Chapter 6 #3
“Just not when it comes to opening trapdoors, apparently.” I snort. “You know the door’s probably just locked, right?”
“Locked?” Griffin turns and presses a hand to his chest, his pretty hazel eyes wide. “Ohmigosh, locked. Why… I never considered! What a revolutionary concept! Locked. He doesn’t just drag people out of trees, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Excuse me, we both know I actually did save your ass.”
He scowls but doesn’t argue. “If you must know, there isn’t a lock on the trapdoor,” he mutters. “Not that I’ve found. Yet.”
“Why would Jim hide a lock?” I wonder.
Griffin scowls, but for once, it’s not entirely aimed at me.
“I don’t know! Why the hell would you build a treehouse in the woods in the first place?
Why leave it to a guy you haven’t bothered to contact since he was eight, who didn’t know the house existed until he inherited it?
Why clear out everything because you knew you were getting ready to go to the drum circle in the sky but not warn a person that you were dying? ”
I’m not sure which of us is more shocked that he blurted all that out, but I can tell from the blush staining his face that he immediately regrets it.
“Whatever. Doesn’t matter. Back to the hunt.” He focuses on the bridge. “I think we should—”
“You’re winging it,” I say. “Learning as you go. I get it.”
Griffin’s eyes flash to mine, like he thinks I’m going to mock him.
Instead, I’m thinking about taking over Axford Lumber on my own, trying to figure shit out, feeling like I’d been dropped into a pool so deep I didn’t know which way was up.
Not knowing what I was doing, but not wanting to burden anyone else in my family while they were still reeling over almost losing my dad.
Wanting to demand answers from my father, but not wanting to upset him further.
Hell, I’m still in that place.
Not that I want Griffin or anyone in town to know just how dire the situation is for Axford Lumber. God, no.
Griffin’s situation’s completely different than mine, but it also seems bigger and more overwhelming than I’d considered, and some parts are familiar.
After a second, I say, “I had a great-great-uncle who once built a wooden bridge halfway across the Winsome River, where it crosses the land behind my cabin. Literally, halfway across.” I shake my head.
“When I was a kid, I was convinced there had to be a reason why there was only half a bridge, you know? Like, did a storm wipe out the other half? Did they run out of wood? Did great-uncle-whoever die before he could finish?” I give him a half smile and a shrug.
He blinks. “And?” he says expectantly. “What’d you find out?”
“I didn’t. That’s my point. Guy died long before I was born. Sometimes you don’t get to know why.”
“That… is the worst pep talk I’ve ever heard,” Griffin says wonderingly. “Wow. Like, amazingly bad. Zero out of ten.”
I scratch my beard and shrug. “Now that I hear myself saying it out loud, it’s not as inspiring as I thought.”
His face ripples like he’s not sure what expression he’s supposed to be wearing, and he lets out a helpless laugh that makes me feel things I have no business feeling.
I clear my throat. “So. What’s the plan? We take a picture of the bridge—?”
He straightens his shoulders. “We both have to be in the shot,” he reminds me. “But we get points for creativity, they said. So I say that we take a picture commemorating the lantern guy’s ride.”
That’s actually an excellent plan. And not one I would’ve considered. “It’s not the worst idea ever,” I allow.
Griffin huffs. “You remind me of Milo. God forbid either of you lets me think I know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, where is your sidekick today? Why isn’t he your partner?”
“Because he’s gone to Arizona for work,” Griffin says with a shrug. He sets his camera on the ground facing the bridge, propping it up on a rock and checking the angles.
I frown as I watch him. So he’s living in Jim’s house, dealing with the trapdoor all alone? This makes me feel some kind of way… for no logical reason I can fathom. I mean, fuck, I live alone, and I’m perfectly happy about it. Thrilled, even.
Before I can think about it more, Griffin makes a gimme motion. “Hand over your phone. My camera’s on a timer. I’m going to cross the bridge, holding your phone’s flashlight up like a lantern—”
I pull my phone from my pocket. “Hang on, why you? You said we both have to be in the picture.”
“We will.” Griffin smiles widely. “You’ll be my faithful steed. Get down on all fours, and I’ll ride you.”
I suck in a sharp breath as images slam into my brain—Griffin straddling me, fingers curled in my shirt, head tipped back in that exact way it did when I kissed him. My hands on his hips. His legs wrapped around my—
“I mean r-ride, like a horse!” he blurts, cheeks going crimson so fast I almost hear the sizzle. “Like g-galloping. Trotting. Whinnying. Neeeeiiighhh.”
I let my mouth curve slow and wicked. “I never whinny on the first date, Mercer. That’s a hard neigh from me.”
He squeezes his eyes closed and sucks in a breath through his nose. “I hate you so much.”
“Back atcha,” I say happily, which of course is when the asshole plucks my phone from my hand and runs onto the bridge.
“Hey! Give that back,” I shout, following him.
I’m taller, but I guess his legs must go up to his armpits because he’s genuinely faster than me.
By the time I get to the center of the bridge, he’s already standing there, grinning with my phone held aloft and the flashlight turned on.
I reach up to grab the phone too… and Griffin’s phone camera makes a clicking sound.
“Damn it. We’ll have to reshoot,” he says.
“Like fuck we will. Text the picture, get the next clue,” I instruct, stealing my phone back.
Griffin fetches his own phone, muttering under his breath the whole time about group projects and uncooperative steeds.
Our next clue comes through, and I read it over Griffin’s shoulder. “Where knowledge sleeps in hallowed halls, seek the founder behind brick walls.”
“Library,” we say together, then glare at each other for our synchronicity.
“Specifically, the picture of Elias and Temperance Fletcher, the town founders, which is on the second floor,” I add, grateful for the first time in my life that my second-grade class took a field trip to the library, just so I can see that flash of annoyance in Griffin’s eyes.
Our pattern of one-upmanship continues through our next three clues—which leaves us at three for me and two for him, not that I’m keeping score or anything.
We bicker about everything. Which of us reads the clues and texts the pictures—usually him, since apparently we’re using his phone.
Whether Griffin’s artsy photo ideas are genius or a waste of time.
Who runs in front—me, not only because I know where I’m going but because, as Griffin points out, I make a good battering ram, and the crowds on Whether Street clear out of the way when they see me coming toward them.
Despite all the arguing, though, somehow it’s working.
We’re not friends, but we’re efficiently hostile.
Two stubborn bastards working as a team.
Enemies united by a common cause—in this case, taking down a team of frat bros from Hannabury College that I swear are ringers since I don’t recognize any of them from around town.
For a little while, I forget this guy’s holding my future hostage and find myself having fun.
And I keep noticing things. Like how Griffin’s hair still smells like oranges.
How he gets a crease between his eyes when he’s concentrating on lining up a camera shot.
How his laugh, when it’s genuine, is low and rough and twines itself around my insides.
Then everything goes to shit in a way I should have seen coming.
We’re standing outside the Sugar House after solving riddle five involving a kind of Sassy Bean peach jam that somehow Griffin knew about.
It’s just after 11:00 a.m. Between the bright sun and all our running, we’ve both shed our jackets, and I’m thirsty as fuck, but the frat bros are machines, so I refuse to suggest a break.
Then Griffin’s phone dings with our second-to-last riddle.
“Where spirits meet and shadows play, find the stage of yesterday,” he reads.
I grin. “Easy peasy. Back to the park, city boy. They mean the gazebo at Chapel Island. My sister used to do drama camp there every summer.” I stride off in that direction, and it takes me a full beat to realize Griffin’s not with me.
“What’s the problem?” I demand, turning.
He points at his phone. “Shadows play. They mean a movie theater. Where do you have a movie theater?”
“We don’t.” I scratch the back of my neck. “I mean… I guess they show second-run movies in the community center sometimes, but—”
“That’s it, then. The stage of yesterday. Second-run movies.” His hazel eyes light up eagerly. “Which way is the community center?”
The man is so pretty and so damn wrong. “Stage implies it’s live, buddy. Like theater.”
“Yeah? Which shadows play in the middle of the park, pal?” he shoots back. “They don’t.”
“They do! Because… because the trees make shadows on the ground,” I say smugly. “And spirits meet because… people sometimes meet their friends there.”
He makes a rude scoffing noise. “Unlike at the community center, where, I don’t know, the whole community might meet?”
“You’re overthinking this.”
“Well, you’re underthinking it, which is way worse.”
We’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, voices raised, drawing stares from a bunch of fucking tourists who probably think we’re providing some kind of small-town Vermont street theater experience.
“If we do it your way,” Griffin goes on, chin jutting out in that way that makes me want to kiss him and throttle him at the same time, “and we come in dead last to those college boys because you were too pigheaded and controlling to consider—”
“Me?” I demand. “Oh my god. What about you? You come in here and assume you know—”
“—an alternate way of looking at things—”
“—better than anyone here—”
“—because you’re from the fucking royal family of Winsome—”
“Are you serious right now?” I hiss.
I grab Griffin’s bicep, and despite his squawking, I tow him down the alley between the Sugar House and Fox Creamery, then further, pushing open the gate that leads to the dining area behind Ames’s restaurant. At this hour, the restaurant’s still closed, and there’s not a soul in sight.
“Once again, you have no idea what you’re talking about, Mercer. I work my ass off to keep my family’s business going—”
“You’re trying to keep your business going by taking over Jim’s land! All you care about is maintaining your own wealth and reputation! You think because I don’t have family money and connections, I’m some weakling you can use as a pawn!”
I legitimately have no idea where this is coming from. All my “wealth” is tied up in land owned by my family’s LLC. I don’t have a reputation—not one that’s worth a damn, anyway, which is why I’m participating in this farce of a scavenger hunt.
A distant part of me is clanging a warning bell that I need to calm down. To ask questions. To be rational. But somehow… fuck. I can’t let it go.
“You’re wrong. You could not be more wrong,” I tell him. My voice comes out low and deep, rough enough to scrape. More like a growl than actual words. “I’m not trying to use you for anything. And I don’t think you’re weak!”
“Yeah, right—”
“I think you’re stubborn as fuck! I think you’re fucking infuriating. And I think you’re… you’re beautiful.”
The words hang in the air between us, almost tangible, and I immediately want to take them back.
One of these things is not like the other.
Griffin scowls and shuts his mouth so quickly his teeth clack together. His hazel eyes search mine, looking for the joke or the hidden insult.
Later, I’ll think back on this and wonder if this was the moment when I could have played it off. Stepped back, defused things.
Or maybe it was already too late.
Because when Griffin opens his mouth and utters a single confused “Beckett…?” I don’t make a conscious choice to step toward him…
I simply do.