She smiles sweetly, stretching her legs out in front of her. “I just didn’t want anything to be awkward for you and Denny.”
Kate turns to look at us from where she’s stacking rocks with Rhett. “But now it won’t be, since word on the street is that you two are”—she creates a circle with her finger and thumb and glides her other index finger in and out of it. The other two women begin howling with laughter, creating such a scene that even Odessa stops what she’s doing to stare at us in confusion.
“Good God, the town gossips never rest, do they?” I groan, tossing my head back to feel the sun bake my face. When we were teens, I purposely skipped sunblock on my cheeks because Denver loved my summer freckles. “For the record, we’re not doing that.”
“Well then, if it’s weird for you to be around him, know there’s no hard feelings if you decide not to come,” Cecily says.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I shoot her a smile. “Anyway, Denver and I are fine. We agreed to be friends—no awkwardness.”
Friends. We’ve nearly kissed a few times when we’ve hung out alone as “friends,” but that’s likely because it’s muscle memory. For years we couldn’t handle a single moment of privacy without jumping each other’s bones. Friends is easier, because I have no interest in being part of his fuckboy games, despite my admission in a moment of weakness.
Do you ever think about me the way I think about you?
All the time.
“Kudos to you. I don’t think I could be friends with any of my exes,” Kate remarks. Wide-eyed, Cecily nods aggressively in Kate’s direction.
“We were best friends for a long time before we started dating, though, so maybe that’s why it doesn’t feel weird to me? Plus, that was years ago. Seems silly to hold a grudge over mistakes we made as kids.”
Cass reaches over and silently squeezes my thigh.
“We’ve actually hung out a few times now, too. As friends. He came over to visit my mom, and gave me a ride home from the rodeo, and brought lunch to my office.”
Kate raises a brow. “And you haven’t…”
I hold up three fingers. “Scout’s honor. Haven’t even kissed.”
Admittedly, we were close, though. If Brickham hadn’t barged into my office, I’m not even sure we would’ve stopped at kissing.
“ Incredible. You have some serious self-control,” Kate says. “Well, I’m glad we can all hang out without anybody feeling weird.”
“Definitely. No weirdness.”
None at all. Except he and I still haven’t discussed our conversation from a few days ago.
Everyone slowly becomes preoccupied with books or babies, so I grab the AirPods from my beach bag and lean back on my elbows. When I pick up my phone to choose a playlist, I find a text message instead.
Denver: If you could be any inanimate object for the day, what would you be?
: Depends who’s asking and how they got my number.
Somehow, he seems to have kept the same number since his very first cell phone. But I ask anyway, because I don’t want him knowing I’ve had it saved in every phone I’ve ever owned.
Denver: You left in the middle of a conversation. I had no choice but to grab a business card from your desk.
: Refrigerator, because they’re full of food all the time. Why?
Denver: I told you I want to know all about you.
: And that’s what you chose as your first question?
Denver: It popped up in my head first.
Denver: Are we going to talk about the other day?
: That was the second question to pop up, or what?
Denver: It hasn’t left my brain since the moment it happened, actually.
: Give me a ride home after we finish our drinks by the river. We’ll talk then.
Denver: Only if you promise not to puke in my truck
: I make no such promises, but I bet it’s a risk you’re still willing to take
Part of me is aching to chug the rest of my drink and go find Denver. Another part of me is terrified about what will happen when I’m alone with him again. The moment he looks at me, I’m a goner.
—
A little over two hours later, Cass stares at me from her front porch with a look that speaks volumes. “Be careful, okay?”
“I will be.” My lips crook into a smile I’m hoping is reassuring.
“I don’t have a problem with Denny, or even with you two together. I love both of you. But I know you had a bit of a hard time after you broke up, and I also know what he’s like now.”
A bit of a hard time is the understatement of the century. Never wanting to worry the people around me, I put on a brave face back then rather than confiding in my best friend about the extent of the situation. Queen of fake it ’til you makeit.
“Babe, I’m fine—swear.”
“You love really hard, and I don’t want you to get hurt if the feelings aren’t reciprocated.”
“It’s just a ride home because, between the heat and Cecily’s potent sangria, I probably shouldn’t drive. Nobody’s falling in love.”
She points her head toward where Denver’s leaning against the hood of his pickup. “Have fun.”
I turn and smile at him, waving a quick goodbye to Cass over my shoulder and trying to disguise the extra spring in my step while I walk across the crunchy gravel to his truck. Obviously, it’s not the same truck he had back when we were seventeen, but sliding onto the dark leather passenger seat, breathing in the faint smell of his cologne, and rolling the window down to feel the sunshine on my bare arm still feels a lot like it used to. Like home.
Denver hops into the driver’s seat, and the diesel engine rumbles to life, filling my nostrils with yet another nostalgic scent. I swallow hard, watching his tanned forearms flex as he shifts the manual transmission. Thick veins branch under his skin, begging to have my fingertips tracing them. I keep an eye on his strong jaw, with light brown stubble catching sunlight, in my periphery as we pull away. It’s no wonder all the girls in town have been chasing after him in the years since I left, and a dull ache takes up residence in my chest when I consider how many of them have sat in this seat.
“Do you need to go straight home?” he asks when the truck rattles over the cattle guard at the end of the driveway.
“Why? Have somewhere else in mind?”
I’m openly flirting now, I’ll admit. If the rumors are true, he’s incapable of any commitment beyond a single night. Cassidy says I love too hard, but I had plenty of one-night stands and short-term relationships in Vancouver. They were a welcomed distraction. Something to quiet the storm in my brain. Maybe I can do the same thing here. Get it out of my system, then move on to the things I should be prioritizing.
“There’s a place I want to show you,” he says.
“I have nowhere else to be.” Nor anywhere I’d rather be than here with him.
Rather than heading left, toward town, his large hands glide over the steering wheel, spinning it to the right. When we reach cruising speed, I twist my hair around until it creates a makeshift bun at the nape of my neck, and sink into the seat. Warm summer air whips around in the cab, carrying the aroma of freshly cut hay and the crackling sound of tires on a dirt road.
Aside from Koe Wetzel’s hushed voice coming from the radio, it’s comfortably silent between us. We’ve never needed to fill the space with unnecessary chitchat, and there’s something magical about being with a person who feels so much like an extension of yourself you don’t need to do anything except coexist. Despite the years, the trauma, the heartbreak, Denver Wells is always going to be that person for me.
“I missed this,” he says after a few minutes of silence, which he clearly spent lost in thought with me.
“Me too,” I admit. “It’s been really nice to be home, actually.”
“So much so that you’re referring to Wells Canyon as home again?”
They say home is where your heart is. Fourteen years away, and I didn’t give my heart to anyone else. Because how could I? It was back here in Wells Canyon…with him.
So—
“Yeah, it’s always been home.” I shift in my seat. “I loved my life in Vancouver, and didn’t expect to be back here, but…”
“I get it.” His hands aggressively twist around the leather-wrapped steering wheel. Then he turns off the road onto a trail that’s barely wide enough to fit the truck. And he stops.
“Okay, it’s safest if we walk from here.” He leans an elbow on the center console to get a better look at my footwear. Strappy sandals with a slight heel—hardly appropriate for walking on pavement, never mind on an uneven dirt trail. “But that’s not an option, since you’re a city girl now, apparently.”
“I take offense to that statement. Just because I dress nicer than I used to doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own in the country.”
“Then unbuckle your seat belt, and be ready to bail out of the truck if I tell you to.”
My face twists in horror. “What the hell are we about to do?”
“I’m taking you somewhere special.”
“To my early grave?”
“Not if we’re lucky.”
With a groan and a lurch, the truck starts up a steep hillside, along a path that the majority of civilization wouldn’t deem worthy of being called a road. Twisting and winding along the mountainside, up steep embankments, past terrifying cliffs. Denver grips the steering wheel, never letting his eyes leave the path, giving the truck just enough oomph to get over each knoll and pothole. The views are stunning—not that I can look out the window long enough to appreciate them, because I’m staring at the door handle, and having a mild panic attack about the idea of leaping from a truck as it careens off the edge of the road.
Reaching the top, both he and the truck shudder an exhale when we come to a stop in front of the best view of the Wells Canyon valley I’ve ever seen. And finally I’m able to quit nervously picking at my cuticles.
I throw open the passenger door, taking a deep breath, and step onto compact earth. The view extends far beyond Wells Canyon, likely allowing a sightline all the way to Sheridan, if you squint hard enough. The ranch, the distant ski hill, and a sea of treed hilltops.
“Wow, it’s gorgeous up here. How did you come across this place?”
He walks around the truck and drops the tailgate, motioning at me to come over. “I did a lot of driving around by myself after you were gone. Eventually, even the never-ending backroads come to an end, so I started driving wherever I thought was wide enough for my truck.”
He gives me a hand onto the tailgate, then reaches into a strategically placed cooler and pulls out two bottles of beer—hesitating for a moment before offering me one. “All I have is beer-flavored water, or whatever your hoity-toity ass called it.”
“The dirty ice water sloshing around in the bottom of the cooler probably tastes better,” I tease, elbowing him in the side but accepting the beer with a smile. “But the beer’s more sanitary, so thank you.”
The cool liquid goes down better than expected, with the sun on our backs and a picturesque view, legs dangling from his tailgate. I press the amber bottle to my neck, sighing at the refreshing cold against my flushed skin, and beads of condensation run down my chest.
“How often do you come out here?” I ask.
How often do you bring other girls here?
“Not as often lately.” The bottle rim hovers in front of his parted lips for a moment as he thinks. “We split up Mom’s ashes because the three of us couldn’t agree about what to do for her. I actually tossed my portion into the wind up here the spring after she died. So for a while, I was here all the time.”
My heart sinks, and I spin to sit cross-legged facing him, resting my elbows on my knees. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”
“It would’ve been weird for you to be there…considering everything. But I thought you’d like to come see it now.”
I nod silently, internally battling with the urge to reach out and touch him. His right hand is resting on the truck bed, ripe for the taking. His callused palm, warm and strong, would fit in mine perfectly.
“How are you doing? Your mom, moving back here, Brickham’s dumbassery. You have a lot going on.”
I laugh under my breath to keep from crying. “Not to mention babysitting Hazel, helping wrangle my nephew, making sure my dad’s okay, being around you all the time. But honestly, I’m fine. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
So maybe I’m actually flailing, fighting to keep my head above water. But I’m not drowning— not yet —so that’s basically the same as being fine.
He stares at me, breaking down every wall with the hollowing of a dimple in his right cheek. As he takes a swig of beer, his eyes don’t leave mine, and right when it feels like every atom of oxygen has left the air between us, he opens his mouth.
“You’re fine.” His look of disbelief has me feeling the need to double down.
“Yep, sure am.” I give him a weak smile. “Other people have worse things going on, so it feels silly to complain about my life.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Don’t have to do what?” I pick at the corner of the beer bottle label.
“Diminish everything you’re going through. Pretend like you’re managing totally fine. Cut the crap—give me five seconds of honesty.”
If looks could kill, I’d be telekinetically tossing him off the cliff. “I’m not pretending .”
“Bullshit.” His voice echoes in the beer bottle, and in my skull.
“Sorry, do you want to talk about who among us isn’t managing life well?” The label would’ve peeled in one clean strip, if I wasn’t suddenly shaking. I cram the small piece of ripped paper into my pocket and glare at him. “I have responsibilities, Denver. Yeah, it fucking sucks sometimes, but there’s no sense crying about it. Crying isn’t going to change the fact that my mom’s slowly forgetting her whole life. It’s not going to change the fact that I left my job, apartment, and friends to move back here. It’s definitely not going to take any work off my plate. I think my method of keeping my head down and quietly handling shit is a lot more mature than partying and sleeping with every girl in town.”
I pray he didn’t notice the way my voice cracked at the end of that last sentence.
I shut my eyes, taking a long, calming yoga breath. And when I finally work up the nerve to look at him, expecting to see him ready to throw down, Denver’s just smiling at me.
“See? Was a little bit of honesty so hard?” His bottle clinks against mine. “All I was getting at is you don’t need to pretend like you have it all together. Not around me. I know you well enough to know when you’re faking it.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know me—”
“That’s also how I know you weren’t lying in your office the other day.”
Did the sun crank the heat right up? I tug at the hem of my shirt, desperate for a light breeze, anything to help with the sudden hot flash I’m experiencing. His predatory gaze nearly has me tripping over myself to get to him, to sit on his lap like I did in Colt’s truck. That night it took everything in me not to invite him into my bed, and yet he was still there—not literally, but figuratively, Denver was there. He was the throbbing pulse between my legs when I lay in my bed alone. And the memory of his hand grabbing my belt buckle on the dance floor, and of him toying with the inseam of my jeans, was the reason I came so hard I screamed into a pillow.
But I can deal with the hallucination version, because he won’t break my heart. The real deal is far messier.
“Denver, I can’t…” When his face falls, I add, “I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression by asking for a ride. I really missed having you as a friend, but I’m not the kind of girl who has casual flings.”
Five seconds of dishonesty .
Casual is all I’ve been for the past decade. But staring at him here, with the setting sun illuminating the gold streaks in his eyes, I know I can’t do that with him, as much as I’d like to. The lovelorn piece of me can’t handle it.
Then his downtrodden expression turns into a dimpled smile. “You think that’s what I want?”
“I mean…yeah. It’s what you do, right?” I throw my hands up. “It’s a small town, and for some ungodly reason, people thought I should hear about every girl you slept with while I was away. It was a lot.”
Both a lot, in terms of numbers, and a lot, in terms of the effects every story had on my mental health.
“So when you mentioned me doing things to women, you weren’t talking about the murders? Good, good .”
“Denver, please.” I roll my eyes.
“They usually beg for their lives more convincingly than that.”
Typical. Change the subject by turning this whole thing into a joke the exact moment I try to get serious.
“Okay, I’m not having this conversation with you then. Forget I said it, and take me home.”
“Sorry, I’ll quit fucking around.” He drags a slow hand down his face with a groan. “I really hate this place sometimes, ya know?”
“Same.”
“I didn’t know things would get back to you…. I also didn’t think you’d care, if I’m being honest. You actively avoided me when you came to visit—people told me things too, . I know you did everything you could to avoid seeing me. Then you didn’t move back after graduation like you said you would.”
“Why would I move back? For what? You were the only reason I ever planned to, and you’d moved on.” A tremor racks my body, and I chew my bottom lip to keep from crying while I frantically turn away from him. My calf smacks into the tailgate when I swing my legs down and a curse slips out under my breath. My eyes flit from treetop to treetop, intentionally avoiding looking anywhere in his direction.
The fucker notices, too, because the truck rocks with the movement of his weight, and he jumps off. Then he’s standing in front of me, caramel and chocolate eyes studying every movement in my face.
“There’s no moving on from you. Not then, now, ever.”
I scoff. “Now I’m calling bullshit. All the other girls—”
“Weren’t anything serious. You were my first love, and you’ll be my last. I’m done. I found the girl when I was thirteen, and I haven’t been serious about anyone since. I’m not looking for a quick fuck with you, . The younger me messed up, but I would never do something to intentionally hurt you.”
“The fucking audacity,” I mutter under my breath. Wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, except he has time and time again, whether he knows it or not.
“What?”
“Oh, just wondering to myself how you can sit here and say that, when you know people have told me things. Things that make your last sentence complete and utter bullshit . Because you’ve already done shit to intentionally hurt me.”
“I genuinely don’t know what you’re—”
“Shelby!” I yell. My friend’s name rattles down the valley to town, repeating in a cacophony of echoes to haunt me. The pain of hearing it repeatedly is almost worth it, because Denver looks like he’s ready to throw himself off the cliff. And, even though I know I would jump immediately after him, a part of me wants the satisfaction of his cries reverberating in the canyon.
“What the fuck about Shelby? You thought that wouldn’t hurt me?” I’m breathing fire, and still he doesn’t back away. “You thought I wouldn’t care about that? Guess what, Denver. I fucking cared.”
“I can explain.”
I tilt my head, waiting to hear what garbage he spews before I fully unleash every emotion I’ve bottled up over the years. Ready to drop the act, lose the smile I’ve worn while listening to people talk about my ex like his behavior should be a funny joke to me.
“Well, the explanation is shit. But, honestly, I didn’t think you were ever coming back. You were gone fourteen years . A full fucking decade of sleepless nights, of drunk phone calls from any number but mine so I could hear your sleepy voice, of driving up here on the hard days so I could scream at the top of my lungs.” He rubs quickly at his eyes, and when his hands fall on top of mine, I don’t pull away. I remember the calls in the middle of the night with nobody on the other end of the phone—in fact, I eventually changed my number, paranoid I had a stalker. The calls stopped after that, of course. Now knowing it was him, the knot in my stomach cinches tighter.
His thumb rubs across the back of my hand. “Shelby and I never had sex, for the record. Just drinking, dancing, kissing. And I know that’s still not right. I shouldn’t have slept with anyone, or even fucking looked at anyone. If there was a single shred of hope left in me that you’d come back, I would’ve held out for as long as I needed to.”
“I didn’t expect you to take a vow of celibacy. But, come on…. She’s one of my friends. I don’t get why you thought it was a good idea, if you’ve really cared about me all this time.”
There’s a slow bob of his throat and he gnaws at the inside of his cheek. “I wish I could say I made better choices over the last decade. You might not have asked for celibacy but, damn, would I love to tell you there’s been no one since you. And I knew Shelby was a bad idea, which is why I didn’t let it go any farther… fuck, I should’ve stayed away altogether.”
I shake one of his hands away so I’m free to dab at the corner of my eye to stop the stupid, dramatic, unnecessary tear from falling. Lord knows, I’ve cried enough over him.
“I’m sorry. For Shelby. For every other girl. The last thing I wanted was to do anything that would hurt you again. I fucked up, and I understand if you don’t trust me, but I can swear on my dead mom’s grave—which is literally right where we are now—it’s only ever been you for me.”
“Why?” I squint to make out his face through blurred vision and stinging eyes. “Why me, when I wasn’t willing to give you the life you wanted?”
“I only wanted a life with you, Bear.” The nickname rolls off his tongue and sends my stomach somersaulting with it. “I’m painfully uninterested in any future that doesn’t involve you.”
“How many girls have you brought up here?” I ask, praying for the answer I need.
“Nobody knows about this place. This is where I come when I need to scream or swear or throw things off the cliff. When joking and laughing through the pain isn’t cutting it.”
A tear falls from my jaw, ricocheting off my bare thigh. “I shouldn’t have left.”
“If you hadn’t gone away to school, this town would be forever stuck with Brickham as the only medical care. And I’m definitely biased, but you’re better than he could ever hope to be.” His smile matches mine, small yet genuine, only he has deep dimples in both cheeks. “So I lost you, but it was for the greater good.”
“You’re such a martyr.” I drop his hand. “You said you come out here to scream?”
“Sometimes.”
Placing my palm against his firm chest, I give him a push back and hop off the tailgate. The ground’s made up of reddish rock, which crumbles underfoot, and I gingerly walk toward the cliff’s edge. The closer I get, the more hair every wind gust is able to grab and twist.
Smoothing a hand over my wild locks, I take a deep breath and scream. As loud as I can, until my lungs are aching and my throat is on fire. I scream even when tears stream down my face, and I scream even when Denver grabs my hand and joins me. Our voices fill the valley, and soon it feels like the air in my lungs has been replaced with helium. The weight I’ve been quietly shouldering for months has disappeared, and if it weren’t for the man holding tight to my hand, I might float away.
He turns to me when I’ve stopped to catch my breath, reaching with his free hand to wipe the wetness from my cheeks. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
The warmth of his touch makes my heart thunder in my chest like a zoo animal rattling the bars of its enclosure.
Fuck my fears—my heart is screwed anyway.
I grab a fistful of his shirt in my free hand and yank him toward me. Wasting no time, my mouth finds its way to his, and Denver wraps his arms snug around my waist. His tongue drifts along my lips, parting them, allowing a soft moan to escape me. He steals my breath and my thoughts and my bones with an explorative kiss. When he pulls back for air, there’s a wisp of space between us. Our foreheads touch and, for the first time in years, my entire body relaxes with a deep exhale.