Chapter 4
It’s late afternoon when we reach South Lake Tahoe.
The cabin I’m calling home for the next few days is at the end of a quiet, wooded cul-de-sac a couple miles from the lake, and it’s only a “cabin” in the sense that it’s in a rustic location and has timber siding.
In all other respects, from the outside, it’s a mountain mansion: huge, with oversized windows, an outdoor sauna, and a gorgeous deck with a fire pit framed by Adirondack chairs.
The kind of place you miss on Airbnb when you sort by price, low to high, like I always do.
Inside is a different story. A story, perhaps, of a twelve-year-old boy tasked with decorating a million-dollar piece of real estate.
“This one is all video games,” Nate says, poking his head into the third bedroom. Logan is late picking him up, so I invited him inside, even though the drive didn’t kill the awkwardness between us like I’d hoped.
“Please tell me one of these bedrooms contains a bed,” I say.
The stunner of a living room, with its soaring ceilings and a massive stone fireplace, is empty except for a futon and a giant television. The first bedroom contains an air hockey table and a life-size cardboard cutout of Steph Curry. The second is full of Lego sets and jigsaw puzzles.
Tracy generously arranged for me to stay here for free for a few nights—a send-off gift to wish me well on my trip—so I have no right to complain.
Except the cabin is owned by some fancy tech guy, a friend of her son.
According to her, he comes out here a couple weekends a month. So I expected, you know, furniture.
Mercifully, the fourth bedroom is fully furnished. “I’m going to settle in,” I say. “Give me a shout when Logan gets here.”
He glances at his phone, and his mouth tightens. Logan has a big heart, but he’s notoriously flaky and easily distracted by a good time, so Nate might be waiting a while. “My legs are kind of stiff from the drive. I’m going to walk around outside and try calling him.”
After I drop my suitcase on the hardwood floor and set the plant Bailey gave me on the nightstand, I head to the en suite bathroom. There’s a pebble tile shower with multiple showerheads, but no hand towels, and a bottle of hand sanitizer sitting on the vanity instead of soap.
No big deal. This place is free, and I’ll gladly dry my hands on my pants if it means I get to use that shower every morning.
After such a stressful day, the bed is tempting, but I’m too restless to lie down. Instead, I raise my foot onto the bench in the corner and stretch out my hamstring. Before switching sides, I check my phone, where a text from Bailey awaits.
Bailey: How’s Day 1 going?
A familiar burn flares in my chest. Not because she’s asking about the trip, but because I need to consider what to say about Nate. Talking to Bailey about him has always stressed me out.
On the first night of my first visit to Seapoint, we got drunk in Bailey’s backyard with her closest friends.
Giana and Sam arrived early, and we sat at the bar on the patio, bundled up in sweatshirts and playing a lazy version of quarters.
Everyone in their core friend group was a “work hard, play hard” type, I’d gathered—honors classes, tons of extracurriculars.
They fielded a lot of party invitations and seemed more worried about too many people showing up at Bailey’s birthday celebration than too few.
Giana bounced the coin, which ricocheted off the counter and onto the ground near my chair. “Are you single, Quinn?”
“Oh, yeah. One hundred percent.”
I hopped down to grab the quarter, and when I popped back up, she and Bailey were exchanging a loaded look.
“Promise me something?” Bailey took the coin from me. “Please don’t hook up with any of my friends.”
“Of course,” I said automatically. I was there for her, the first friend I’d made since my family’s lives had collapsed, not for a sloppy make-out session with a random dude.
Giana sipped her beer and pursed her lips. “It’s so annoying when girls come to our parties just to try to hook up with the guys.”
“Does that happen often?”
Before anyone could answer, two figures stepped outside through the back door.
One of them was on the shorter side, with dark hair and blue eyes.
A stocky, muscled build, a rugged nose. Bailey had described Logan to me as “dangerously hot” when she invited me to join her for the weekend.
“He’s like dipping fries in a Frosty,” she explained.
“Unexpected enough that you’ll think you’re the only one who’s into it. But so does literally everyone else. ”
But I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the other one, the taller guy with sandy hair and cagey gray eyes. The guy I almost hit with my car. My eyes went wide, and his went narrow when he spotted me.
“Oh,” I said, my voice choked.
Giana leaned toward me. “Remember, you promised.”
Which is why I never told anyone, including Bailey, what almost happened the following night in the pool.
It also made it impossible to explain to her how, after that, Nate became the member of the group I gravitated toward the most, other than Bailey herself.
And it meant by the time I moved to L.A.
, even though I was pretty sure her request had long since expired, I felt weird about coming clean.
Now there’s no point. I text her back: Super fun so far! I’m so glad I’m doing this. Settling in now, I’ll text you later!
My body is wound tight after the car ride, so I kneel on the floor and take my time on a few cat-cows, breathing deeply and savoring the gentle stretch. I’m about to move to my back for a few more exercises when my phone buzzes. Fortunately, it’s not Bailey this time.
Michelle: You were supposed to check in with me when you got there…
I lie back on the floor and send a quick Here to her before shifting into a spinal twist to target my lower back and glutes. She responds immediately.
Michelle: Oh, good, you’re alive.
Quinn: Since when are you so dramatic? It’s nice to know you love me, though!
Michelle: Well, fuck me for wanting to make sure you got there in one piece. Plus, you have my car.
Michelle: I left Trojans in the glove compartment in case you decide to bang Nate, by the way.
“Gah!” The knowledge that there are condoms in this world earmarked for the hypothetical sex Nate and I are never going to have makes my head spin. I drop the phone and bring my other knee across my body.
I thought you weren’t supposed to leave condoms in the glove compartment? I type when I’m done.
Michelle: Shit. I spent so long trying to get pregnant I forgot how to try not to get pregnant. Text me tomorrow and let me know how it’s going, okay?
Nate’s faint voice reaches me from outside my window.
I pop up onto my knees and peek outside, my eyes just above the windowsill.
The house is elevated above the backyard, and he’s walking the perimeter of the property near the tree line.
His phone is pressed to his ear, and he’s massaging his forehead with the other hand.
Logan will come for him any minute, and then I can concentrate on the real reason I’m here: to recenter myself. To focus and reflect and shake off the Caleb mess, and to find that thing inside me that used to make me jump out of bed every morning, eager to get to the studio.
It’s going to be great , I tell Michelle.
The greatness doesn’t start that night.
I can only take so much of Nate pacing around the cabin clutching his phone before I grab the car keys and announce that I’m going to check out the beach.
All I want is to eat a turkey, avocado, and sprouts sandwich alone while staring at the water with Glennon Doyle’s podcast in my headphones.
But I guess I should attempt to be friendly.
“Do you want to come?” I ask uncertainly, tying a cropped seafoam sweatshirt around my gym shorts.
He waves me off. “No, no. I’ve intruded enough. Have a good time.”
I catch a glimpse of his phone screen. He’s scrolling through DoorDash, which doesn’t seem like a strong sign of his imminent departure. “Will you still be here when I get back?”
He grimaces. “I’m having trouble getting ahold of Logan. It’s possible he mixed up his dates and thinks I’m coming tomorrow. But if I don’t hear from him soon, I’ll book a hotel or something.”
The relief that sprouts inside me is immediately washed away by guilt. Be friendly. “That’s silly. You can stay here if you need to.” There’s enough room; the fifth bedroom contains both a bed and a replica of the Avengers Infinity Gauntlet.
My pulse accelerates at the prospect of spending the night across the hall from him. I busy myself with the arms of my sweatshirt, unknotting and retying them.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Of course.” I open the front door. “See you later, maybe.”
When I get back later in the evening, there’s half a burrito in the fridge, and the door to the fifth bedroom is closed. It’s still shut the next morning when I poke my head out of my own room.
I make a cup of the green tea I brought from home and take it outside.
The wraparound deck overlooks miles of trees and, near the kitchen, a fragment of the lake crowned with distant mountains.
The air smells like lush pine. I don’t like fragrance, but I don’t mind this scent—I’d even say I like it—because it’s real.
The morning is cool enough that when I angle my face to catch the warmth of the sun, it feels decadent on my skin.
I lean on the railing and listen to the birds sing, thinking, blessedly, about nothing at all.
I’m not sure how much time passes before Nate slides open the door and joins me.
This is fine, I think, and do the thing I would do if things were normal: I point to a squirrel that’s been dancing up and down the trunk of the tree nearest the house. “I know this is going to sound weird,” I say, “but this squirrel is channeling the essence of Tom Holland on Lip Sync Battle. ”