Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
MAGNOLIA
I got out of my car at Dupree Ranch and made my way down the trail toward the obstacle training course, a pit in my stomach. I still didn’t understand everything. But after talking with Griffin, who’d tried to be even more tight-lipped than Bowen, I understood enough.
As I walked around the last bend and Bowen came into view, bare-chested as always, my heart ached.
“Yes! Attagirl!” He punched his fists to the sky as Sophie flew across the rings. “You’re killing it. Keep going!”
Sophie flung herself off the last ring and stuck the landing with gymnast-like precision, arms thrust to the sky. “I am unstoppable!”
Bowen tackled her in a hug, lifting her off the ground. “I told you, you just needed to figure out your momentum.” There was so much joy in his voice that it didn’t sound like the Bowen I’d come to know.
I smiled, happy to see him so happy.
He set her on her feet, grinning proudly.
“You did.” She bounced on her toes. “I wanna try again.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s do it.”
Sophie spotted me and waved. “Hey, Maggie!”
“Hey.” I smiled. “I see you got the rings. Congrats.”
“Yup, thanks to Bowen.” She beamed at her brother and took off for the stack of tractor tires that were a ladder to the rings.
Bowen turned, all the joy gone from his expression. “Sup,” he said, barely acknowledging me. Like last night had never happened. But I could see the embarrassment in his eyes.
“Hey.” I walked over, leaving ten feet between us. Really, I wanted to pull him into a tight hug and caress the embarrassment away.
“Are you ready to run?” he asked, like some kind of monotone robot, devoid of any emotion.
Which normally would’ve hurt since I’d just seen him so excited for Sophie. But now that I knew what I knew, I wouldn’t take it personally.
“I will be.” I grabbed my foot, pulling it behind me, stretching my left quad.
“All right,” Sophie said, a gleam in her eyes as she gripped the second ring, skipping the first altogether.
Bowen moved closer, fingers drilling against his legs. He tracked her every movement, ready to catch her if need be. Bowen was a protector. Of people and hearts. That’s what I was learning.
The only hearts he hadn’t been able to protect until now were his and mine. It was clear it had been eating him up inside. But today, I was going to unlock his cage and set him free.
“Here I go!” Sophie dropped off the edge of the tires, swinging back and forth, arms alternating in a perfect rhythm.
Bowen moved with her. “Keep going, keep going. You’ve got this.”
Silas and Lemon jogged up. They watched her proudly.
When she reached for the last ring, her fingers slipped, but Bowen was there to catch her. She landed in his arms perfectly.
“Dang it,” she huffed as he set her on her feet.
“You were so close,” Silas said.
“She already got it twice,” Bowen said proudly.
Lemon wrapped her in a hug. “Great job, sweetie.”
“I wanna go again.” Sophie headed for the rings.
Bowen caught her arm. “I think your hands are tired. Why don’t you run your laps and try again when you’re done?”
“Good plan.” Silas tipped his head to the trail. “You ready?” he asked Sophie. Silas and Sophie were race partners. Normally, Lemon would’ve been training with Griff but he wasn’t back from work yet.
Sophie’s shoulders dropped. “Okay. But I’m nailing those rings when I’m done.”
“Yeah, you are.” Bowen held up his hands for a double high five, which she happily gave him.
Then she took off at an easy jog with her parents.
“It’s so fun, Dad,” she said as they headed further into the woods. “Once you get it.”
Like Silas, Bowen tipped his head, inviting me to follow. “You coming?”
“In a minute.” I folded my arms, feet rooted to the ground. “I need to talk to you first. About yesterday.”
He folded his arms, expression guarded. “Okay?”
The rush of blood in my ears was deafening—my heart racing like it was trying to outrun something. This conversation probably. But it had to happen.
I licked my lips and forced myself to look him in the eye. “I talked to Griffin last night.” Confronted him really.
“Did you tell him?” Every muscle in Bowen’s chest, neck, and shoulders flexed like he would sprint home at the speed of light, pack his bags, and leave the country if need be.
“No. I told you I wouldn’t.”
He exhaled.
This was going to be the hard part. Right here. “But we talked about why you’ve been so horrible to me, and he admitted that he made you lie about going to UVA. And that he wasn’t covering for you. You were covering for him. So I wouldn’t find out it was his idea.”
He said nothing, just propped his hands on his hips, eyes hooded, waiting for the rest.
So I continued. “He admitted that you’ve been mean to me because he told you, you’d better make sure I think you’re a douchebag—so I’d never want to even be friends with you.”
He glanced away, his jaw pulsing. “Why would he do that?”
“Because I told him I was going to break up with him if he didn’t tell me the freaking truth.”
Bowen’s face went pale.
I stepped closer, looking him in the eye.
“This nonsense has to stop. I won’t do it another day.
” I made my voice firm. “I have no desire to be part of a family—even as a girlfriend—where my boyfriend is downright hateful to his brother because he’s insecure.
” My disgust escaped with a huff. “It’s toxic and unhealthy and I can’t be a part of it. I won’t.”
He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “He’s just…you don’t…he…he’s….” His hands tugged at his hair, and he turned around, his back making a wall between us. “What else did he tell you?”
“Just that he’s been insecure and that he manipulated you. Told you not to even breathe in my direction when we were at school.”
He said nothing, his silence written in the strained lines of his back, every flex making my heart stutter. The urge to hug him overwhelmed me, but I kept my arms at my side. He did not want a hug. Not from me. His body language told me that.
“Bowen,” I whispered. When he didn’t respond, I put a hand on his shoulder, gently turning him toward me.
His face was guarded, but his eyes flickered with a raw, awkward vulnerability, like he wished the ground would swallow him whole.
“You don’t deserve what Griffin has put you through. Or what you’ve put yourself through.”
His chin lifted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell me.”
“Why do you even care?” I’d embarrassed him, which was exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I sighed. “Because I do. Any decent person would. But also, because I’ve been the recipient of your efforts to keep your brother happy, and let me tell you, being collateral damage sucks.” I almost didn’t get the last word out.
The first tear I ever shed for Bowen Dupree streaked down my cheek. As I wiped it away, something in him broke too. Two years of silence and steel, undone in an instant.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, eyes wide, expression pleading.
“Save it.” My voice trembled. “It’s too little, too late.”
His hands flew out. “What do you want me to do? How can I make it up to you?”
“I’ll tell you what I told Griffin. If you’re snarky, one more time, or rude, cold, cutting, indifferent, pretend I don’t exist, or any of the other hurtful things you’ve done to appease him?
I walk.” I tossed my thumb back over my shoulder toward the path that led to my car.
“So help me, I am not kidding. We will run this as friends, or I’ll quit. The race. Griff. All of it.”
“Friends?” he asked in a tone that said he was terrified.
“Yes, friends.” I cocked an eyebrow, letting him know I meant every word. “Just like a normal boyfriend’s brother would be. The same way you’re friends with Charlie or Cash.”
“Okay. But…” He rubbed his chin, studying me. “How are we going to be friends when you’re still really mad at me? Or hurt? Or…whatever?”
“You’re right. I am all of those things, and I might be for a l-long time,” I choked.
“We went to the same university and I wasn’t allowed to even speak to you.
” Another stupid tear fell. “You saved my life and I couldn’t talk to you about it after.
All that time we were in Charlottesville, we could’ve hung out or at least been cordial—but no.
And now it’s over. There’s no going back.
” I lifted the hem of my tank and wiped my eyes.
“Do you have any idea how much that sucked?”
“Yes,” he said in a hush. “It sucked for me too. That’s why I made you the pictures.”
I nodded, eyes swimming. “Well, that’s something at least.”
He held his hand out for me to shake. “Do over?”
He could not be serious. A dumb handshake wouldn’t erase what he’d done—and I gave him a stare that said so.
“Hi, I’m Bowen,” he tried anyway. “Griffin’s brother.” He shoved his hand closer. “Architecture major and proud Cavalier.”
I shook my head.
He slid his palm against mine, and my knees threatened to buckle. It felt like the earth tilted slightly and I tripped toward him. But I caught myself, making my hand limp in his. He might be able to crack other girls with a single moment of sweetness, but I was not other girls.
He lifted our hands up and down, forcing the shake. “‘I’m Griffin’s girlfriend, Magnolia,’” he said, doing a terrible high-pitched impression of me. “Pre-med. I’m going to be a thoracic surgeon someday. Or a hematologist-oncologist. I’m still deciding.”
I wouldn’t laugh. Not even with his horrible girl voice. I let my hand drop to my side.
He popped his pecs and flexed his biceps, not giving up. “I bleed orange and blue!” he yelled. “Come on. Say it.”
“I bleed orange and blue,” I muttered, mechanical and hollow.
He pounded his chest and screamed, “Wah-hoo-wah!” Then he broke into a grin. It was the first genuine smile he’d given me since the day we met, and it felt like a sunrise after the darkest, storm-filled night. “Your turn.”
“Wah-hoo-wah,” I said softly, fighting a smile.
He got right in my face, expression intense. “Wah-hoo-wah! Come on, Magnolia. Do it with me. Fists ready! We have lost time to make up for!”
I rolled my eyes but laughed. He wasn’t going to quit until I gave him what he wanted.
So I got my fists ready, inhaled, and then, together, we pounded our chests and yelled, “Wah-hoo-wah! Wah-hoo-wah! Wah-hoo-WAH!”
It became our war cry.
Every time we stood at the imaginary start line of the trail, we’d yell it. Every time we threw a spear and it landed. Every obstacle we nailed. Every inside joke. Every text goodnight. Every good morning phone call.
Every whispered dream.
No matter how hard I tried not to, once his walls were down and I got to see who he really was…
I fell in love with Bowen Dupree one wah-hoo-wah at a time.