Chapter 13
I crest the ridge just beyond the tree line. Below, the creek cuts through rock and cedar, the air thick with the scent of juniper. Sunlight reflects off the water, sharp enough to make me squint. It’s so shallow I’d have to lie down to get wet, but it’s plenty deep to dunk a T-shirt.
I pull out my phone and dial Hannah back. “Hey kiddo,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Sorry I didn’t call last night. I got in late.”
And I was drunk.
“Why are you whispering?”
“I’m at practice, and my teacher’s a hard-ass.” I check behind me, but Maggie’s still in the clearing, obscured by the oaks. I keep walking.
Hannah giggles. “You’re gonna get in trouble.”
Yeah, already checked that box.
At the water’s edge, I peel off my shirt and sling it over my shoulder. “Think you can do me a favor and hold off calling or texting ’til after three?”
She sighs dramatically. “What if it’s an emergency?”
“My phone will be on. Just try to make sure it’s an actual emergency, okay, Han? Otherwise, she might give me detention.” I crack a smile as “Hot for Teacher” cues up in my head. “I’ll let you know as soon as I’m done. This is just in case we run late.”
“Whatever. Don’t forget.”
“I promise.”
“Promise, promise?”
“Promise, promise, promise.”
I pocket my phone and step forward to dip my T-shirt in the water, realizing too late that my new Golden Goose high-tops are in too. They come pre-distressed, so how bad can it be? If the leather cracks, it cracks. “Just means they’re lived in,” my mother would say.
The thought of her hits me square in the chest as I wring out my shirt and tug it back on.
I fucking miss her. I miss those Tennessee summers too, when the creek behind my grandparents’ place felt like my whole world.
Shadier than this one, with trees so tall they shut out half the sky.
We’d go every summer, Mom, Dad, and me. For three weeks in July, I got to be a normal kid: running barefoot in the grass, catching lightning bugs in jars, wading through the water.
I was happy. My parents were happy. Maybe even in love.
But when Dad’s career took priority over his wife, he stopped going.
Mom’s drinking filled the void, and she stopped going too.
By then, I was a sullen teen with a chip on my shoulder, and I sure as hell wasn’t wasting summers in rural nowhere when I could run wild in LA with my own driver and a card that never got declined.
“You get lost?” Maggie calls from the bank, and I whip my head around too fast.
“Sorry,” I say, rubbing my temples. “Got sidetracked.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” She smiles tentatively, holding out two baggie-wrapped sandwiches like a peace offering, bottles of water tucked in the crook of her arm.
“Tacos were a no-go, but think you can stomach a sandwich? They’re both ham and cheese.
One with mustard, the other mayo. Well, Miracle Whip, but close enough. ”
“Miracle Whip?”
“It’s fine. My brother hates it too.”
“My dad hates it,” I say without thinking.
I don’t.
Maggie’s eyes drop to my submerged shoes as I splash toward her. I brace for her judgment, the kind that says I’ve got more money than sense, but it never comes.
“Here,” she says, handing me the mustard sandwich and a bottle of water. “Hope you’re good with standard-issue yellow.”
“Yeah, I’m—thanks.” I pull it out of the baggie and wolf half of it down in one go. Guess I could stomach it after all. The bread sticks to the roof of my mouth, but right now it might be the best thing I’ve ever had.
Cicadas drone on the far bank, followed by the faint rustle of plastic, Maggie’s mmm as she takes a bite.
I look up and spot a smear of Miracle Whip on her lip. My hand twitches like I might…what? Wipe it off for her?
I tap my lip instead. “You have some…”
“Oh.” Her tongue flicks out to catch it.
Jesus. What is it about this girl that a damn condiment has me worked up?
My grip tightens on the bottle, knuckles whitening before I realize I’m doing it.
“How’s your head?” she asks, and I lift it too fast. Again.
“Oh, just super.” Pain spikes behind my eyes as I unscrew the cap on my water and take a long swig. “About earlier,” I say, holding the bottle to my neck. “Showing up hungover was—”
“Inconsiderate? Thoughtless?” She smirks. “Rude?”
“Yeah, that.”
She picks at her crust, tossing the pieces in the creek. “I’m sorry about the water,” she says quietly. “That was just…”
I grin. “Childish? Hostile?”
Sexy as hell.
She bites her lip—also sexy—before it curls into a shy smile. “You deserved everything else, though.”
Our gazes hold for a beat, then hers shifts past me, fixing on something I can’t see. “Hmm…”
“What are you hmm-ing?” I ask around the last bite of my sandwich.
“That log over there.” Steadying herself on a tree, she peels off her boots and socks and flings them up the bank.
I look again. The log she’s referring to is a fallen oak, stretched across the water. The bark’s smooth and probably slick from years of soaking up the creek.
Oh, fuck no.
“I wasn’t going to suggest this, but since we’re here…” She makes her way downstream, gives the trunk a nudge with her foot, then hauls herself on top.
“Suggest what, exactly?”
Arms out, water bottle in one hand, sandwich in the other, she paces the log like it’s a balance beam. Forward, then back again.
My pulse gives a little kick. “If you expect me to do some fancy dismount into the creek, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Think,” she says. “It’s think, not thing. And wow, that was pretentious.” Her cheeks flush as she turns toward me. “My brother and I police each other’s grammar. I know, obnoxious.”
“Is he a writer too?”
“He’s still in school. History major. Wants to teach.”
“Technically, that’s idiom policing, not grammar.”
Her lips quirk like she’s fighting a smile. “Now who’s being pretentious?” At the end of the log, she pivots, graceful as hell, and heads back the other way. “There’s a line in the book right before their big kiss when Tripp tells Katie she has another thing coming. It makes me crazy.”
“Thing is perfectly acceptable these days. Just ask Judas Priest.”
She twists the cap off her water and brings it to her lips. “Not really my jam.”
“What is your jam, Maggie?”
“Nice try,” she says, eyes narrowing as she takes a drink. “The only jam we need to discuss is the one you should be dancing to.” She chucks the rest of her sandwich into the creek and stuffs the empty baggie in her pocket. “Lose the shoes and come here.”
“Lose the what?”
“We’re working on your balance.” She lunges, extending her arm, finger crooking me closer.
“Up there?”
She sighs. “Don’t you surf?”
“In water.”
I kick off my saturated high-tops and lob them at the bank. They land with a thud. The walk back should be fun, assuming I don’t break my neck first.
“Chop-chop, Twinkletoes.” Maggie taps her blue-polished toes impatiently. “We’re burning daylight.”
Surfing gives me decent balance, which seems to encourage Maggie. One less thing for her to fix. Coordination, on the other hand, is not my strong suit.
“You’re overthinking it.” She slides off the boulder she was sitting on and pulls out her phone. “Maybe we should try it with music.”
“Please, God, no.” I’ve been stuck on this log for half an hour. The only thing keeping me from diving headfirst into the shallow creek is the absence of that miserable song.
“Not that music. Something fun. Something like…this.”
An unfamiliar guitar melody rises from her phone, mingling with the ripple of the water.
“Who’s that?”
“Hal Ketchum.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Not surprised,” she says, reaching for my hand to pull herself onto the log. “He had a few hits in the nineties, but if you don’t like country…”
“I like country.”
She folds her arms. “Who?”
“Who, what?”
“Name one country artist you like.”
Why is Beyoncé the only name I can think of?
“Nice try, Magnol—Maggie, but I’m afraid that’s personal information you’re no longer privy to.”
She snorts. “You lie like a no-legged dog.”
“Like a what?”
“Never mind. You ready?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.” Maggie restarts the song and pockets her phone. “Keep doing the steps like you were,” she says, walking backward to demonstrate, her arms moving freely, almost comically, to the music. “But let your arms do what they want. Freestyle, like this.”
“This is supposed to help me how?”
“It’s supposed to get you out of your head.” She taps her foot on the log. “Come on. Don’t knock it ’til you try it.”
We freestyle to the Ketchum song, then to Miranda Lambert’s “Bluebird,” which I only know because Maggie told me, and then to something else I miss because I’m too busy staring at our reflection in the creek.
Christ, I look ridiculous.
That’s when my foot slips, and I grab Maggie’s arm, yanking us both off the log. We land in the shallow stream, unsteady but still standing—until my feet skate out from under me on the slick rock, sending us both down. I hit the water flat on my back with Maggie sprawled across me.
So, not all bad.
This close, every detail jumps out, from her God-given lashes to the sparse scattering of freckles she doesn’t bother covering up.
Her beauty’s undeniable. And it hits me as I’m staring at her lips, filler-free and cherry-scented (ChapStick, if I had to guess), that if this were a movie, I’d kiss her.
The director would call “Action!” and I’d lift my hand to her cheek, tuck the loose strands of hair behind her ear, and just—
“Holden Shaw, what in Sam Hill is wrong with you?”
That’s an excellent question.
I smile tightly. “I can’t move until you do.”
“Maybe let go of me, then?”
I drop my hands from her waist and she climbs off me, brushing wet leaves from her thighs, which, of course, my eyes zero in on.
Seriously, dude, what the fuck?
I tear my gaze away. “Guess I lost my balance. You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She extends a hand to help me up. “Are you okay?”
Her concern’s almost sweet.
“Yeah, thanks. The sand softened my—”
“Because Artie would have my hide if I broke his lead.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” I mutter, patting my pocket for my phone. It’s waterproof, but that won’t mean shit if it landed on a rock. I fish it out, breathing a sigh that the screen isn’t cracked.
“Still work?” Maggie calls from the bank as she pulls on her boots.
“Seems to.” I slip it back in my pocket. My jeans are soaked, barely clinging to my hips, the phone dragging them lower. “Now what?”
“Now, we practice on the slab. The nice, safe, flat slab. With the music.”
“The fun music?”
“No, the music.” She stands, dusting herself off. “But not long. I know you’re eager to get out of here. Go nurse that hangover.”
“Probably better to sweat it out. I can keep going if you can.”
“Yeah?” She looks mildly impressed. “I may make you regret that.”
I questioned Maggie’s sanity when she summoned me to the log, but her method worked. By the end of practice, I can almost make it through the entire song without looking down. I still trip, still move like a board, but it’s progress. Maggie’s grin says as much.
But with only a few days left before filming starts, I’m not sure making progress is enough.
My sister calls at five sharp, and I cut a quick glance at Maggie, busy with the cooler, before texting her back. We’re not quite done yet
You said after 3
I let out a quiet chuckle. Put on Gilmore Girls. I’ll call before it’s over
OMG that show is so dumb. It’s like a million years old
What? You guys watch it all the time
Because Mom’s obsessed
Hannah’s miserable, and I don’t blame her. Dad dumps her on his office staff because her stepmother can’t be bothered to “babysit.” If I were home, I’d grab her myself. Reinhold couldn’t give a shit, as long as Cara doesn’t get her on “his days.” It’s all a game to him, and Hannah’s the pawn.
I return my phone to my pocket and start gathering up our empty water bottles, shoes sloshing with every step.
“You did well today,” Maggie says. “Even in your clodhoppers.”
I sink one of the empties into the cooler. “I’ve got a long way to go. I feel like a two-by-four out there.”
“Give it time.”
“Time.” I lob another bottle and miss. “Time’s the one thing I don’t have. Filming resumes on Monday.”
“For the dance scene?”
“Don’t forget Big. It’s the Big Dance Scene. And no, not Monday.”
She lifts the strap of her tank to dab her forehead. “We can still practice then. Whenever you’re available.”
Even sweaty, with damp hair sticking to her face, she’s still unfairly gorgeous.
“My schedule will be crazy,” I say, picking up another bottle.
“We’ll have to stay close to set.” Which means we’ll have an audience.
My two left feet will have an audience. I close the cooler and drag it to the edge of the trail.
“It’ll be chaos. People everywhere, and for you, a lot of standing around.
It’s not as glamorous as you might think. ”
“We made a deal, Holden. I agreed to stay so long as you quit being a jackass. Unless you’re expecting that to change on Monday, I’m in.”
Jackass. I almost snort. No hesitation this time. Unlike dumbass, the word comes easily, like she’s been saving it just for me.
She shoulders my backpack and jerks her chin toward the dance hall. “You ready? It’s getting late, and I have an essay to finish.”
I grab the cooler and follow after her. “How’s that going?”
“It’s going.”
“Think you’ll be done by Friday?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She stops, hands me my backpack, and reaches for her cooler. “Actually, can you trade me? There’s a shortcut up here that goes straight to the parking lot, and I really need to skedaddle.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Her fingers curl around the handle. “Same time tomorrow?”
I nod. “Mind if we come here again?”
“To the slab?” Her brows shoot up. “The one you spent all morning mocking?”
“What can I say? There’s a creek.”
She shakes her head—exasperated, no doubt. “Good night, Holden,” she says, then sets off down the trail, cooler bouncing at her heels.
I watch until she hits the shortcut and disappears from sight. “Good night, Magnolia.”