Chapter 46 Maya
MAYA
Iwas ninety percent sure the pale Icelandic sunlight filtering through the hotel dining-room windows was giving me superpowers. Mostly because I’d already eaten two croissants and was seriously contemplating a third.
I was making love eyes at the basket full of pastries, when Nate put his fork down. “Do you remember the fish?”
I glanced up, confused. “What fish?”
“On the Neuse. You were maybe nine or ten. Dan, Brody and Jensen and me in your dad’s boat.”
The memory surfaced slowly, hazy at first, then sharpening. I smiled. “Oh god. The fish.”
“Yeah.” He leaned back in his chair, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Tell me what you remember.”
“I remember you lot were useless. Dan couldn’t row straight. Brody’s line was tangled in something. Jensen had already eaten all our snacks.”
“All accurate.”
“And we’d been out there for ages catching absolutely nothing, and then this huge fish just launched itself out of the water and landed in the boat.”
“Airborne,” Nate said. “Just came out of the river like a missile and hit the floor of the boat. Two feet long, at least. Tail going everywhere, smacking into shins, flipping around like it was possessed.”
“Brody screamed.”
“Like someone had set him on fire. Jensen dropped his rod in the river. Dan jumped up so fast the whole boat rocked, and I thought we were going in.”
We both laughed, then he shook his head. “Four teenage boys, losing our minds over a fish.” Then his smile faded. “And what did you do, Maya?”
A small frown creased my brow. Why was he so serious all of a sudden? “I grabbed it.”
“That’s right. You just grabbed it.” His voice was quieter now. “This little ten-year-old kid in pigtails and Barbie shorts leaned forward, got both hands around the thing while it was still thrashing, and smacked it against the side of the boat. Once. Done.”
I could almost feel it. The wet, muscular weight of it in my hands. The slap of the impact. The sudden stillness afterward, and four boys staring at me like I’d pulled a pin from a grenade and put it back.
“Well, everyone was freaking out. What was I meant to do?”
“Exactly. Everyone else froze, and you handled it on pure instinct. No fear, no hesitation.” He held my gaze. “And what did I do?”
My frown deepened. “Um, you took the fish from me, I think?”
“Yeah. And then I said, Nice one, Slayer.”
A glowy feeling settled around my heart. “That’s right, you did. And all the boys laughed and started calling me Slayer too. All because I killed a fish.”
“It wasn’t the fish murder that earned the name.”
I blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
He leaned back and slid his hands into his pockets.
“Look, I was fourteen, playing a lot of video games. I’d been playing this particular one all summer where you could pick a character class.
I had my favorite. Fastest in the game. No armor, no shield.
The one who runs in while everyone else is still figuring out what to do.
” He shrugged. “No fear, only action. That class was called the Slayer.”
The dining room hummed quietly around us. Cutlery on plates, a murmured conversation from the family by the window. And me, sitting across from Nate with the sudden, disorienting realization that a nickname I’d carried my whole life meant something I’d never understood before.
“When I first came back to Esperance, that girl had vanished.” His voice was quiet. Serious. “And yeah, sure, jumping off a waterfall, or taking a last-minute trip to Iceland. That’s a good start. I’d say it’s a great start, even.”
His eyes held mine across the table with a steadiness that made my breath catch.
“But I think you can do better.” He picked up his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and slid it across the table.
“What’s this?”
“Read it, Maya.”
I dropped my gaze to his phone. A booking page. For a zip line. Across a canyon.
My pulse thudded in my ears and my fingers had gone cold around the phone.
The photos blurred slightly as I scrolled, my thumb unsteady.
A grated metal platform bolted to the edge of a jagged cliff.
A canyon floor so far below it looked like a satellite image.
The description at the top of the page boasted a two-kilometer span.
It included words like extreme, fast, and not suitable for anyone with a fear of heights.
Just staring at the screen gave me a phantom drop in my belly.
“Two spots, available at noon.” He took a sip of his coffee like he’d just shown me a lunch menu.
My stomach fell through the floor.
“Your call, Slayer.” His voice was maddeningly calm. “Stay on the ground and play it safe. Or step off the edge.”
I stared at the images. The platform. The cables. The height.
I could hand the phone back. Order more coffee. Tell him maybe tomorrow, or maybe something else, or maybe let’s just go back to the hot springs instead.
Or I could be who Nate believed me to be.
I tapped confirm before I could talk myself out of it.
The little green checkmark appeared on the screen and my heart kicked so hard against my ribs that I pressed my hand flat against my chest.
Something flashed in his eyes, too fast to catch. “Good girl.”
“Okay.” My voice came out thin and breathless and slightly unhinged. “Okay. I just did that.”
“You just did that.”
“I’m going to zip line across a canyon.”
“You are.”
“Today. In three hours.”
“Yep.”
I pushed his phone back across the table and picked up my coffee with both hands, to hide the fact that they were trembling. The coffee was cold. I drank it anyway.
“Cool,” I said. “Cool cool cool. This is fine. I’m fine.”
Nate’s mouth twitched. “You look fine.”
“Shut up.”
He smiled and stole a piece of my croissant.
* * *
Okay. Fuck. This was so much worse than the photos.
Nate pulled into the lot at the zipline and killed the engine.
My legs went completely numb. The gorge cut through the landscape like something had torn the earth apart and never bothered to put it back together.
A small metal platform sat bolted to the cliff edge, with two steel cables reaching across the gap and disappearing into the distance.
“How long have we got?” Oh, no squeaky voice. Thank god for small mercies, I guess.
“About twenty minutes.”
I nodded.
The engine ticked as it cooled. I stared through the windshield, twisting my fingers in my lap.
Nate shifted in his seat, the leather creaking in the quiet cab. “Are you regretting this?” His voice soft enough that it didn’t startle me.
I shook my head, though my stomach was doing backflips.
“Not regretting. Just thinking about how I got here. How long it took me to finally do something terrifying.” I swallowed hard.
Dragged in a breath. Hesitated for a moment.
But Nate had confessed his deepest secret to me.
Now it was my turn. “You know, when I finished high school, I got offered a partial scholarship. Out of state.”
He reached over and took my hand, linking his fingers through mine. “I didn’t know that.”
“It was a really good opportunity.” I kept my eyes on the canyon.
“But I couldn’t imagine being that far from Mom and Dad.
From Dan. From my friends. Esperance was everything I knew, and leaving it felt like losing it, so I turned it down.
” I traced the knuckles of his hand. “Nobody really talks about it anymore. It was just a thing that happened. Or didn’t happen, more like. A sensible decision.”
I let out a shaky exhale and leaned my head back against the seat.
“That’s what I told myself, anyway. So I went to the local college instead and got my ranger qualification.
” I paused, letting the silence stretch for a beat.
“And then one of my professors put me forward for this incredible position at a national park in Colorado. Competitive, prestigious. The kind of job people fight for, you know?” My shoulders lifted in a shrug.
“I turned that down too. Told myself I wasn’t ready. ”
Nate stayed quiet beside me. There were no empty platitudes, none of that You’re being too hard on yourself. Just him, grounding me and letting me know he was right there with me.
“Then Brody told me about an opening at the park. I applied, got it, and I’ve been there ever since.” My thumb ran along his. “And I love it. I do. But sometimes I wonder...”
I let the thought trail off, the memory of a little velvet box suddenly heavy in the space between us.
“The worst part is that living like that, constantly playing it safe, it eventually bleeds out. It starts having consequences for other people.”
Nate tilted his head, his eyes searching mine. “How do you mean?”
Okay, here goes. The worst part of the whole fucking thing.
“You know I dated a guy called Trevor, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he was the ultimate safe choice. Poor Trev. He didn’t really deserve to be collateral damage in my quarter-life crisis.” My lips twisted in a wry smile.
“What happened?”
“We were at his parents’ house for dinner one night.
His mom asked what we had planned for the summer, and Trevor said, ‘Oh, Maya’s not really an adventure person.
We’ll probably just do some weekends at the lake.
’” I paused. “And he wasn’t being mean. That’s the thing.
He was smiling when he said it. He genuinely believed it, because that’s who I’d been for the entire time he knew me.
Easy. Uncomplicated. Happy to stay in on a Friday night and watch whatever was on TV. ”
Nate’s fingers tightened around mine.