Chapter 31
Adam
“Pick up,” I mutter, my phone buzzing in my ear.
A few hours ago I got a text from Stevie saying that she was leaving for another tour with Crispin and that I shouldn’t worry. Right. Of course, I spent the evening annoying the crap out of my sister with my agitated pacing.
I promised myself I’d wait until after dark to call Stevie. She’s strong and capable. She doesn’t need her oafish secret boyfriend checking in on her. So, I’ve had knots in my stomach for hours thinking about her out there in the rain with that guy.
“She’s still not answering?” Ruth sits on the rug in front of my couch where she’s helping Sammie stack a tower of my plastic cups. She’s trying to distract her daughter from the thunder and the roar of rain on the roof.
I grunt, jamming my finger to redial when my call goes to Stevie’s voicemail. “No.”
“Can you call her friends?” Ruth makes a bubble-cheeked face for her daughter, keeping her voice light. “Maybe they share locations.”
That’s a good idea. The only phone number I have is Ike’s, though. This isn’t going to look good, but it’s happening.
He answers quickly. “Hey, Adam.”
“Hi, Ike.” I shuffle my phone to my other ear, pacing to the window that overlooks the long road leading to my cabin. A flash of lightning tells me that it’s a river right now. Not good. The ground is saturated after weeks of above-average rainfall. I curse under my breath. “Uh, this is Adam.”
Ruth releases a long sigh in my periphery, closing her eyes and rubbing a hand on her forehead.
“Yeah. What’s up?” Ike is way too easy on me.
“Stevie took a tour into the preserve tonight, and she’s not answering her phone.
” It occurs to me now that it might be weird for me to ask for his friend’s specific location.
Why do I still feel like an outsider with this group?
I shouldn’t. Stevie is my girlfriend. I don’t like any of this.
We should’ve been straightforward from the beginning.
“You all don’t share locations, do you?”
“Oh no.” There’s movement on Ike’s end, like he’s already leaving his house. “No, we don’t. I’m headed that way. Be there in—”
“My road is flooded. I can’t leave.” I hate everything about this.
“It’s okay. We’ll find her, man—” A soft, feminine voice on his end stops him short. “Okay, Diana is calling Marlow. We’re on it. Sit tight.” The phone clicks in my ear.
Sit tight?
I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less. But I have no other choice, and I hate it. I wish I felt relief that Ike is taking care of things. Instead, I pace from my living area to my kitchen and back.
“Okay, sit.” Ruth stabs her finger at my worn leather couch. “You’re driving me bonkers. Time out. Now.”
My sister’s voice makes Sammie’s bright eyes widen. “Unkie Adam chubble,” she states matter-of-factly.
“Yes, Sammie.” Ruth grins at me. “Uncle Adam is in big trouble.”
“Why am I in trouble?” I ask, fully aware of the answer as I drop onto my couch. I toss my phone onto the cushion at my side. “Sorry I’m so edgy. I’m . . . worried.” That hardly covers what I’m feeling.
When Sammie lunges for my phone, I don’t stop her. The thing is a useless brick when I can’t reach Stevie.
“I get it,” Ruth says with a frown at the darkened windows. “But I meant that you’re in trouble, as in you’re a goner for Stevie Sullivan, the staunch believer in sasquatches.”
Meanwhile, Sammie smacks my kneecap with my phone. “Wah-melon,” she demands. “Wah-melon.”
I scoop my niece under her arms, hoisting her onto my lap. When I take my phone to open the watermelon-smashing game I downloaded for her, she screeches in protest.
“Do you want to play Watermelon or not? You gotta give me my phone for a second, kid.” Toddlers are something else.
She looks at me with suspicion, barely allowing me to hold my phone long enough to open her game.
I’m grateful for the distraction while I figure out how to explain the situation with Stevie.
I help Sammie smash a few watermelons while I think, until she pries my hand away from my phone with chubby fingers.
“I do it.” She emphasizes the hard T, and a fleck of toddler spittle hits my hand. She settles against me, hogging my phone.
I wipe my hand on my jeans. I guess I can start with the easy part. “I am a goner for Stevie.”
Ruth squeals, throwing her head back and flopping onto the carpet. “I knew it!” She loves this stuff.
I’m happy to make Ruth happy, but all I can think about is Stevie out in this thunderstorm somewhere. Unless she made it out? I wish I knew one way or another. Worry and anxiety make my muscles tense. I can’t just sit here. I scrub my hand through my hair. What can I do? There has to be something.
“Okay, I’m distracting you.” Ruth stretches her legs, taking advantage of her daughter’s temporary diversion. This is as close to a vacation as my sister ever gets. “Tell me what you love about Stevie.”
“Ruth,” I grumble. I didn’t say I love her. I’ve only known her for a few weeks.
“Let me have this,” my sister snaps.
“Awfully quick to order me around for someone who showed up uninvited and unannounced this morning,” I grumble, swiping my finger across my phone to smash a watermelon. I don’t mind my sister being here, but I have to bust her chops or she’ll walk all over me.
“I do it!” Sammie squawks at me, shoving my hand away.
“Okay, okay,” I mutter. My niece is a little tyrant like her mother.
Ruth is spread flat on the carpet, her chin pointed at the ceiling. “Okay, fill in the blanks,” she says loudly, drawing out the words. “What I love about Stevie Sullivan is . . .”
Thunder rumbles outside, and Sammie gasps. “No, no, no.”
“Shhh. It’s okay.” I whisper, tightening my arm around my niece. Then I turn to Ruth. “Okay, I’ll talk, but this stays between us.”
“I said fill in the blanks,” Ruth demands with a laugh.
“Oh, geez.”
“Do it.” She twirls her toes in circles. Ruth could’ve gone anywhere on her weekend away, and she chose to come here and torment me.
“Fine,” I sigh. I enunciate like I’m reading a scholarly essay, “What I love about Stevie Sullivan is that she’s passionate about her friends, the outdoors—whatever she loves, she goes all in.
She’s so dang smart”—I chuckle at a few recent memories—“but she’s wrong a lot.
I love the way her mind works. I love her freckles.
Her red hair. When I hug her, it feels like I’m home.
I love that.” I'm aiming for nonchalant, as if Stevie hasn’t upended my world. “Happy?”
“Blissfully.” Ruth closes her eyes with a sigh while rain hammers the windows. “What do you think Stevie loves about you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know if Stevie loves me.”
“Why can’t you let me have this?” Ruth props her elbows behind herself, glaring at me like I shoved her wedding cake off a table and ruined romance forever. “You’re so annoying.”
I shrug. It’s my duty as her older brother. “Do I need to talk to Davis about making your life more romantic?” I threaten. “Because you’re weirdly obsessed with my love life.”
“Aha!” Ruth holds up an obnoxious index finger. “You admit it’s a love life!” She flops back onto the carpet, satisfied.
I'm afraid she’s right. Love is the only word that can possibly describe what I’m feeling. I can’t stop thinking about Stevie. Did she make it back to town before this storm hit? Maybe her phone died, or she dropped it in the woods again. I’m sick over her. This has to be love, right?
“Do you want to know what I love about Stevie?” Ruth cuts through my thoughts.
“You’ve never met her.” I glare uselessly out the window. “I appreciate that you’re trying to distract me when there’s nothing I can do to help her, though.”
“What I love about Stevie”—she ignores me, mimicking my loud, scholarly tone—“is the person you are when you’re with her—you know, since I’ve never met her.
My confirmed hermit brother is getting out of the woods, making friends, going to town meetings and family dinners.
Stevie Sullivan has my full, one-hundred-percent endorsement—”
“Hewwooooo?” Sammie interrupts, holding my phone to her ear. I’m sure her mother has modeled this behavior plenty of times. “What-tup?” she stresses the hard P, her spit landing on my arm this time.
I wipe my arm on my jeans. “I know, I know. Everyone likes Stevie.”
Ruth isn’t done, though. “No, we’ve established that you love her.” She twirls her feet in circles again. “Have you told her that you love her?”
I roll my eyes. Of course not. I only figured it out myself thirty seconds ago. “I’ve told her I’m her boyfriend, but not—”
“Gah!” Ruth screeches. “You did? What did she say?”
I sigh. “She asked me to give her a day or two to figure out how to tell everyone she lost the bet—”
“Lost the bet because she’s your girlfriend,” Ruth butts in like she can’t contain herself. She’s in heaven right now.
I roll my eyes. “My secret girlfriend, but I'm sure she’s using this time to find Bigfoot evidence so she doesn’t have to lose the stupid bet.
Hence—” I gesture with frustration to the storm outside, where my girlfriend may or may not be marooned.
My worst fears about Stevie being in the woods are coming true right now.
“Unkie Adam said a bad wodd,” Sammie tattles into my phone.
“Sorry, ladies.” I grimace at my sister and squeeze my niece. Stupid is on Ruth’s list of forbidden bad words. The bet is stupid, though, so I reword and reiterate, “Stevie is determined to win the silly bet, to the point that she risks her safety.”
“I wonder why.” Ruth frowns at the wood beams running across my ceiling, lost in thought.
I’ve also wondered why Stevie cares so much. No one likes to lose, and Stevie loves being right. I get that. But this is different. She’s hyperfixated on it. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve never asked her?”
I shrug.
“Ugh.” Ruth swats at my sock-covered foot. “Communication, Adam. You’ve grown by leaps and bounds in the last few weeks, but there’s still room for improvement.”
She’s right. I should ask Stevie why she’s so fixated on this bet, but I know why I haven’t. I’m afraid. As much as I’ve grown to respect and love Stevie, I worry that she . . .
Oh, man. I can’t even think about it without shying away. This is a problem.
I suck in a deep breath, tightening my jaw. I’ve got this.
I fear that Stevie might . . . actually believe Bigfoot is out there. I exhale with a whoosh.
I repeat the thought: Stevie believes in Bigfoot.
Huh. The thought doesn’t bother me as much as it would have a few weeks ago. It isn’t that I’ve suddenly become a believer, but Stevie’s open mind must be softening me. Maybe I don’t know everything.
I sink deeper into my couch. Stevie and I talk around the topic of sasquatch these days. He’s become the giant, hairy ape-man in the room, but now that my girlfriend is in danger, I don’t care about any of that. I want her safe. That’s all I care about.
When my living room falls silent, a far-off, tinny voice catches my attention. My gaze snaps toward the sound.
Sammie is still holding my phone to her ear, nodding her head in an uncanny imitation of my sister while she babbles.
“Hello?” the distant male voice calls. “Adam?”
It’s coming from my phone. Someone is on the line. But by the time I wrestle it out of Sammie’s sticky death grip, the call has just ended. The name on the screen makes my stomach lurch.
This isn’t good.
Ike Wentworth, town manager and chairman of the Ridiculous Committee to Determine the Outcome of Bigfoot Versus Boyfriend, just had a two minute and eighteen second phone call with my niece.
Ruth sits up. “Was someone on the phone?”
I drop my phone on the couch. “Ike Wentworth,” I mutter, dragging my hand through my hair.
Her forehead scrunches in confusion. “Who?”
“Stevie’s friend.” Maybe he’s my friend, too. Or he was, before I secretly dated Stevie while serving on this boneheaded committee. I might’ve ruined everything for Stevie and lost a new friend in a single two-minute phone call.