Chapter 17
Adam
“Did I interrupt dinner?” I ask, eyeing the plate of food on Stevie’s coffee table.
Maybe she has low blood sugar. She’s been acting strange since she opened her door. Honestly, seeing her so out of sorts is helping me keep my head on straight. I needed a reminder of who Stevie is.
The pep talk I got from Ruth on the drive here certainly didn’t help.
For my sanity, I had to hang up after she started giving me pointers about how to “make a move.” I will be making no moves tonight.
For reasons that defy logic, Stevie is determined to win this bet with her friends, and I’m not a guy who pushes past a woman’s objections.
Yet here I am using trail-camera footage as a flimsy excuse to be near her. The needle on my compass is still pointing to Stevie. I can sit on her couch, in her house that smells like apples and cinnamon and her, and behave myself.
I still can’t believe I told her I like her, like we’re in third grade, and I couldn’t find better words. I have better words, but something about this woman steals them away from me.
Stevie runs her hand over her red hair, drawing my eye.
“Those are just my pot stickers,” she says, like everyone keeps a platter of pot stickers on their coffee table like potpourri.
She stops fidgeting with her hair, tossing the curling ends over her shoulder with a huff.
She sits and motions for me to take the spot beside her, centering the plate between us. “Help yourself.”
That is definitely Stevie’s dinner. “Thanks,” I say, not reaching for her food. “Why don’t you eat while I pull up the photos?”
I don’t have to ask her twice. She takes the plate, folding her legs under herself and digging in while I start my laptop and click on the right folder. Is she humming a Queen song while she eats?
“I should warn you, I already looked at some of these, and there’s not much to see.” I relax against the cushions beside her.
She's blowing on a pot sticker to cool it off, but she stops to glare at me. “You looked without me?”
I shrug.
“I know, I know. It’s your job, but still.” She blows on her pot sticker again, her pink lips parted in a perfect O. I wish she wouldn’t do that. “You didn’t delete anything, right?”
I have to look away. “Are you accusing me of destroying evidence?” I ask with a small chuckle. I’m figuring it out: as long as I don’t look directly at her, I can talk and act like my real self.
“I don’t know, am I?” With an accusatory look, she holds up a pot sticker like a weapon.
“Uh . . . No?” I stumble over the word. I looked at her. That’s my mistake. I refocus on the computer, balancing it on my knees and clicking the most recent of the photos. “So, this is most of it.” I gesture to the raccoon on the screen. “You ready?”
Stevie nods, chewing her food. “Give it to me.”
I click through the photos while Stevie rates the cuteness of the raccoons on a generous scale and finishes her pot stickers. I track her in the corner of my eye as she slides her plate onto the coffee table, retucking her legs beneath herself.
I don’t understand how women are able to sit like that. My body doesn’t bend that way. Stevie’s, though?
I clear my throat and train my eyes on something safe. “Okay, those are the ones I saw this morning. The rest of this is new stuff for both of us.”
“As it should be,” she says with manufactured hurt in her voice, though I suspect what she’s feeling is competitiveness.
I don’t look at her. I can’t. “Next time I’ll wait for you. I promise.”
Click, click, click. No surprise, there are a lot of raccoons in the preserve. And is it me, or is Stevie moving closer? Click, click, click. I remind myself to breathe and act normal.
She leans toward the laptop, gripping my forearm with a gasp. “Wait. What is that?”
It’s her holding onto me, that’s what it is. How can I pay attention to anything else? “W-what?”
She points at the screen with her other hand. “That’s an arm.”
In the corner of the photo, what looks like a dark arm curls into the frame. “Hang on, let’s see what it is.” I click through a series of images that follows.
The arm belongs to a hiker wearing a black hoodie, who seems to be darting across the trail, pumping his arms. Stevie deflates.
The poor guy looks like he’s running for his life, though.
The images aren’t the highest resolution, but there’s terror on his face when he turns like something is chasing him.
I sit up straighter. The series of black-and-white images are haunting, like something you’d see on the news after a body was found in the woods.
Is there something dangerous living in the preserve? Could Stevie be right?
I shake my head. No. The proximity to Stevie is making me lose my head. That’s all.
Then, in the frame after the hiker disappears, something appears in the underbrush. I pause on the picture.
Stevie leans in. “Is that a—”
I click to the next photo. Tall tail feathers, a determined, avian face, and an obscene snood poke through the bushes. I click again. In the next image, Butterballsy crashes through the brush, waddling angrily after the hiker.
“That dang bird,” Stevie mutters.
I’m ashamed to admit I’m relieved to see the turkey chasing that hiker and not something else. We’re nearing the beginning of the captured photos, and we still haven’t seen a tall bipedal primate of any variety—Bigfoot or poachers.
In the next series of photos I see myself on the trail.
Oh, this is it. These are the pictures I’ve been waiting for.
I peek at Stevie in the corner of my eye. She’s chewing on her bottom lip, cringing at the laptop. She knows what’s coming.
I click, and she appears on the screen.
Then, an image opens that will be burned in my brain until the day I die. It’s Stevie, kicking and karate chopping at a turkey, while I stand off to the side with a shocked smile on my face. I click the three tiny dots at the top of the screen to save the photo to my computer.
“Oh, no, you’re not.” Stevie tries to swat my hand away from the trackpad, but she’s not fast enough.
I snatch her hand, holding it tight while I save the photo with my free hand. “You don’t think that’ll make a nice T-shirt?” I tease while she tries to wrestle away.
“Adammm,” she whines, giving up quickly. Her fingers soften in mine. “Okay, you know what? Fine. Save the picture. But it’s for your eyes only. No putting it on your Instagram feed or making me go viral on TikTok.” She doesn’t slip her hand out of mine.
As a man whose picture is, according to my sister, going semiviral online and is splashed across T-shirts being sold in the town diner, I force myself to swallow down the injustice of this moment.
And there’s so much she still doesn’t know about me. I would never show that picture to anyone else. She’s mine. It’s mine, I mean. I clear my throat. “You’re safe. I never put anything online.”
She rolls her eyes with a squeeze of my fingers. “Oh, I know you don’t.”
“What?”
“What?” she repeats too quickly.
My eyes tighten as I take her in. She licks her lips, her gaze darting everywhere but my face. I haven’t known Stevie for long, but I've figured out that she’ll crack if I wait her out.
She sighs in defeat. “Obviously, I stalked you.”
“Did you?” The knowledge burns away the last of my awkwardness. Stevie might be the painfully beautiful forest mascot, but she stalked me. That’s something. It’s more than something. And she’s still holding my hand.
She nods. “Only a little. And my findings were woefully inadequate. It’s like you’re”—her secretive smile makes my heart knock a few times—”mythical. It’s like you don’t exist. How is that possible in this, the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-six?”
I release a long exhale. It does nothing to ease the pounding in my chest. “My sister says the same thing.”
Light fills her eyes. “I want to hear more about this sister. Tell me about her.”
“What do you want to know?”
She squeezes my hand. “All of it.”
And that’s how it happened. That’s how I ended up holding Stevie’s hand and telling her more about myself and my family than I've ever told anyone.
For two hours.
In my defense, I haven’t done all of the talking.
Here’s what I’ve learned about Stevie: She has a bunch of brothers, and her eyes fill with a mixture of light, pride, and a tinge of sadness when she talks about them.
Her parents sound like mine—doting, well adjusted, and hard working.
Stevie is the choir director at the local high school.
She would not sing for me when I asked for a sample.
I asked Stevie about how she got so interested in Bigfoot, and that’s when she excused herself to get a late-night snack for us.
She came back two minutes ago with two bowls of Lucky Charms, which I shouldn’t have laughed about.
“Laugh all you want.” She pushes a dripping spoon into her mouth. “These things are delicious, plus they have whole-grain oats, so they’re healthy,” she says around a mouth full of cereal.
I quirk an eyebrow, swallowing my sugary bite. I’ve also learned that Stevie uses the word healthy loosely. I’m fighting a smile. “You’re just so . . . Irish.” I say the word with caution.
I want to use another word. Stevie is enchanting. That’s the word that came into my head, but it’s a word I’ve never said out loud. It’s true, though. Between her sweet face, the ginger hair hanging around her shoulders, and that smile—I am enchanted.
But as I anticipated, she rolls her eyes. “Lucky Charms are not Irish.”
Don’t poke the bear, a voice in my head warns. I ignore it. “There’s a leprechaun on the box,” I point out.
“Don’t make me—”
Lucky for me, her threat is interrupted by her phone buzzing on the coffee table. I don’t mean to look, but it’s Marlow.
Stevie frowns at the screen. “I better get that. She doesn’t usually call so late . . .” She trails off, swiping the screen as she puts her bowl on the coffee table. “Marlow?”
I’m minding my business, muscling through my bowl of pure sugar. As has always been the case, Stevie is impossible to ignore, though.
She half sighs, half moans. “Ugh. What’s his name?”
And now she has my undivided attention. I move my cereal around with my spoon.
“And is his mother driving him to our date?” Stevie asks.
I snort. Stevie’s head whips my direction, and I turn the laugh into a cough, like I choked on a marshmallow unicorn.
“And this random dude you met at the bank—you vetted him this time?”
I need to vet him. I want to meet this guy. I have to hear Marlow’s end of this phone call.
Stevie lowers her voice and pivots away from me almost imperceptibly. “I’m trying, okay? I’m going. But after that last date, obviously I’m going to be more skeptical. Chuck was—” She pinches the bridge of her nose when Marlow cuts her off. “I know, but—”
Marlow is letting her have it. I force another bite of cereal in my mouth to distract myself and cut the awkwardness. I can’t believe she eats this stuff.
Stevie isn’t whispering anymore. “I am not too picky with men. I just don’t want to settle when I’m perfectly happy on my own.”
Bravo! I want to shout, keeping Stevie in the corner of my eye. Why should she settle for someone who isn’t good enough for her?
I don’t know what Marlow says in response, but Stevie’s face falls. She blinks over and over, and the wetness in her eyes makes me want to grab the phone and let Marlow have it.
Stevie sniffs, straightening in her seat.
“I gotta go. I’ll be there tomorrow night.
I’ll be nice. And when I win this bet, it won’t be on a technicality,” she says with forced lightness.
She pauses. “Okay. Bye.” The words are clipped.
She pulls her phone away from her ear, jams her finger on the button to end the call, and tosses it onto the cushion.
“Everything okay?” I ask quietly.
“My friends think I’m too picky”—she scratches her temple, not quite making eye contact—“when it comes to men.”
That may be part of it, but I can tell she’s holding something back. Either way. “You should be picky.”
“Thank you!” She holds out her palms, eyes wide. “They don’t get it.”
“No?” I hope my blasé act is working, because I’m anything but.
“She said I expect perfection, but . . .” She shakes her head. “We don’t have to talk about this.” She smiles, but now that I know her better, I see through it.
“When’s the date?”
“Seven o’clock tomorrow night, at the diner.” She rolls her eyes, then adds with a mutter, “So they can babysit me.”
“I’ll be there.”
Sucking in a breath, she warns, “No, you will not. Adam Sandoval, you are not crashing my date.” Pink washes over her cheeks.
Oh, I like that. My name combined with that blush? I need that to happen again. But right now, I need to think on my feet. “I’m not crashing. Remember, I bet on Bigfoot. I have a stake in this.”
How did I get here?
“Then by all means.” She laughs. “Crash away.”