Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
MARIAM
O n a chilly Saturday morning, I was feeling all the fall vibes as I packed the last of my things into boxes and bags. Outside my bedroom window, leaves were rustling in the breeze. Yellow, red, orange, and brown swept down the street as they fell to make way for new growth in the spring.
I took a deep breath in and out, memorizing the view from inside the apartment that was no longer mine.
That’s right. I, Mariam Walker, am officially without a permanent home address.
My heart gave an uncomfortable thud.
From now on, all my mail would be going to my parents’ place, and when I was back here in Austin, I would be staying in my old room at the house I’d once shared with Gemma. But I’d be there as a guest.
My lungs tried to stop working. What have I done?
My last business trip with Gemma had come and gone, the ink on the contract of sale for my half of the company was dry, and all around me, indents in the carpets and taped-up boxes were proof that I wasn’t hallucinating. I’d actually done it.
I’d given it all up in favor of moving—temporarily—to Sun Valley, Idaho. My parents had taken a trip there for their anniversary when I’d been a kid, and upon their arrival back home, the pictures they’d shown me had made it the first place I’d added to my very own Bucket List.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, my half-brother, Brian, had also fallen in love with the place. Since he was older than me though, the ass had beat me to it. In spectacular fashion, actually.
I still can’t believe it.
Brian had gone to Sun Valley, but instead of moving on as I planned to do, he’d decided to plant himself right there. He’d gone and bought a house in the location of my first Bucket List destination and now he was even starting a business there.
Along with his mysterious business partner, he was opening a new ski resort, and as soon as he’d heard I was considering the nomad life, he’d asked me to come help them out. They would be opening right before Christmas, the busy season for tourists in Sun Valley, and he’d promised it would be the perfect start to my travel adventures.
I groaned, hanging my head as I tried to steady my breathing. This was not me. I wanted it to be, but it just wasn’t.
Gemma was the free spirit of our group, a good girl herself, but with a carefree nature that had always allowed her to follow her heart without reassessing everything seventeen times. Laurel was the creative, the hometown sweetheart who never put a foot wrong and wrote romance novels for a living. She owned a cute little bookstore in Franklin, Tennessee, and spent her nights writing with her Golden Retriever, Doodle, by her side.
Me?
Spreadsheets were my one true love, closely followed by lists and beautifully written, clearly defined rules. Throwing caution to the wind was an alien concept to me.
Or it had been before I’d thrown all the caution ever into that crisp fall breeze outside and watched it scatter my carefully laid plans for the future like those leaves. On the cusp of hyperventilating, I forced my chin to lift and my shoulders to square, my spine to straighten and oxygen to shoot to my lungs.
This wasn’t me, but that was the whole damn point.
A bit of fear was natural under the circumstances. I wouldn’t have been human if I wasn’t feeling a healthy dose of trepidation right about now, but I wasn’t going to spend the next chapter of my life second-guessing myself.
First and foremost, I had always been a scholar. Learning was my jam, and this? This journey was going to be a learning curve unlike any I’d ever experienced.
Grabbing the tape off the floor, I sealed up the last few boxes with refreshed vigor and determination, then carried them to the door. A moving company would be coming to take these last few things to my storage unit later today and they would turn the keys over to Gemma when they were done.
As I straightened up, a banging knock fell against my door and I grinned, nervous as all hell but looking forward to becoming a badass rather than a timid, homebound little mouse. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, okay?
Gemma shot me an excited smile as I opened the door. “Are you ready? We’ve got twenty-five hours in the car ahead of us. Please tell me you’re ready.”
“I’m ready.” I picked up the backpack I’d left by the door earlier and grabbed the handle of my wheeled suitcase. “Let’s do this.”
She winked before she reached past me to grab the duffel bag remaining on the floor. “Do you need a minute to say goodbye, or?—”
“I’m good.” I smiled my thanks at her, both for the offer and for carrying my other bag, and then I stepped out of the apartment, shutting the door with a decisive click behind me. “I’ve already had the obligatory mental meltdown this morning. The only thing left is turning in my keys and grabbing some coffee on our way out of town.”
“Let’s do it.” She followed me to the elevator, singing under her breath all the way down the hall.
The sound brought a grin to my lips. It was a sure taste of home I would certainly miss, Gemma’s constant singing and humming. For a little while before our last work trip to New York together, she’d stopped doing it.
Silence around her had been creepy and a definite sign that something was up, but then she’d completed her first Naughty List item—which she’d renamed to her New Me list—and suddenly, the music was back.
I suppose making out with a national megastar who’s hotter than the sun would do that to a girl.
After the elevator dropped us off in the lobby, I strode over to slide my keys into my super’s mailbox as we’d agreed, and it felt like I was dropping a large weight that had been holding me back. I breathed a sigh of relief when it was gone, the keys falling with a metallic clang to the bottom of the box.
One step closer.
Gemma opened the main doors, holding them for me to join her, and we made our way to my car. Once we were outside, I, for one, enjoyed the balmy fall air around here one last time, knowing that Sun Valley was going to be freezing freaking cold already.
Brian had been sending me some pics and dear lord, it was already snowy over there. Mid-November in Austin was like a tropical island in comparison to the wintery scenes in my brother’s photographs.
But I was even looking forward to that, in a way. I would be there to help him out until the end of January, and that meant I would get to experience actual seasons.
Honestly, my biggest worry was that my outerwear wouldn’t hold up to the cold. My teeth sank into my lips as I wondered if we should stop to get a new jacket.
“Snap out of it,” Gemma commanded laughingly after we’d stashed all my things in the trunk. “Come on, girl. Look alive. Get excited. You’re about to go on a road trip with your bestie to kick off the greatest adventure of your life. Stop looking like we’re part of a funeral procession.”
“It’s not not a funeral procession,” I started, but then I sighed and collapsed into my car, drawing in a full, slow breath and exhaling it before I reached for my seatbelt and buckled up. “I’ve had a whole life here that I’m saying goodbye to, but that being said, I meant what I said upstairs. I am ready. I am excited. I’m just also about to pee myself because of the nerves.”
She laughed, buckling up. “Should we buy you some adult diapers before we leave town?”
“No, but be prepared to make a lot of stops.” I checked for oncoming traffic and eased onto the road, focusing on getting us safely to where we were going rather than thinking about what I was leaving behind.
Thankfully, Gemma was coming with me for now. We’d decided to make a fun trip of the drive, and once we got there, she’d help me move into my condo before she’d be on the first flight back here. I was grateful to have her by my side, especially since I still felt guilty about leaving her with all our work.
“Are you sure?—”
She didn’t even let me ask the question, shutting me down with a fierce eye roll—and Gemma could do that fiercely—before she changed the topic. “Have you made any progress on the first item of your list?”
“Having a one-night stand?” I laughed. “Sure, between flying to New York with you, packing up my entire life, making arrangements to start over, but only temporarily in Idaho, and tying up all the loose ends, I had a quick hookup.”
She sighed. “Orgasms are good for the soul, Mimi. Seriously. A proper shagging would’ve been good for all this stress you’re carrying around.”
“A proper shagging ?” I glanced at her. “Have you been watching British TV shows again?”
She shrugged. “What? Sometimes, I like my dirty talk classy.”
“Only sometimes?” I chuckled, shaking my head but quickly forgetting all about how nervous I had been earlier.
Gemma succeeded in keeping me out of my head, and we had a blast as we put mile after mile between us and our hometown. I always had a good time with her. Everyone did.
We talked and laughed, reminiscing about the ninth-grade sleepover when we’d created the list and I teased her about completing her first item not an hour after she’d found out what it was. Kissing a stranger in an airplane bathroom might’ve given others some trouble, but not her.
By a happy twist of fate, Gemma had ended up in first class on our flight to New York, seated right next to Noah Parks , heartthrob of the famous boyband, City Lights. Only she would chuck champagne all over a guy—an ultra famous one at that—and still manage to make him want to kiss her while he was cleaning up.
In my case, it’d been half a month and I hadn’t even thought about the list, let alone finding someone to have a one-night stand with. I figured it would be easier once I got to Sun Valley, though. I didn’t know anyone there other than my brother and I wouldn’t be getting attached to a perfect stranger, so I’d catch up to her once I was settled there.
Laurel didn’t have any points on the board yet either, considering that she would only be seeing the old flame she wanted to kiss for her task once we were all back in Texas for Thanksgiving. Gemma and I spoke about her and Leif for a little while before she finally turned the conversation back to me.
“Are you feeling better about the list yet?” she asked. “There’s no rush, you know. You can wait until you’re ready before you start.”
“I’m calling mine The Bucket List ,” I declared as I tightened my fingers on the steering wheel. “The way I see it, we’re taking the first step to completing my first task right now. I’m on my way to the place where I’ll make it happen, and for now, that’s enough for me.”
I meant it. I would get a proper shagging eventually—and hopefully get the kind of orgasm that was good for my soul out of it—but for now, she was right. There was no rush.
This was a journey. An adventure. And I’d waited so long to take it that I would savor every last step along the way.