Chapter 23
“Come on, we’re going this way,” I say, jerking my head to the side. Erin glares down the path I want to take her and then glances back where the others are walking.
She arches her brow.
“I’ve heard about your pranks from Griff and Oliver,” she says, eyes narrowing. “I know you all get involved and there’s an award for the best one at the end of the season.”
“All of that is correct, but it’s between the guys. I promise you’ll be safe from the war.”
Her eyes narrow even more.
“Fine, but if a bear attacks us in those woods…”
“I will gladly throw my body in front of you and let it maul me. I’ll die a happy man if your face is the last thing I see.”
She snorts. “You better be as fast on your feet as you are on skates and haul our asses out of there. Piggyback or bridal style, I have no preference as long as we make it out alive.”
“Throwing you over my shoulder would be faster.”
“Noted,” she responds, and that one word hits me low.
And now I have to fight off images of Erin draped over me, hot breath on my neck and fingers digging into me. Not because we’re escaping a bear, but because I’m carrying her straight to my bed.
The path narrows, and the forest settles around us. Erin’s shoes crunch over the twigs and dried leaves, and a squirrel darts past us and scurries up a tree. A breeze pushes around, the leaves whispering to one another as we pass them.
When we cross a shallow river, I count down from ten in my head.
Her footsteps slow, and a gasp leaves her. The waterfall pours ahead. I follow her gaze to the blankets spread out near the food basket and the new book she added to her Tbr last week.
“Oh, Chase…”
The corners of my mouth lift at the sound of her voice, even before I meet her gaze.
“Is this what you’ve been doing this morning while I was asleep?” she asks, turning to face me.
“I know work’s been intense,” I say, watching her take it in, mesmerized. “I wanted to get you away somewhere where Angela couldn’t reach you. The middle of the woods felt appropriate.”
“I’m sorry I was late to your game yesterday,” she says as she lowers herself onto the blankets. I follow her lead.
“I’m not angry,” I say, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face, my touch lingering for just a moment.
“I thought when nothing really bad happened after Finn showed up, Angela had gotten over it,” Erin explains as she pulls a blanket over her lap.
“Maybe this is the delayed reaction I wasn’t expecting.
She’s being difficult because my boy—” She stops suddenly.
Her eyes go wide, and her cheeks flame a deep crimson color.
I grin and lean closer to her.
“Your what, Bookworm?”
“Uh, because my brand-new department got some money, and she’s just salty,” she blurts out.
Nice save, baby. I’ll be your boyfriend soon enough.
“Hmm. Maybe,” I say, sparing her while opening the basket. “Now, let’s eat.”
I toss the bag of Jelly Tots to her first and then lift out a potato salad, two different flavors of nacho chips, three dips, some grapes, mini slices of cheese, and a bag of M&Ms.
We eat, laugh, and I tell her the crazy things Jack and I got up to when we used to come out here. While she listens to the stories, I can’t shake the thought of how much I could get used to this.
She folds her legs underneath her, and her fingers play with the ends of her sleeves, and I know there’s a thought pressing on her mind.
“I almost told Bella what I saw happen to my dad.”
A pang of empathy strikes through me because I know she’s been trying to pluck up the courage to talk to her sister for a while now. We’ve talked about it over the last few weeks, especially now that Rudy’s back in her life.
“But we’re in the middle of a campsite, and she was giddy over Brodie asking her to move in. I couldn’t do it.”
“The right moment will come, sweetheart. And if you want me to be there with you, I will.”
“How have things been going with the Elliot and Laurel investigation?” she asks, pivoting.
“This isn’t exactly the birthday conversation I had in mind when I set this up, Bookworm.”
“Tell me anyway,” she says with a shrug.
“There’s been nothing new,” I say.
“I had a theory, but I don’t want to overstep,” she says in a sheepish tone, like she’s worried what she’ll say will rock the boat.
While this is definitely not the wooing I anticipated for, talking to Erin about Elliot and the past soothes me.
I place my hand over hers.
“You could never. Tell me your thoughts,” I murmur.
“Roger said the social worker told him my dad died in a car accident. It made me wonder if he was lying just to hurt me. Or if that’s what someone told him.”
She stares down at the empty nacho bag, her voice quiet and delicate.
“None of the social workers or cops ever talked to me about my father. It was like they didn’t think they needed to because there was never any indication I was there that night and saw what happened. Sometimes I wonder if that whole night was planned. Like…a hit.”
“I think someone’s been reading one too many mafia books,” I say with a playful chuckle.
“Maybe,” she says, but there’s a seriousness behind those pretty brown eyes.
“The man with the tattoo who came for me—I think he worked for the woman who shot my dad. Maybe she sent him to cover up what really happened. To make sure no one asked questions.”
She looks up at me then, eyes focused and a little hesitant.
“What if while you’ve been trying to find answers, someone who doesn’t want you to have them has been working just as hard to keep them buried?”
I blow out a slow breath.
“It certainly feels that way sometimes,” I admit as her words sink in. “I just don’t know who that could be, why they would do that, or how it ties back to Jack. But I guess those are the million-dollar questions.”
“Maybe we’ll find the answers in one of my many mafia books,” she says, trying to lighten the mood. I find that it does, but underneath the teasing, an unspoken understanding passes between us.
We aren’t strangers to loss. We know what it’s like for our past to crawl out from the darkest corners of our minds and grab hold of us by the throat. We know how it feels to be helpless and afraid. To blame ourselves for things we couldn’t stop or change.
When Erin talks about her father, I see that eight-year-old little girl, terrified, hidden, and forced to carry the weight of a secret far too heavy for her tiny frame.
And when I talk about Elliot, the way she looks at me, it’s not pity or sympathy. It’s recognition. It’s understanding.
The pain forged from our losses will always be there. I have no doubt it’ll bounce between being loud and forceful while also lingering like a dull ache. But, despite the pain, we’ve survived the things that should have broken us.
When her hand stretches out to cover mine, I feel everything she’s communicating without words deep in my bones. She doesn’t need to say it out loud. We both already know.
We’re each other’s safe place to land.
I’m grateful for that. For her. For these moments we get to share where instead of our grief isolating us or making us push the other away, it binds us closer together like a purposeful knot holding firm, strong, and steady.
I can face the waves, dredge through them, and navigate to shore without fear of being caught in the riptide and pulled under.
Because of her.
We head back to camp when the air turns a little colder and find the others in the lake. Erin heads to her tent and exits a few minutes later with a book and fresh bag of Jelly Tots I know Rudy hid under her pillow.
Rudy and Oliver wrestle in the water, and Erin chuckles and lets out a whoop in support of her brother as the two grown hockey men tackle each other.
“Get in here. The water’s great,” Austin comments from where he is, happily floating.
“I’m cool he—ahh.”
My body topples off the jetty, hitting the water with a full force of a slap and stealing the breath from my lungs.
Muffled laughter rings out above me. When I push up, Erin’s bouncing on her toes, hands over her mouth, giggling.
Her laughter is like listening to my favorite song on the highest volume, and I don’t ever want to turn it down.
“Not cool, Bookworm,” I say, shaking my head as I swim against the water and reach for the jetty.
She steps forward and offers her hand.
Rookie mistake, sweetheart.
I wrap my hand around hers, light at first, and then my grip tightens. Her eyes pop when I shoot her a wolfish grin.
Tug.
She screeches and gracefully falls forward into me, her splash elegant. When she emerges and flicks her hair out of her face, the sweet laughter that spills out of her wraps me up, and when her dimple pops, I want to bring her closer, claim her as mine, and stay this way with her forever.
We lounge in the water for a little while longer before we climb out to dry off.
The blue sky eventually turns into a black night, and the stars climb and litter it. They’re putting on their best performance tonight, and I’m glad everyone else has already turned in for the evening.
The fire crackles beside us, sparks spiraling into the night sky. Erin’s in my hoodie, and it’s like it’s just the two of us in the world tonight.
“Erin?”
She turns, the firelight painting her skin gold as hair spills off her shoulder.
“Can I take you on that date?”
She’s quiet and thoughtful. The fact that she hasn’t stood up and bolted from me fills me with hope, even though I’m holding my breath waiting for her to answer.
And fuck, I have no idea what I’m going to do if she says no, because I think if she rejects me again after how far we’ve come, I think I might just break.
But at the same time, if she were to rip my heart out, I’d still be here for her in whatever capacity she’d have me—because being without her is not an option I can live with.
When a single tear falls, I catch it with my thumb.
“Let me in, Erin, I’ll protect your heart with everything I have, I swear it. You just have to give me a chance, baby. Please.”
“You don’t understand.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “There’s not one single part of me that believes you would hurt me.” She pauses. “It’s the opposite.”
“Talk to me.”
“I’ve been running my whole life, Chase.
” She shakes her head. “And I know my mom’s the reason I’ve been ignoring what exists between us.
I’ve been so afraid that if I give in, I’ll hurt you—like she hurt my dad.
The idea of you in pain because of me… I can’t stomach it. It makes it so hard for me to breathe.”
Her confession takes all the air out of my lungs. She cares about me so much, but she’s afraid to fall because of her shitty mother.
“It doesn’t have to hurt, baby,” I whisper.
“I’m so scared, Chase.”
“I know you would never hurt me. I know who you are, Erin. I see you, and only you, and you’re not her.”
If only she could see what I do. It kills me that she’s fought so hard to keep me at a distance, to keep me from loving her the way she deserves.
“Let me love you, Erin. Trust that there isn’t anyone else that will love every tender part of you more than me.
I told you once, and I’ll tell you a hundred times a day if I have to.
You’re mine, sweetheart. Have been the second you crashed into me at Hendrick’s Bar.
Always will be. I’m in it for the long haul.
And I’m willing to wait for as long as it takes for you to believe that. I can be patient, baby.”
She dips her chin.
My body braces for impact as it prepares for my heart to be torn to shreds by the girl I’ve fallen for, telling me she doesn’t want me.
“I thought… I thought she made it impossible for me to feel, but you make me feel so damn much that I don’t know what to do with it all.
You make me feel everything, Chase. You make me feel safe.
The kind of safe I felt when my dad would hug me.
The kind of safe I felt when Judge Hopper announced the Silvers as my legal guardians.
Spending time with you feels like coming home, Chase.
I do believe you, and I don’t want to run from you anymore. ”
I drop my forehead to hers, a long breath leaving me as a wide grin takes over my face.
“You couldn’t have led with that?” I ask, a short chuckle slipping out.
She ducks her head. “Was this more like the conversation you had in mind?”
“I’ve thought about this day for a long time,” I say, cupping her face, my palm smoothing over her skin. “And now that it’s here, it’s better than I ever hoped. I promise I won’t move too fast. I’ve wanted this for so long, baby. But I swear, I’ll be the perfect gentleman.”
“I know you will,” she whispers.
“So, just for clarification…” I trail off, lips tipping up into a smirk.
“Yeah,” she says, a small laugh in her voice, “I’d love to go on a date with you, Chase.”
And just like that, I think birthdays have officially become my new favorite holiday.