Chapter 7
BINX
I stop dead, my brain short-circuiting, stunned by the site of Seven alone in the clearing ahead of me.
It’s like I conjured him there with the force of my rage.
He blocked me. Blocked me!
Me , the woman who he insists is such a child that she can’t make an informed decision about who she wants to date. Meanwhile, instead of dealing with what happened between us yesterday, he’s taken the path of maximum immaturity.
If someone had told me Seven would ghost me a few days ago, I would have laughed in their face and demanded they apologize. I never would have stood for that kind of disrespect toward my friend. Seven isn’t a cowardly, selfish asshole. He wouldn’t do that to anyone, especially not his best friend.
Those were his words, not mine. He called me his best friend while we were up that tree at my brother’s wedding reception. Then, the very next evening, he was ready to pretend that I didn’t exist.
A part of me wants to storm across the clearing and demand to know who the hell he thinks he is, but the other part is too worried about my free-falling stomach and the voice in my head warning that something is very wrong.
First of all, Seven shouldn’t be here. I never mentioned this trip to him after our fight, and he wouldn’t have signed up on his own. He loves rock-climbing, but he never takes off work, especially not for three whole days. And even if taking off work is part of his new ghosting, being-a-dick personality, he shouldn’t be standing here all alone.
I’m half an hour late. Wendy Ann got stuck behind a garbage truck on the way to pick me up, and then the last road leading up to the meeting spot was washed out. Wendy Ann had to crawl up on top of her car to get cell service to text Lilac, then Lilac had to give us alternate directions, and then I had to strap on all my gear for the short hike up an access road not fit for my sister’s little sedan.
Then, before I could set out, I had to endure a weirdly long hug from Wendy Ann.
A hug…
My sister isn’t a hugger. She isn’t much of a toucher, in general. Wendy Ann is a brain in a jar. She exists almost completely inside her own head.
But this morning, she hugged me and said that I could “totally survive for three days in the wilderness.” At the time, I’d smiled at her worry wort side, and assured her that I absolutely could, and would , survive. I have tons of experience with backcountry camping, snacks in my pack to supplement the meals provided by the tour, and my water purifying supplies. I also have a tricked-out first aid kit and am an accomplished climber.
And while there might not be reliable cell service out here in the sticks, there surely will be where we’re going. Even the Golden Spire bluffs are closer to civilization than the national forest outside Bad Dog.
I’m still not sure why we’re meeting in the forest west of town to drive to a location two hours south east in Lilac’s four-wheel drive vans, but that’s part of the fun of a tour. You let someone else worry about the planning. All I have to do is throw my bag into the back of the van, pop my earbuds in, and settle in for the ride.
Or so I’d thought…
But there aren’t any vans here, no tents to load up, not so much as a s’mores kit or a bottle of sunscreen.
There’s just Seven, alone with his own bag, scowling at me like he’s thinking about wringing my scrawny neck. Only my neck isn’t scrawny, and I have no idea what he’s so pissed about.
He’s the one who’s been acting like a spoiled teenager with zero conflict resolution skills.
“What?” I ask, propping my hands on my hips. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I can’t believe you did this.” His voice is a low, ominous rumble, like the thunder punctuating the air this morning.
Turns out, I was wrong about the weather holding. A storm to the south shifted course overnight and is set to dump several inches of rain on us later this morning. But it’s a fast-moving system and should clear out by the time we reach the bluffs.
The storm building inside of me, however…
“What are you talking about?” I ask, sharply. “You can’t believe I did what? Signed up for the same climbing trip that you did? Believe me, if I’d known you were going to be here, I wouldn’t have come.”
That isn’t true—I absolutely would have come; I’ve been dying for a face-to-face with him since my text messages started bouncing last night—but that doesn’t matter.
What matters now, is showing him that he’s being an idiot.
Throwing away our chance to be something more than friends is stupid, but throwing away our friendship? The best friendship of my entire life, and I would wager, his, too? Well, that’s insanity, plain and simple. That’s boss level dumb-dumb shit, and I’m not going to let him get away with it.
He’s better than that. He’s…the best.
I try to remember that as he huffs out a humorless laugh and shakes his head. “So, who helped you plan it? My mother? Sprout?” He curses beneath his breath as he begins to pace back and forth, his hiking boots silent on the pine needles. “I should have known. She was way too excited for a school day. All that grinning and dancing around the kitchen… But stupid me, I thought maybe the bullies had finally decided to take it easy on my kid.”
My stomach tightens and my synapses fire, flinging images of Wendy Ann and Sprout whispering together over wedding cake to the surface of my mind.
Then the two of them whispering over chips last night at the shower when Sprout’s sitter dropped her off near the end of the party…
But no…
She wouldn’t. My sister knows better than to collude with an eight-year-old in some kind of crazy Parent Trap scheme that isn’t a Parent Trap scheme because Sprout isn’t actually my child. But I know her better than a lot of moms know their kids, and I wouldn’t put this past her for a second. She has her father’s wild and stubborn streak, her grammy’s meddling streak, and a drive to make her dreams come true that’s going to serve her very well someday.
It might also, however, get her father and myself killed.
“Surviving for three days,” I blurt out as I begin to pace the clearing, too.
Fuck , this is really happening. Wendy Ann did this. Maybe with Sprout, maybe alone, but either way she?—
“No, it couldn’t be alone,” I mutter. “Or he wouldn’t be here, too.”
“What are you talking about?” Seven asks, his tone as exasperated as mine as I turn to shout, “You! You wouldn’t be here if my sister had planned this alone. She had to have had help. Who dropped you off?”
His scowl fades as his eyes slowly widen. “My mother.”
I pause, blinking in surprise. “Bettie? But she knows better. She knows the woods can be dangerous, even for experienced outdoorspeople. She wouldn’t put us in harm’s way to play matchmaker. She just wouldn’t.”
“You really had nothing to do with this?” he asks in a softer voice.
I shake my head. “No! I didn’t. I thought I was going on a climbing trip organized by Wendy Ann’s friend Lilac.”
“I did, too,” he says. “My mom told me about it yesterday, a last-minute chance to get thirty percent off on a?—”
“—a three-day Golden Spire bluffs excursion,” I finish for him. “Yeah, I know. Same.” I drop my head back with a sigh, watching the clouds swirl ominously above the trees. “I let Wendy Ann book it for me. I should have called Lilac myself. I should have known something wasn’t right.” I lift my chin, anger rising inside of me again as I pin Seven with a glare. “I probably would have if I hadn’t been so distracted by my best friend blocking my texts like a huge, fucking asshole. What the hell was that about, Seven? Aren’t you supposed to be the mature one? I mean, you’re always acting like I’m too young to make adult decisions about my romantic life, but I’ve never ghosted someone because I was too chicken to have a conversation.”
His scowl returns. “We don’t have time for this right now. We have to make contact with someone back in town. Get them to pick us up before the storm breaks.” He nods toward my pack. “But we’ll have to use your phone. Mine seems to have mysteriously gone missing. I’m guessing one of my double- crossing family members took it out while I was making coffee this morning.”
My heart lurches. “We can’t.”
His scowl becomes a valley cutting through the middle of his forehead. “What do you mean we can’t ?”
“My cell fell in the toilet at the gas station about twenty miles back,” I say. “Wendy Ann accidentally grabbed mine instead of hers on her way to the bathroom and dropped it in the toilet.” He curses, and I wince. “Yeah, probably not an accident.”
“ Obviously not an accident. It was deliberate. They planned this. They wanted us out here alone with no way to call for help.” He drags his hand through his hair, still damp from his morning shower.
And it’s going to get damper very soon…
The sky rumbles again, the clearing dimming as the clouds thicken, darken.
I glance up, biting my lip. “Okay, first things first. We should put our rain gear on and look for shelter. Maybe there’s something nearby, an old fire tower or abandoned ranger station. I know there used to be some out this way.”
“There’s nothing,” he says, shrugging off his pack and pulling his rain shell from the side pocket. “I know this area. We’re not far from the edge of my property, but until you reach my camp, there’s nothing out here but trees.”
I zip up my own shell, my heart lifting. “Oh, well, that’s not so bad, then. At least they gave us a way out. We can just head to your camp.”
“It’s twenty miles east through dense forest,” he counters, his expression grim. “And once we get there, there’s no landline to call for help.”
My heart sinks again. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” he agrees.
“We’ll be lucky to get through twenty miles of forest before dark. That’s a big day on rough trails, even without rain making the ground soft.”
“Yep,” he says, his lips popping on the “p.”
“And then it’s at least another fifty miles back into town.” My eyes narrow to slits as the urge to strangle my sister rises inside me. “We really are going to be stuck out here for three days. At least.”
“We are,” he says, his jaw clenching as he crouches to pull his rain guard over his pack. “And I only brought enough food for one.”
I squat beside my pack, shifting my glare his way as I do the same. “Oh, and you don’t plan to share? Is that what you’re saying? You not only ghost your friends now, but you also starve them, too?”
“I didn’t ghost you,” he mutters, dropping his gaze to his bungee cords as he ties the rain guard down.
“Oh, no? Sure seemed like ghosting to me.”
“I just needed a break, some time to think,” he says.
“Then, you should have said that,” I shoot back. “I’m not an asshole. I’ve always tried to be respectful of your boundaries. If you needed some time, all you had to do was ask for it.”
“You know it isn’t that simple,” he mutters as he swings his pack onto his shoulders and turns to study the woods behind him.
“Why not?” I demand, struggling with my tangled bungee cords as the wind starts to pick up. “Don’t you feel like you can be honest with me? If so, that doesn’t seem like a me problem, Seven. That seems like a?—”
“Like a me problem?” He whirls on me, his eyes wide and wild. “Yeah, I know, Binx. It is a me problem. It’s a me problem that I can’t stop thinking about you, dreaming about you. It’s a me problem that you’re in my head all the fucking time and keeping my hands off you is becoming impossible. It’s my fault that I wanted to snap Pierce in half for standing too close to you, let alone daring to put his fucking hand on your body. I get that. Believe me, I’m fully fucking aware.”
I stand, gaping at him, my heart racing as another roll of thunder threatens to shake down the sky.
When it’s quiet again, my lips part, but I don’t know what to say, what to do. I only know that I don’t want to scare him away, and he’s clearly poised to bolt.
He was so scared of his feelings that he ghosted me, and that so isn’t Seven.
Maybe that’s why Bettie agreed to do this, because she knew it was the only way to keep her son from running away and ruining his second chance at love.
Love…
Seven might love me, too. Or at least want to touch me as desperately as I want to touch him.
Before I can fully assimilate the immensity of that, the sky opens up.
Hunching my shoulders against the stinging drops, I pull my hood up before hastily finishing securing the rain pouch onto my pack. By the time I stand, Seven is beside me, lifting my backpack into the air with one strong hand, holding it at shoulder height, so it’s easier for me to slip on.
Once I’ve shrugged into the straps, I stare up at him. Rain streams into my face and creeps down into the neck of my shell as I stand there, desperately wanting to tell him that I feel the same way. I can’t stop dreaming about him, either. In fact, sometime in the past year, he’s become my biggest dream, even bigger than becoming a tattoo artist or competing on one of my favorite tattoo-themed reality shows someday.
That sure as hell scares me.
I’ve always been so independent. I changed my name when I was four years’ old, for fuck’s sake. I told my bossy, overbearing mother that I was “Binx” now, not Beatrice, and that I would no longer consent to wear clothes or go potty in the house until everyone in the family got on board. I don’t remember exactly how it all went down, but according to family legend, I stayed outside playing in the mud in the nude for four hours until Mom finally relented and coaxed me into a bath.
That’s who I am.
I’m a woman who is complete in myself, who knows my own mind, and who spent my childhood imagining I was the knight riding off on her horse to slay the dragon, not the princess waiting in her tower to be rescued. The idea that a man has become so central to my happiness is terrifying.
But it’s also beautiful. When I look at Seven, when our eyes meet, I know this is where I belong—with him, by his side, taking on the world together. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.
Now, I guess I have three days to make sure that, by the time we leave the forest, there’s no doubt in his, either.