Chapter 7 – Violet
Hiking with my friends was one of my favorite things to do when I wasn’t baking or playing Legends of Elarion.
I picked Rae up down at the harbor. Her sailboat, Sailor Swift, housed both her and my brother Zach.
You’d never catch me living in such a confined space.
Especially with my brother, but it seemed to suit them.
Rae slid into the front seat with an easy grin. Athletically built, she’d caught her curly hair back in a low ponytail and wore heavy pants and a jacket as protection against the blustery winds.
“Hey, Vi. We lucked into a beautiful day, but it’s cold as balls.”
I chuckled.
“I feel like Zach is rubbing off on you,” I teased.
Rae bit her lip, the move doing little to hide her mischievous smile. “Vi, I don’t think you want me talking about how Zach’s balls are rubbing on me.”
“True,” I said wryly. “And, yes, it’s cold today.”
I parked in front of Lucy and Clay’s house. Rae skipped out, knocking on their door. Within moments, Lucy slid into the backseat, Rae buckling into the front.
“Morning, Vi.” Lucy had bundled up for the cold morning, a black cap pulled low over her equally inky hair, the tips just grazing her shoulders in her heavy black coat.
We chatted easily about the latest news from the WNFH posts, which were often kooky, but the most recent posting presented a mystery: a headstone had appeared in someone’s yard.
They’d posted photos and everything. It looked too nice and too embedded for a prank. Luckily, weird was what we did best.
“I still don’t believe someone dropped a tombstone out of the sky,” Lucy said scornfully.
“It has to be a prank,” Rae agreed, casting a sideways glance at me. “Sounds like something Gran would do.”
I shook my head. “Nah. She’d only do it with an inscription. Probably something super mature like C.R. Butt rests here.”
Lucy chuckled. “Plausible. She also loves dispensing advice. If she were going to drop a mystery headstone in your yard, what do you think it would say?”
“Here lies Gran’s last fuck,” I suggested.
Rae laughed. “Or how about, paint me green and call me a pickle, because I’m done dillin’ with you bitches.”
Lucy snickered. “My favorite piece of Gran advice still has to be, life’s like a penis. Sometimes it’s up, sometimes it’s down, but it won’t be hard forever.”
I was still smiling as I drew up in front of Anya and Drew’s place. Anya must have been waiting for us, because she opened her front door, locked it and slid into the seat behind me before any of us could unbuckle to fetch her.
“Morning, everyone,” Anya said smoothly. Like the others, she’d donned a pouffy coat to ward off the cold. A pink headband protected her ears and held her straight blond hair back from her delicate features.
“Hey, traitor,” I said easily, smiling at her in the rearview mirror when she frowned at me.
“Just because I moved in with your brother,” she grumbled.
I pulled onto the road, driving toward the trailhead. “You’re the fifth roommate to find love and move out within a year of living with me,” I said over the music playing from the car. “I’m getting a complex.”
“Is that jealousy talking, Fenwick?” Lucy asked.
“Yes.” I softened my honesty with a smile. “Though I’m convinced you got the last good man on the island, Lucy. Clay’s a keeper.” I wagged my finger at Anya and Rae. “You ended up with my brothers, so condolences might be more in order.”
Rae snorted. “Don’t make me talk about your brother’s balls again.”
I shuddered delicately. “Stop. I’m glad you’re happy with them. I don’t need details.”
Parking at American Camp, the sister park to British Camp, was easy in the winter. January and February crowds were nonexistent. We grabbed our bags, heading for the Young Hill trailhead.
Lucy’s expression turned crafty. “Speaking of details. I hear you’re shacking up with Lee. How’d that happen?”
Anya slid to a stop, turning to me. “Wait. What?”
I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. He sprained his ankle on a call. He can’t manage the stairs at his place right now, so I’m helping out.”
“Interesting…” Anya tugged at her lip.
“Not interesting,” I corrected. “Just practical.”
I didn’t tell her I’d woken up in Lee’s arms. My brothers getting wind of anything remotely romantic between Lee and me would be a disaster.
They overreacted at the best of times. I didn’t want to contemplate how they’d handle one of their best friends hooking up with me.
I was ashamed of how long it had taken me to figure it out.
But I’d learned the hard way to keep any romantic entanglements on the down-low.
Sharing them with my family was a recipe for disaster.
Somewhere along the way, my best friends had become entwined in my brothers’ lives, no longer just mine.
While I was happy for them, absolutely thrilled that my friends and brothers found love, I couldn’t ignore the hollow feeling it left behind.
The loneliness. I’d lost the last friends who were truly mine.
They’d been claimed by a circle I couldn’t step into.
While Lucy wasn’t dating one of my brothers, her Clay had a big mouth. Confiding in her would be the same as handing my brothers the information.
It hurt to keep quiet about Lee. To swallow the words that pressed against my lips. I was aching to tell someone about our movie night. About waking up in his arms. In his bed. Even if his meds meant I couldn’t trust a word out of his clever mouth.
I loved my friends. But their first loyalty wasn’t to me any longer.
We’d laugh and joke all morning, the easy rhythm of our friendship still intact on the surface.
I’d pretend everything was the same. But beneath it, I’d be holding myself apart.
Feeling the divide. Aware I wasn’t part of the couple crowd.
My life was different in ways they’d already forgotten.
Maybe I was being unfair. My friends hadn’t abandoned me; they’d just… moved forward. It only felt like desertion because I was in the same place.
It was too simplistic to say they’d gone to the enemy’s side.
My brothers weren’t my rivals. Not really.
But I missed feeling like my friends were wholly mine.
Like I could reach out to them at a moment’s notice and share without worrying that they’d spill my secrets to my brothers.
Not maliciously. I could recognize that.
It’s natural to bond with your partner. But it left me feeling more alone, day by day.
I forced a smile. My life in the slow lane wasn’t their problem.
“Has there been any news about Chaz or the gallery?” I shook off my melancholy.
Lucy shook her head. “Nothing since his arrest.”
Rae wrinkled her nose. “I still can’t quite believe he was laundering money through the gallery.”
Anya shrugged. “Running a small business is hard. Especially on a somewhat seasonal island like this one. Part of me is sympathetic. Except for the probably funding drugs and guns part.”
“I’m surprised there haven’t been more WNFH posts about the whole thing,” I said.
“My bet is that it’s out of respect for Dr. Underwood. It can’t be easy having her husband in jail,” Rae said.
“And no one wants to piss off one of the island’s only doctors,” Anya added.
“Do you think she was involved?” Lucy paused, hands at the small of her back.
We’d picked our way along the wooded trail, finally hitting the first plateau. The Salish Sea glittered in the distance. Partial cloud cover kept the full brilliance from sparkling, but patches of sun shone through, dappling the water far below.
“I don’t know,” Rae said doubtfully. “Megan Underwood grew up here. It’s her husband who’s the outsider.”
“Who better to hook her husband up with potential clients?” Lucy pointed out. “She had access to plenty of patients who needed cheap drugs.”
I frowned. “It’s hard to imagine the woman who gave me my first birth control prescription leading a secret life of crime.”
Lucy shrugged. “My gut says there’s more to her story.”
With the island of Victoria in the distance and Vancouver just a few hours to the north, it was easy to believe the rumors of counterfeit pharmaceuticals being smuggled into the area were true. But it was difficult to imagine that Dr. Underwood led an international crime ring.
Sure, her husband was on the slimy side, but she’d been part of the community forever.
Slipping fake drugs to her patients was a far sight different from art fraud and money laundering.
But it was rumors of counterfeit pharmaceutical smuggling that brought the DEA’s attention to our tiny island to begin with.
A few suspicious deaths in the region had been traced back to phony meds.
We kept climbing, conversation becoming sparse as we made our final ascent to the summit, each of us too busy focusing on our footing and keeping our breathing even.
“Gorgeous,” Anya said.
The view of the ocean at the top took my breath away.
The water rippled in between the sleeping giants of the islands scattered to the west. A mix of clouds and blue sky rolled by, at times obscuring the sun.
The madrona trees and pines provided scant cover at this elevation, leaving me shivering in the wind.
“This view never gets old,” Rae murmured.
Peace settled over me as I stared out over the water.
The fresh air may be bracing, but the view always reminded me that my problems were but a flicker on the world’s stage.
Our beautiful shores had been inhabited for generations.
Since long before the British or American soldiers squabbled over the small chain of islands between Canada and the US.
The Lummi people lived seasonally on the islands, following the natural cycles of wildlife.
The ebb and flow somehow put things into perspective. My problems were small.
Whether Lee felt more for me than he’d admit. If he’d meant what he said last night. The isolation of not being able to tell my friends details without interference from my family.
Under the bright sky, the shining water, I could only rejoice that I was here. With friends. That Lee would heal. One way or another, we’d figure things out.
It wasn’t like he could escape me.
My lips twitched as I thought back to Gran’s advice. How would Lee react, if I really let my dragon out? Did he see Drew, Cole, and Zach’s baby sister, or did he truly see me?
Maybe it was time to remind him that I breathed fire.