Chapter 20 Genevieve
Genevieve
The sun isn’t fully up when Lance bangs on the bedroom door.
“Up,” he calls, his voice muffled through the wood. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Go away.”
“Don’t make me come in there.”
I bury my face in the pillow and groan. I’ve barely slept.
Every time I closed my eyes, my brain replayed my father’s voice on a loop—I love you to the moon—and by the third hour of staring at the ceiling, I gave up pretending I’d get any rest at all.
Sighing, I push off the bed and stomp to the door, swinging it open.
“If you don’t have coffee, I’m going back to bed.”
He smirks, but his eyes flick over my face like he’s checking for damage, and a bit of my irritation softens.
“You sleep at all?”
“Why do you care?”
“You’re cranky.”
I scoff and cross my arms.
“You can use it to fuel you when we run,” he says, sounding way too awake for how dark it still is.
“Run? Like…outside?”
He tosses me a protein bar and jerks his chin toward a bag on the ground. “Grabbed some stuff this morning for you to wear in case you didn’t have anything. Shoes are by the front door. They should fit.”
I blink at him. He went out and got me shoes?
“Ten minutes,” he says, and walks away before I can ask any questions.
Cavall, who was sitting at Lance’s feet, stays behind, that pink duck clamped in his mouth and his tail wagging.
“Traitor,” I mutter. “You were supposed to be on my side.”
His tail wags harder.
I drag myself over to the bag of clothes placed next to the door and change into them, hating that they actually fit perfectly. Then I stomp out, rage fueling every second that I have to myself to wake up and think.
Cavall waits for me and then stays right by my side, pouncing down the stairs and nosing at my hand until I pet him.
“Where’s your asshole owner?” I ask, looking around the living room.
He walks over to his bed, dropping the duck in a swirl of blankets and fabric, then noses it until it’s positioned exactly right. He gives a sharp whine and trots to the front door.
I quirk a brow and follow.
Lance is waiting on the porch, arms crossed, looking like some kind of smug Greek statue.
“What’s that look for?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Disappointment, probably, from having to see your face.”
A slow grin spreads across it and a tiny flip of something sparks in my chest.
“You’re late,” he says. “I said ten minutes.”
“Didn’t realize we had a date.”
“Trust me, Half-Pint, if we were on a date, you’d know it.”
He turns and jogs off, and I stare after him. He stops and glances over his shoulder. “You coming?”
I swear under my breath and run after him, each step fueled by spite.
Cavall bounds alongside us, darting into the trees and back again, his tongue lolling like this is the greatest adventure of his life. Meanwhile, we’re about five minutes in and I’m wheezing like I swallowed sandpaper.
Lance, who’s been ahead of me this entire time, slows and runs in place, turning just enough to watch me struggle toward him.
Sweat slicks his skin, catching the early-morning light as it filters through the trees in gold and green.
The sun breaks through the canopy, striking him dead-on, and I resent the fact he looks like he belongs out here.
Like nature is his habitat, and I’m the outsider who wandered into it.
When I finally catch up, he eases into a jog beside me.
“Your breathing’s terrible,” he says.
“Your personality’s terrible.”
He chuckles and picks up the pace. “Come on, there’s a place I want to show you.”
I swear under my breath and follow, because I have no idea where we are, and as much as I resent being dragged around by Lance Calloway, the only thing worse would be getting lost alone in these woods. Last time that happened, it didn’t go well.
By minute ten, my muscles feel like overcooked noodles, and by minute who-the-hell-knows, I consider faking a stroke.
Eventually, mercifully, he stops. I skid to a halt, my legs wobbling like those of a newborn deer, and brace my hands on my thighs, sucking in air.
“Good,” he says. “Thought you might quit.”
“If I…quit…I can’t…murder…you.”
I glare up at him, still bent over, wondering if I’m about to throw up or pass out.
He produces a water bottle from somewhere and I don’t question it, because my mouth is so dry my tongue feels glued in place. I snatch it from him and drink greedily.
“Easy,” Lance says, his voice softer. “If you chug it, you’ll get sick.”
I lower the bottle just long enough to glare at him, then lift it again and finish it off out of spite, smiling sweetly when I’m done.
He sighs, hands settling on his hips.
A few seconds later, nausea rolls through me in a slow, vicious wave. I clamp my mouth shut and turn away from him, bracing my hands on my knees while my stomach lurches.
He doesn’t say a word. Just steps forward and holds my hair back while I lose the protein bar and all the water I just chugged into the bushes.
When it’s over, I straighten, wiping my mouth, refusing to look at him.
“I hate you,” I croak.
“Drink slower next time.”
When my legs stop shaking, I finally take in our surroundings.
The snide remark I’m building dies on my tongue.
There’s a small body of water, maybe fifty feet across, nestled into a bowl of stone and pine.
A waterfall cascades down the far end, the sound of it filling the space like white noise.
Mist hangs in the air where the water hits the rocks, and the trees bend toward the alcove instead of away, like they’re guarding it.
“What is this place?” I breathe.
Lance nods toward the waterfall. “You like it?”
“Like it? It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.”
Cavall splashes into the shallow water, dips his head for a noisy drink, flops down, then pounces back to us and shakes his entire body.
“Agh!” I screech, hands flying up.
A genuine grin cracks across Lance’s face. “I think he has a crush on you.”
“Yeah, well.” I pull my wet shirt away from my torso and lift it to wipe the flecks of water off my face. “His manners could use some work.”
I drop my shirt and Lance’s grin is gone.
His gaze is fixed on where I’d lifted the fabric, and the air goes thick.
My skin prickles where the damp cloth clings.
He blinks and looks away, jaw clenching.
I clear my throat. “How’d you find this place?”
“Art and I used to come here as kids. Sank a raft once, then sat on those rocks and bitched about our families for hours. Threw a lot of good parties, too.”
The name settles between us like a grenade. Being here, in this beautiful place that belongs to Lance and Art’s history, makes it feel like I’m standing in the middle of their friendship, and asking Lance to choose a side.
I don’t even know what side I’m on, yet.
“Behind that waterfall,” he says, breaking the quiet, “there’s an alcove. Completely hidden from view.”
He hesitates, throat bobbing.
“People use it when they want privacy. But my brother Alex used to tell us a different story. About the Lady of the Lake. Said she fell in love with our great-grandfather, who would come here. He’d take her behind the falls and make love to her, promising her the world.”
“No,” I gasp, enthralled. “Is it true?”
“I doubt it. Alex loved telling us ghost stories when we’d camp.
But the story goes that she’d trail down from the water trying to reach him in town, but never could.
And one day, she stopped trying to leave at all.
Alex said her spirit still roams there, forever longing for a love that won’t love her back. ”
Something tugs deep in my chest. “Can we go back there?”
“Not today.”
I frown. “Then why’d you even bring me here?”
“Because I wanted you to see a side of Rosebrook that was something you could have. Nobody will come up here and tell you where to go, or how to be, or…” He shrugs. “After everything you learned, I thought you could use something that was just for you. A place to get away.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I just look at the waterfall, and the mist, and the autumn trees bending toward us, and let the silence hold it.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he says after a moment. “You’ll hate me again when we do more tomorrow.”
“More running?” I groan. “Am I being punished for something?”
“Your balance sucks, your form is trash, and if anyone grabbed you right now, you’d be kidnapped and dead within a day.”
“And running’s supposed to help with that?”
He steps close enough that he’s blocking the morning sun, and I’m standing in his shadow.
“We don’t talk about me or my family,” he says, and the lightness is gone from his voice. “You do what I say, when I say it, and you don’t complain.”
I bristle. “Get real.”
He doesn’t react, just keeps pressing closer, until my heart skips from the way his energy skims along my skin.
“First we fix your stamina,” he continues. “Then we fix your form.”
“Great. You’re a sadist.” I groan, rubbing my palm over my sweat-slicked hair. I drop my hand halfway through the motion. “Wait. What?”
He tilts his head, studying me like he’s measuring how much damage he can inflict.
My gaze drops to the way his throat bobs as he swallows, and a sharp, unwelcome twist happens low in my stomach.
“I’ll teach you,” he says. “But those are my terms.”
I stare at him, waiting for the punch line. For the laugh, for the dismissal, for the cruelty that came so easily yesterday morning.
It doesn’t come.
“You’ll teach me how to fight?” I ask.
He holds my stare for a long second, then nods once before taking off back the way we came. He whistles for Cavall, and I’m left standing there with my heart doing cartwheels in my chest.
“What changed?” I ask, scrambling to catch up.
He sighs and looks over at me, his eyes swirling with an emotion I’ve never seen on him before. “Because I know what it feels like to become a victim of your circumstances, and I hate to see it happening to you.”
He jogs away again, staying a little ahead the entire way back to the cabin.
I feel nervous. Scared, maybe. Afraid of failing.
But there’s a small, traitorous thing in my chest that feels a lot like relief.
Late Nights and Loose Lips: The Calloway Saga Isn’t Over
Oh, Rosebrook. Just when we’d started to think the Lance Calloway and Genevieve DeGrance whispers had fizzled into background noise, the tea kettle went and whistled.
Multiple tip-offs landed in our inbox overnight (you nosy angels), all saying the same thing: Lance was spotted entering Genevieve’s HillPoint apartment building not once, but twice in twenty-four hours.
Now, we’re not saying anything happened, but we’re also absolutely saying that it might have.
Where is our beloved Arthur Penngrove these days? And what does he think about all this?
We reached out to the mayor’s office, who hit us with a “no comment” so fast we got whiplash.
So, what is going on? A friendship turned…complicated? A breakup in slow motion?
One thing’s for sure: This triangle is looking like a ticking time bomb.
And you know we’ll be watching when it goes off.
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