Chapter 12
Stevie
After breakfast with my parents, I spent the afternoon recording a podcast episode about my morning hike, ignoring a group chat that has been dinging nonstop with messages from Marlow and Diana. They found another guy to set me up with. The pressure is on.
I ignored the string of texts and uploaded the new podcast episode.
Now I’ve taken a long, hot Everything shower—washed my hair, did a conditioning mask, exfoliated, and shaved, then sang the soprano part of a song I did with my varsity choir this year while spinning in circles under the steaming hot showerhead—and I can’t put it off any longer.
With a sigh, I twist my wet hair over my shoulder and plop onto my yellow couch in my robe.
My stomach gurgles, reminding me that I never ate lunch, and it’s well past dinnertime.
I could put this off longer, but no. It’s the moment of reckoning.
What fresh version of Hades have my friends concocted for me today?
Propping my bare feet on the coffee table, I swipe open my phone.
One of these messages isn’t from Marlow or Diana. My heart is banging in my ears. There’s a text from Shirtless Adam (flexing biceps emoji, flexing biceps emoji), and he gets right to the point.
SHIRTLESS ADAM:
I’m going to monitor the rabbits tonight at eight. Would you like to join me?
My eyes dart to the clock in the corner of my screen. It’s seven o’clock, but his message came in at three. He probably thinks I blew him off. I shoot out the first thoughts that come to my head and jam the send button with shaky fingers.
ME:
Helping you with the rabbits sounds great. You’re getting me out of a date, LOL. Where do I meet you?
Then I respond to my friends with a self-satisfied grin on my face.
ME:
Sorry, guys! I’m busy tonight. I uploaded a new episode today, though.
I attach a few arrogant, smiling devil emojis and a GIF of Michael Scott bowing on The Office, then scurry back to my bedroom to get ready for my rabbit-spying outing.
I don’t know what else to call this. Research? Volunteering for the Biddeford Land Trust? A service project with a friend? It doesn’t matter, I guess. I get to go back into the woods at the perfect time of day for a sighting. That’s all I care about, I remind myself.
I’m blow-drying my hair—dangling upside down and barely staying upright thanks to the concussion—when my phone lights up with an incoming text.
I snatch it off the bathroom counter, fumbling the blow dryer in the process.
I feel like I downed a few energy drinks and ate a whole bag of marshmallows.
I’m keyed up and bound to embarrass myself tonight if I don’t calm down.
I need to chill out. Peeking at the screen, I see that it’s just Marlow. I take a calming breath.
MARLOW:
What on earth are you busy with?
First of all, I’m offended at the implication that I don’t have a life outside of my friends. This is the first time I have had a life outside of them, but still. It stings. And I’m doing something meaningful tonight. It’s time to mount my high horse.
ME:
I’m helping Adam with a project he’s doing with New England cottontail rabbits tonight. Did you know they’re endangered? I can’t go on a date.
DIANA:
Dying over here. It sounds like you can’t go on a date until you’ve solved the rabbit crisis once and for all. Like you’re taking a moral stand. Stevie won’t date until there are rabbits hopping around all of our feet and she can rest easy.
MARLOW:
Except it sounds like she IS going on a date with Shirtless Adam. Thanks for making our job easy, Stevie.
Diana gives Marlow’s message a big red one-hundred-percent emoji that makes my hackles go up.
ME:
It’s not a date. Adam wanted help with this rabbit thing. That’s all.
DIANA:
Are you sure about that?
ME:
Trust me. Adam didn’t ask me on a date. He asked me because he can tell I’m comfortable in the woods, and I’m free labor.
MARLOW:
What did he say exactly?
I pause, thinking back on our conversation in the preserve this morning. He was straightforward about asking for help, and his text wasn’t exactly flirtatious. This is not a date.
ME:
He said he’s monitoring endangered rabbits, and he asked if I want to help.
MARLOW:
Those were his exact words?
ME:
Ughhhhhh.
ME:
He asked if I want to join him. Happy?
DIANA:
Oh, that’s a date.
MARLOW:
Is he picking you up?
Then, like he was summoned by the universe to put a stop to the madness, I get a message from Adam.
SHIRTLESS ADAM:
I’ll meet you in the parking area at eight.
I’ll never admit to my friends that their texts had ignited the tiniest spark of curiosity in my chest and Adam’s message doused it with cold water. Usually, I love being right. Not this time, though.
With a heavy sigh, I screenshot the whole text exchange with Adam, sending it to my friends with the caption “See? He didn’t ask me on a date. Womp womp.”
This is good. I’m not going on a date with him, and I wouldn’t anyway. I mentally review my ongoing list of reasons Adam and I would never work: He doesn’t wear a shirt. He’s a tad bossy. The end. It’s not a long list.
With that in mind, I set my phone on the counter and blow-dry my hair until the screen lights up with another message a few minutes later.
SHIRTLESS ADAM:
Was that meant for me?
I stare at the phone in confusion until his question and my message that preceded it finally clicks.
Aw, crap.
Instead of sending the screenshot of my texts with Adam to my friends, I sent it to Adam—with an absolutely incriminating caption.
He didn’t ask me on a date. Womp womp.
“Aaaaaaaaaack!” I scream at the ceiling.
Not only that, but now he can see his contact name in my phone: Shirtless Adam, with two biceps emojis.
I holler at the ceiling again. “Why am I the way that I am?”
There is no reasonable explanation for what I’ve done.
With a groan, I hammer out a message containing as much of the horrifying truth as I’m willing to admit.
ME:
My friends thought you asked me on a date. I was just showing them that you didn’t.
I put my phone face down on the counter and take another calming breath.
This isn’t that bad. I’ll put my hair in a non-date-like French braid, throw on a T-shirt that screams friendship, and search the internet for some memory-erasing miracle later.
Adam doesn’t need to know about the little spark in my chest, and I need to forget about it.
My phone buzzes against the tile countertop. With some trepidation, I turn it over.
SHIRTLESS ADAM:
Okay. See you at eight.
Good grief, the man is dry over text. He could’ve teased me, made a joke, something. But that’s what he went with. I add that flaw to his list along with being bossy and shirtless. I could never spend my life with someone who won’t banter with me via text message.
Not long later I park my car in the stretching shadow of a pine tree. I’m wearing my cutest T-shirt that still conveys the message that we’re just friends, and I put a Just Business braid in my hair. We’re here on Biddeford Land Trust affairs only, thank you.
Does my stomach flutter ever so slightly when Adam climbs out of his truck next to me? Maybe.
It’s not my fault. It’s biology. His black T-shirt sends the message that he could produce brawny, broad-shouldered babies. And his slightly damp hair tells me that he showered and perhaps put some effort into this business outing.
I keep him in the corner of my eye when I climb out of my car to coat my bare legs and arms with bug repellent. I’m completely focused on the task at hand. I’m helping the endangered rabbit population of York county. This is a community service. Yada yada yada.
“What kind of repellent is that?” Adam’s gruff voice breaks through my mental reminders.
I fumble the bottle in my hands.
“Oh, hey,” I say with surprise, like I haven’t kept him in my sights since I parked my car. “It’s just this stuff I found online. It’s made in Thailand.” I hold the bottle out for him to see.
He takes it, squinting at the label, then holding it up to his nose and sniffing the sprayer. He nods, handing it back to me like it passed his Guardian of the Forest inspection.
It’d better. I love this stuff, and it isn’t cheap.
As someone who spends hours outdoors, one of the few splurges I allow myself on my teacher salary is this particular bug repellent.
It smells more like fresh apples than the DEET it contains, and it works like magic.
It’s also only available online. I have it shipped from Asia.
“You can try it, if you want.” I nod to the bottle. Then I remember the stupid screenshot I sent to him earlier, and a hot blush covers my face.
It’s like he read my mind. “I’m good, thanks,” he says, passing the bottle back to me with a smile. “Are you ready?”
“Whenever you are.” My words come out sounding competitive instead of friendly, and I try to smooth it over with a wide smile. I don’t know how to act on this rabbit outing, and I can’t stop thinking about that misdirected text while I follow Adam to the trailhead.
It’s the same trail where I had my original sighting.
This is good. It’s exactly where I want to be tonight, and this time I’m going to focus.
I’m not going to let my head get carried away by Adam, or his T-shirt, or the way he gets an appealing glint in his eye when he talks about invasive lupine or endangered rabbits.
We’re looking for evidence of Bigfoot and bunnies. This is serious stuff.
When Adam leads me to almost the exact location where I had my sighting, I start to feel suspicious. Does he know this is where it happened? Did he see something on his trail cameras?
Wait. Adam has motion-activated trail cameras out here. They took pictures of whatever I saw.
I suck in a breath. “Adam.” I can’t believe I didn’t think of this already.
He spins, scanning the area around me before his eyes look down at mine. “Yeah? What’s wrong?”
“You have trail cameras out here, right?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Could I look at the pictures with you? See what’s on them?” Please say yes, I beg in my head. I peer up at him, batting my eyelashes shamelessly.
Understanding fills his eyes with light, then laughter that I don’t appreciate.
He shakes his head in defeat. “Sure.” He turns off the trail, leading us deeper into the brush.
“But I only put them out the morning after . . . you know.” It’s like he doesn’t know how to say I saw a sasquatch, or he can’t bring himself to say it.
“I know. But there could still be something on them.” I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. This is going to help so much. There has to be something on those cameras. If not now, there will be eventually. I follow Adam with a spring in my step.