Chapter Thirty-Four
Carson
I hadn’t woken up planning to study the guide calendar like a man reading his own obituary, but that was exactly what I found myself doing at nine o’clock on a Thursday morning.
The lodge office was quiet. It was the kind of morning softness that felt temporary, like the place was only holding its breath until the next wave of guests stormed through the front door. A few sunbeams filtered through the windows, catching dust motes drifting lazily above the check-in desk.
I’d stopped in to grab a copy of the equipment checklist for the next guided trip, expecting to find the usual neatly printed assignments: Carson + Sienna for anything involving lake treks, ridge routes, or overnight hikes.
That’s how it had been all spring so far, after all.
We’d endured several weeks of overnight trips together.
No accidental tent rendezvous, just two guides doing our best at staying focused.
Except this time, the printed sheet wasn’t what caught my attention.
It was the pencil scrawl on the whiteboard calendar.
Weekend Trip — Upper Falls Ridge
Lead Guide: Carson
Support:
Just a blank space.
No Sienna.
My stomach tightened.
I stepped closer to make sure I was reading it right. Last I checked, this trip was supposed to be another dual-guide weekend. We had two more together trips, not that I was counting.
But someone had erased her name.
Or rather, someone had written mine alone in neater handwriting than my own, but not quite neat enough to be Violet’s.
Sienna’s handwriting.
She’d penciled herself out.
I stared at it longer than I should have, as if a hidden message might appear in the erased smudge next to my name.
Why would she remove herself?
We’d agreed, awkwardly, silently, but still agreed, that we’d talk later.
That our tension was going somewhere, even if neither of us knew exactly where.
Last night’s almost-moment on the trail had felt…
different. Like, both of us were finally acknowledging we weren’t imagining this thing that kept pulling us together.
And now she was ditching the trip?
A dull thud of disappointment landed in my chest.
This wasn’t how I expected the space she needed to look.
I exhaled, leaning on the edge of the counter, trying to think rationally. She was probably overwhelmed. My presence did that sometimes. Hell, her presence did the same to me. Maybe she thought giving me solo leadership was a gesture of confidence.
Or maybe she was creating distance because it had all moved too fast.
Before I could sink any deeper into overthinking, someone stepped behind me.
A low whistle slid through the room.
“Well, that looks suspicious.”
I turned.
Liam Harper leaned against the doorframe, sipping from a travel mug the size of a cauldron. His hair was pulled back in a loose bun, and he looked exactly how every person who grew up near a lake looked: unfairly relaxed.
He nodded toward the calendar. “Didn’t peg her for handwriting-based communication, but that’s definitely her work.”
I grunted. “You’re sure?”
“She draws her R’s like she’s holding the pencil with oven mitts.”
I didn’t smile, but the corner of my mouth tried. “I guess that checks out.”
Liam took another sip. “So what’d you do?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly.
“Mhm.” He folded his arms, amused. “Then she’s doing what she always does.”
“And that is…?”
“Backing up emotionally like someone threw a spider at her.”
I blinked. “That’s very specific.”
“So is she,” he said with a shrug. “Look, Sienna’s not subtle. If she crossed her own name off a guided trip you were supposed to do together? It’s because she feels too much. Too fast.”
My pulse thumped. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Liam said lightly. “Maybe because the last time she liked a guy, she baked him cookies and then literally flew to Arizona for six weeks so she wouldn’t have to give them to him.”
“…What?”
“Yeah,” he said proudly. “We come from a long line of dramatic decision-makers.”
I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “She’s avoiding me.”
“Yep.”
I winced. “You don’t have to say it so cheerfully.”
“Sorry,” he said, absolutely not sorry. “But it’s probably not that she doesn’t want to guide with you. It’s what she does. Too much.”
That thought hit me squarely in the chest.
Liam continued, “You know she’s only done the whole ‘serious relationship’ thing once? And even then, she ghosted the poor guy because he liked the wrong kind of granola.”
“Granola?” I echoed.
“She said it revealed fundamental incompatibility.” He shrugged. “We all have our things.”
A laugh escaped before I could stop it. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m helping more than you think,” he said. “If she crossed herself off your trip, it means she’s trying to give herself distance. So… step one is don’t freak out.”
“I’m not freaked out.”
“You’re freaked out.”
“I’m analyzing.”
“Same thing, just with bigger words.”
I groaned.
Liam clapped me on the shoulder. “Look, man. She likes you. Everyone can see it. Even Louie the goat follows you around now, and that animal hates ninety percent of humanity. Just don’t… push.”
“I’m not trying to push anything,” I said.
“I know. But maybe she thinks she’s protecting herself. She probably erased her name because she thinks she’s doing the noble thing.”
“By avoiding me.”
“Yep.”
“And dropping me into a trip solo.”
“Leadership opportunity,” Liam said with jazz hands. “She’ll tell you exactly that. And she’ll believe it too, because she’s stubborn.”
I stared at the calendar again, the lonely pencil line under Lead Guide: Carson.
Part of me was proud. Maybe she did think I was ready to take one alone, and part of me was frustrated. This was not the conversation I wanted to have via office whiteboard.
And another part of me felt… oddly hurt.
I didn’t want space.
Not from her.
Not after that night in the tent.
Not after the morning after.
Not after Easter, where I’d watched her smile across the table like she was trying not to give something away.
Liam stretched and started backing toward the door. “Good luck talking to her.”
“She’s not avoiding me that much,” I said defensively.
“Oh?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Then surely she’ll answer her phone.”
“Why wouldn’t she answer her phone?” I said, already pulling it out.
“You’ll see.”
I texted her a simple message:
Hey. Want to go over the weekend trip schedule?
The little “delivered” text appeared beneath it.
No typing bubble appeared.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Liam sipped his coffee. “And now she’s panicking.”
I frowned. “She’s not panicking.”
He raised one eyebrow slowly, like a man observing a train wreck he’d predicted.
I waited another twenty seconds.
Still nothing.
“She might be busy,” I said.
“She might be climbing out a window,” Liam replied.
“She doesn’t climb out windows.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “She’s absolutely climbing out a window.”
I stared at my phone, trying not to read too much into the empty screen. Maybe she really hadn’t seen the message yet. Maybe she’d left her phone in her room. Maybe she was helping her mom.
Or maybe she was hiding.
From me.
From us.
Before I could spiral any further, Liam nudged me with his mug. “I mean this kindly: welcome to liking Sienna. You get used to the smoke trails.”
I sighed. “I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”
“Then don’t.” He shrugged. “Give her room, but don’t disappear. She hates disappearing acts.”
“Contradiction noted.”
“It’s our family brand.”
I smirked despite myself.
Liam paused in the doorway. “Just don’t give up on her. She’s trying, even when it looks like she’s retreating to Alaska in her mind.”
I straightened. “I’m not giving up.”
“I figured,” he said, smiling. “You’re still here.”
When he left, the office felt too quiet again. I stood there staring at the calendar, the erased smudge where her name had been, the blank space next to mine.
She’d crossed herself off the weekend.
But not out of disinterest.
Out of fear.
And maybe… maybe that was something we could work through.
If she let me.
If we talked.
If I could figure out how to say what I meant without sending her running into another state.
I pulled my phone out again.
Still no response.
I shook my head, let out a low breath, and forced myself to walk out of the office, hoping that, stupidly and stubbornly, I’d run into her on the property.
I didn’t.
But I would run into her soon.
And when I did…
We were talking.
One way or another.
I stepped outside, hoping the cool air would shake loose some of the tension sitting under my ribs.
Spring in Buttercup Lake was an inconsistent thing.
Warm sun in the morning, cold wind in the afternoon, a kind of seasonal mood swing that made you layer twice and regret both choices.
Today, the air was crisp but bright, carrying the scent of thawing soil and pine needles.
It felt like a promise. It also felt like uncertainty.
I walked the gravel path toward the cabins, not with any real expectation of finding her but simply because walking eased the pressure in my chest. The lodge grounds were quiet except for the distant buzz of a chainsaw from Beck cutting fallen limbs near the trailhead.
The world looked normal, ordinary even, which made the knot in my stomach feel ridiculous.
This was just a schedule shift. Just one weekend. Just a pencil line.
But I couldn’t shake the sense that something had shifted in her—something subtle but real.
Our night walk had left us balanced on the edge of something more, a moment that hovered between confession and collision.
She’d looked at me like she wanted to say something true and terrifying, then retreated at the last second.
And then we’d hurriedly gone into guiding guests into the wilderness and avoiding each other in the days in between.
And now the calendar reflected that same hesitance.
Part of me wanted to respect the boundary she’d drawn.
Another part, the one that remembered how she’d pressed her forehead to mine in the tent, wanted to erase the blank space with her name and write it in ink.
It wasn’t because I needed the help guiding a trip; I’d led more difficult routes alone, but because the idea of spending a weekend in the woods without her didn’t feel like progress. It felt like stepping backward.
I turned toward the lake, letting my boots follow the familiar path.
The shoreline had shed most of its ice, leaving only scattered patches clinging to the shaded coves.
The water moved gently, catching sunlight and breaking it into small, glittering shards.
It was peaceful, the kind of peace that usually settled me instantly. Today, it only made my thoughts louder.
Liam’s words lingered. She feels too much too soon.
I wasn’t sure I agreed. Sienna was a wildfire—bright, fast-moving, unpredictable—but she wasn’t careless.
If anything, she was too careful with her heart, retreating before anyone had the chance to drop it.
I wasn’t afraid of her intensity. I was afraid she’d convince herself that stepping away was the safe choice.
I stopped near the cluster of birch trees, resting a hand on the cool white bark.
I hadn’t intended to stay long in Buttercup Lake.
When I signed the seasonal contract, it felt like a reset button—quiet trails, steady work, no attachments.
A place to hide without calling it hiding.
A place where no one expected me to become anything other than capable and self-contained. For years, that had been enough.
Then Sienna stumbled into the gear shed on my first day, arguing with a zebra, tripping over a bungee cord, and scowling at me as I’d personally offended her by existing. And somehow that moment had cracked something open in me I hadn’t realized was closed.
Maybe that was why a single pencil line on a calendar felt heavier than it should.
The thought made my jaw tighten. If she wanted distance, I would give her room. But I wasn’t going to disappear, and I wasn’t going to let a smudged eraser be the last word on what was happening between us.
Eventually, I pushed off the tree and made my way back toward the property. There was work to do, packs to prep, and gear to inventory. Letting myself spiral wouldn’t help either of us.
Distance was one thing.
Avoidance was another.
And sooner or later, she and I were going to have to face the space between those two things.