Chapter 4
Clementine
By day four at Got Wood?, I’ve cried twice, lied to six customers about screws, and discovered that if I climb the aisle-six ladder and pretend to do inventory, no one questions why I’m sniffling into a box of hammers.
It’s not the job that has me weeping in the middle of my shifts. The job’s fine, gloriously fine. I wear a green apron with Do You Need Assistance? embroidered across the chest, and people hand me money for caulk.
Way better than sitting in Gran’s kitchen with the squeaky floor and humming fridge, reminding me I live above her garage rent-free.
It’s the quiet that gets me.
At Lincoln Center, silence only existed for about half a second between counts—one-and-two!—and then your body was already into the next thing. Here, stillness stretches until my thoughts spill everywhere, and I remember that I gave up my life as a ballerina on a whim.
Cody, the store owner and my gran’s longtime co-conspirator, hurries past the counter with a box of hose nozzles balanced on his hip.
“You’re doing great, Clem,” he calls without slowing.
I hop off the stool behind the register, nearly knocking over a stack of folding camping chairs someone parked too close, and pretend I’m focusing.
“Thank you?”
Cody’s known me since I was six, when I showed up to his son’s birthday party in a tutu and muddy sneakers. He also knows that I arrived in Misthaven with desperation in my mouth, which is probably why he feels entitled to shout things over his shoulder like we’re still in line for cake.
“Is Margaret happy with the soil and seeds for the lodge?”
“Yep. I got the flowerpots filled before breakfast.”
He flashes a distracted thumbs-up and disappears down an aisle.
What I don’t tell him is that I nearly brained a stranger with a shovel while carrying out those orders.
I slump back onto the stool behind the counter, apron bunching at my waist. If I open my phone, I know I’ll be Viggling How long is too long to take a break from ballet, even though I know the answer.
Or, worse, I’ll click through half-filled shopping carts for boots, perfume, or anything to prove I still exist somewhere outside this town.
Both options end with me crying on the aisle-six ladder.
So I don’t.
Instead, I pick up my phone, my thumb hesitating, then type in Alec Hastings.
Turns out the jerk is famous. Like, actually famous.
There’s a Wikipedia page, glossy press shots, and videos with millions of views. His dad is the owner of the largest tech company in the world, which means Alec didn’t just come from money—he came from money money.
New York is filled with the rich elite who attend galas and after-parties, but this is another tier. I guess I could’ve guessed from the cashmere sweater he was wearing.
I click on his Instagram and laugh. His handle is @TwoMenOnTop.
What kind of name is that? It’s way too sexual for just mountain climbing.
But every photo is cliffs and ice and snow.
In almost every shot there’s a second man, named Finn.
He has long hair, a bigger build, and a grin plastered across his face. They look like brothers…or lovers?
I stop on a photo of my new neighbor.
He’s shirtless, perched on a boulder, beanie on, an entire mountain range spread out behind him like it was printed there to match his jawline.
He’s smiling the smile of someone who is exactly where they’re meant to be.
His hair is a dark chestnut, a little messy, and he’s clean-shaven here, unlike the scruff this morning.
I zoom in, which should be a crime, because my cursed thumb double-taps.
“Oh crap, I didn’t mean to like your torso!” I squeal, hit unlike, and throw my phone on the counter like it bit me.
The bell above the door jingles. My heart lifts stupidly, but it’s just a pair of hikers wearing matching smiles and matching windbreakers.
“Heya!” the guy says. “Do you sell kayaks?”
“Adventure Supply. Two roads down, red trim, smells like patchouli and tuna sandwiches,” I say, already inching back toward my phone.
“Told you, Urla,” the girl singsongs, swatting him. She grins at me. “We just got in. Starting training today.”
“For Denali?” It’s the only mountain people train for around here.
“No. For Wild Trails.”
“They’re still doing that?”
The last time I spent a summer in Misthaven, Wild Trails was just a flyer curling on the bulletin board and my grandpa judging from a lawn chair with a Styrofoam cup of coffee.
“Not only are they doing it, but there’s a cash prize this year!” Urla crows like he’s just invented capitalism. “Twenty grand!”
“Twenty what?” I choke on air, and also on the past-due credit card bills currently haunting my phone notifications.
“Thousand dollars.” His friend slides the yellow flyer across the counter.
I skim it: hiking, kayaking, rappelling. Basically, summer camp activities to the extreme. And you must enter with a partner.
My brain short-circuits. How on earth did I miss this? That’s not just prize money. That’s debt-gets-paid money. That’s call-collectors-back-without-hyperventilating money. That’s maybe-I-go-back-to-New-York-and-try-dancing-again money.
Impossible? Maybe.
But I’ve done harder things in pointe shoes.
Somewhere in this five-thousand-person town, there has to be someone reckless or desperate enough to team up with me and win that money.
I’m ticking through the roster in my head—Gran’s knees would never allow it, Cody would turn it into a lecture, my old best friend Yura’s off in Anchorage wearing scrubs instead of hiking boots—when the bell over the front door splits the air, jerking me back to the present.
This time, my heart doesn’t sink back down.
Alec Hastings doesn’t stroll or saunter into the store. He enters it like he’s trying to outrun his own thoughts.
Same navy sweater as this morning, damp hair pushed back with impatience, sleeves shoved to his elbows. The ink on his skin peeks out in lines. Trees, maybe, or topo maps.
“Welcome to Got Wood?” I chirp.
He stops short, turns fully, and those golden eyes pin me. “It’s you.”
“Looking younger by the minute!”
Before he can say more, Urla lunges at him. “Oh my god—are you Alec Hastings? You are, aren’t you? Dude, we read the article. That rescue was gnarly. You dragged Finn down with a jacket sled, right?”
Alec doesn’t answer.
“Is he here? Are you guys doing Wild Trails?” Urla’s friend chimes in. “Man, if you’re competing, we should just pack it up and go home.”
I know the look of someone white-knuckling their way through a panic spiral in public. I know how it feels to be stared at like you’re something to consume, but this is not my problem.
Not my problem!
Alec’s lips part, but he seems to shut down, like something heavy dropped through him and buried the sound. “I’m not—”
Ugh, why can’t I just stay out of things?
“Hey, Alec!” I cut in like I don’t just sell lumber. I am lumber, and I dart around the counter to wedge myself between him and the spotlight. “You still want to see the reclaimed wood in the back?”
For a second, he doesn’t move. Then his eyes catch mine, and there’s relief so sharp it almost hurts.
“Please.”
“Nice to meet you!” Urla calls after us. “Hope to see you at this weekend’s welcome event!” His buddy elbows him. “What? If he shows up, we’re toast anyway.”
I steer Alec down the aisle, past shelves that smell like pine and solvent, until we’re tucked beside a leaf blower display.
“Thanks for that,” he says.
“Got Wood? store policy number one: Always rescue a guy mid-ambush.” I lean against a stack of two-by-fours. “Union rules.”
“You actually work here?”
“Since this week,” I say. I brace for pity. People in Misthaven are fluent in pity since I arrived. But he only tilts his head curiously. Which makes me want to tell him everything while I sob into an oil rag.
He clears his throat. “I drove for three days from San Francisco. Got in this morning. So if I was a dick earlier—”
“You were,” I say. “But it’s fine. I was too busy being an eighty-seven-year-old bear to notice.”
His face softens, and he looks younger. Or maybe I’m just seeing the version from the photo my thumbs accidentally made out with moments ago.
“What I wanted to say is that I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Great.” He shifts, arms crossed, forearms inked and lean. His watch lights up, and he glances at it like he’s timing the conversation.
“So, you’re from San Francisco?” I prod.
“Marin.”
“Fancy! I’m from Concord.” I throw in finger guns because Bay Area solidarity. He does not finger-gun back.
“You’re not from Misthaven?”
“Technically, no. My mom bolted to the Bay the second she could. I bolted to New York the second I could stand on pointe shoes. We’re very good at leaving things.”
“And your dad? Siblings?” he asks, like he’s running down a checklist.
“No siblings, and my dad was also excellent at leaving.” I toss it out like a joke. He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even wince. Just shelves it away like he has a filing cabinet in his chest where he keeps things he doesn’t want to talk about. “What about you?” I press. “Family still in Marin?”
“My folks are. Five siblings are scattered.” His eyes cut toward me like he’s measuring how much I already know.
Clearly, this man has privacy issues.
I tilt my chin toward the front of the store, where the hikers mobbed him earlier. “So…what was that all about?”
“Who knows.”
“It seemed like you did.”
His jaw twitches. He’s so easily irritated it’s almost fun to poke.
“I’m a climber,” he finally admits. “Guess they were…fans.”
“Fans, huh? So basically, I rescued you from a swarm of selfies.”
“Guess so.”
“So you owe me an apology and a thank-you. Really racking up the IOUs.”
“Thanks.” He looks like he’d rather chew nails than say it, which only makes me giddy.
“My grandpa was a pretty well-known climber around these parts when I was a kid, but no one ever rushed him like that.”
“You didn’t take after him?”
“Not really.”
He huffs like I’m boring him. “Well, if you don’t know who I am, then you’ve probably heard of my family. My dad owns Viggle.”
“Wow.”
“My sister Frankie is about to be the first female F1 driver.”
“Not big on cars.”
“Brooklyn, then. She’s a figure skater.”
That jolts me. “Wait—Brooklyn Hastings? Shut up. I love her. I watch every Winter Olympics. She’s unreal on the ice.”
“Yep.” He shrugs, eyes sliding away like it’s nothing, like his sister isn’t a national treasure.
“You say that like you just admitted she works at the post office.”
His mouth quirks, but his hands are busier, restlessly tugging at the hem of his shirt. His nails are clipped short and neat. Veins track down the backs, into the watch strap and the compass tattoo at his wrist.
Hands that look like they could hang from a cliff by a pinkie, or drag someone to safety, or—God help me—crush me without breaking a sweat. Heat slides traitorously low in my core.
“And you climb mountains.” I shake my head, like I can jostle the thought away. “Your poor parents. All their kids out in the world, defying death like that. I’d be terrified.”
He pivots. “Do you work in the design department of the store?”
I bark out a laugh. “Department? Please. We’re about as corporate as a lemonade stand. It’s just me and the owner.”
“I assumed since you had so many opinions about the porch this morning.”
“Those weren’t opinions. That was trauma. Years of immersion in New York City Ballet set notes. You pick up an eye for staging whether you want it or not.”
“So naturally you moved on to…”
“Lots of paint and lots of caulk,” I say. His gaze flicks to my mouth. “The kind that seals things,” I blurt. “Not—” I zip my lips. “Uh, not the kind you were on the porch.”
His brows lift. “Did you just say I was being a cock?”
“Ugh. I meant, you know, like a big dick. No, wait—” I groan. “Fine, yeah. Cock works. You were being one.”
“Am I making you nervous?”
He’s disturbingly perceptive. “Being nervous is like ninety percent of my personality.”
“Mm.” He shrugs and pulls a leather notebook from his pocket, flipping it open.
“What’s that?”
“My list.”
I lean in, squinting at the page—but really, it’s the cedar, road dust, and faint sting of Bengay that makes my stomach cartwheel. “I could help you get started on that.”
“Thanks.”
He follows me down the first aisle toward roofing. He looks like he wants to do this in silence. Unfortunately for both of us, I’m the kind of person who fills silence with packing peanuts. “So, are you actually here for Wild Trails?”
“No.”
My pulse jumps. That means I still have a shot at that prize money, as long as I find a partner.
“Are you?” He says it like a question, but there’s judgment tucked inside.
“Yes,” I answer, like I didn’t make the call two minutes ago.
“Good luck with that.”
“Your first impression is improving.” I smile.
“With me, it’s usually downhill from here.”
“Noted,” I say and wave at the shelves. “Well, here’s the roof stuff. Roof things, roof screws, roof plans. Basically a roof wonderland.”
“Is there someone here who knows what they’re talking about?” His tone is mild, but the dig lands.
“You were right,” I sigh. “It is all downhill from there.”
“Don’t take it personally. I don’t know much about any of this either.”
“Oh good,” I say brightly. “We can be the incompetent newbies together!” He remains unamused, which makes me almost feel bad for him. “I’ll get Cody,” I relent. “He’s the owner. He can talk shingles until you beg for mercy.”
“Appreciate it.”
I start to leave, then pause, looking back at him. “Just put in a good word for me, okay? First week and all. Consider it payback for calling me an old beast.”
This time, he almost smiles for real. “Will do.”
And that should be the end of it, but my pulse is still sprinting when I round the corner.