Chapter 40 Kit
Kit
I woke up with an attitude and a sore back, drenched in sweat.
Sometime during the night, my generator shut off, leaving me passed out in a tin can that got hotter with the rising sun.
The air is thick, and I groan with the effort it takes to roll off my makeshift bed and crawl to slide the side door open.
The sun is bright, and the air doesn’t feel much better out here. But I sit on the edge, dangling my feet out to hover just above the gravel of the drive and try to scrub the sleep from my eyes.
I slept like crap. Restless. Hyper-aware of where I was parked. Pretty sure his voice echoed in my mind the entire night, loud enough for me to hear it every time I turned.
“Meyer. Look at me.”
Meyer. He never called me Meyer.
I’m the kind of pathetic that could sit here and analyze every nanosecond of our interaction for hours.
But I did that last night, and if I continue on now, I will lose my mind.
I came here to see if I could handle it.
So, yeah, I didn’t expect the test to be quite this challenging.
Don’t know if I would have come had I known he would be here, but it is what it is.
The sky is blue. The birds are singing. I’m alive.
It’s okay.
I take a steadying breath, pop in my earbuds to drown out my thoughts, and start my normal morning routine.
I brush my teeth, using a bottle of water to rinse, and then the rest to splash my sweaty face.
I climb inside the van to change, then sit back in the open door to lace up my running shoes.
With my phone and playlist on full blast, I take off.
This is the only running I’m allowed to do anymore.
And I do it every day.
It was a few months after I left that I fell into a difficult love-hate relationship with it.
Those first few months were the hardest months.
Freshly sober. I felt like my guts were hanging out for everyone to see.
I felt like everyone could just look at me and see that something wasn’t right.
That I was broken. I wanted to chase that numbness alcohol had given me.
I wanted to find just a moment of solace.
Five minutes of peace from the constant barrage of thoughts.
Memories. Fears. Shame. Regret. I wanted a break from a body that missed the feeling of being held together by someone equally as broken as I was. I wanted a moment of peace.
I was watching people through the window of a pub in a small town that I was passing through. Watching them talk and laugh and live. I thought about how easy it would be to just go in there. Order a drink. I could find some stranger to laugh with and pretend for a little while.
That was one of those moments when my skin crawled. I wanted out of my mind. I didn’t want to have to choose. I didn’t want there to be a wrong choice. But there was.
So, I ran.
I ran away from the pub and kept on running. I ran through tears. I ran through aches. I ran until the tight grasp on my mind loosened just a little. The feeling of my feet moving grounded me in a way that I never would have guessed.
I’ve been running every morning since.
By the time I get back to the van, my shirt is soaked, my knees are weak, and I feel so much better than I did before I left. Something about running in the wild instead of on city streets just hits different.
I fall to the grass, trying to catch my breath. I want a shower and ice-cold water, stat.
I’ve avoided even looking at the cabins since I woke up this morning. Like avoiding a text or email you just aren’t mentally prepared for yet. You know it’s there. You know it's not going anywhere.
I turn my head in the grass and am met with a scene straight out of some mountain man movie. I look back up at the bright sky, squinting hard like I can pretend my eyes didn’t just see what they saw.
I’m weak, though. Real friggin’ weak.
Slowly, my head rolls back in the direction of the cabin, and I damn near swallow my tongue.
Bowen on a motorcycle nearly broke my seventeen-year-old mind.
Bowen swinging an axe at some wood? Wearing nothing but low-slung ripped jeans and untied boots? His shirt is tucked into the back pocket of said jeans. He’s sweating. He’s showing off every muscle with every swing. And there are tattoos now. Lots of tattoos.
Dear God.
His jaw is tight. His form is rigid. Almost methodical. Focused. Like, if he doesn’t keep chopping away, the world isn’t going to make it.
I huff a laugh, my head still airy and gooey from the run.
Fuck. Bowen Briggs all grown up is a gay man’s worst nightmare.
Well. This gay man, anyway.
There is a hole in one thigh. A hole in the other knee. Frayed edges and soft-looking fabric. His boots look like they have definitely seen some shit.
Look away! Bad.
I’m embarrassed to admit how deeply I’m immersed in my perusal. I don’t even register that the boots are facing me until it's too late. They take a step closer but stop.
A quick glance shows one thick, dark brow raised. I swallow a groan. I know I’m the color of a tomato. Or a boiled crab abandoned in the sun.
So, what do I do?
I wave.
Fucking. Wave.
Kill me now.
I snatch my awkward wave hand out of the air and fumble to take one of my earbuds out.
“H..hey,” I call out.
Bowen’s massive mountain man shoulders rise and fall with what I can only assume is a sigh. Then he turns, steps back up to the chopping block, and swings his axe around.
The sound of the breaking wood may as well be the sound of the door to communication slamming shut right in my face.
“Heeeey,” I snide softly in a mock, lilted voice, waving exaggeratively like an idiot. If the birds could laugh, there would be some laughing right now. Not in a ha-ha you’re so funny kind of way, but in a ha-ha you’re a major dumbass kind of way.
A twig snaps under my heavy footfalls as I try, and fail, to calm my heart the hell down.
So what? He doesn’t want to talk to me. What else is new?
I don’t remember the last time Bowen wanted to talk.
Talking has never really been his thing.
Especially when you add in even an ounce of conflict.
If it smells like emotions, count Bowen out.
The man is allergic to them. He shuts down.
Backs all the way the hell out of the situation.
Will completely abandon years of friendship. Pretend you don’t exist….
It’s okay…
That’s not fair. Not totally. Bowen was there for me when I needed him. Even when I didn’t deserve him or his comfort. He gave when he could, when his own sadness was probably suffocating him inside.
One of the things I struggled with while spending endless days alone, traveling, was coming to terms with how damn selfish I can be. I don’t want to be a selfish person. Not just after Brett died, but before, too.
Bowen’s pissed at me. Or maybe just indifferent.
Over it. He’s entitled to those feelings.
Even though it makes me feel like my ribs are squeezing inside my body.
He probably came here to relax and enjoy some summer quiet, and here I am.
Fucking that up and bringing back shit he doesn’t want to deal with.
Like me.
The decent thing to do would be to leave.
It's not running away if it's the right thing to do, right?
It would be selfish not to go.
I’m nodding my head, feet already moving swiftly back to the van.
I came, I tried. He doesn’t want me here, and I don’t need to be somewhere I’m not welcome.
I can feel the ramifications of this whole thing just outside my consciousness.
Gathering there, just waiting for a moment I feel content to smack me in the face with the weight of a sledgehammer.
I wipe my sweaty hands on my shorts and settle into the driving seat that’s permanently indented with my ass from all the hours and hours I’ve spent in it.
Brett’s goofy grin stares at me from my keys when I pull them from the overhead compartment.
“Your brother hates me,” I grumble at it before sticking the key in the ignition.
Then all hell breaks loose.
The dash lights are blinking at me. The wipers turn themselves on. The radio is cutting in and out. I jump, knock into the horn, and jump again.
Brett’s face is dangling, grinning.
“Oh my God, are you haunting me right now?” I screech. The engine does not sound…healthy. By the time I get the wipers to turn off, the whole front-end sounds like it's hiccupping. I don’t know shit about cars if I’m honest, but I know enough to know that that is not good.
“Come on, Fiona. Don’t do this to me now.”
Fiona gives one more good groan and dies a dramatic death.
“Absolutely not, Fiona. You were supposed to be my badass princess.” I hiss at the now silent van, trying and failing to get her to show some signs of life. Turning the key is doing absolutely nothing. “Had I known you were going to be such a pain, I would have named you Donkey.”
I grab the wheel and shake, “Gahhh. Okay, not Donkey. That was rude.” I close my eyes, count to three, and try the key again.
Nothing.
“No, I should have named you Lord Fuckwad instead, you absolute fucking—”
I shout when there is a single knock on my window. Its Bowen, brows raised, cigarette hanging from his stupidly sexy mouth.
I would open the window, but that would require the van turning on. My only option is opening the door and hopping out. Which I do, and Bowen steps back enough to make room for me and all my frustration.
“Pop the hood,” he says, barely giving me a once-over before he walks over to the front of Fiona and waits, taking a drag.
I scramble to find the hood latch, but once I do, he’s opening it, and I’m holding my breath. He’s going to like…unplug my battery and plug it back in and say, “There ya go, all good for you to make your escape now. See ya, be a stranger. Let's make it four years this time instead of two.”