Chapter Twenty-Five
Are you alive, Gertie? Can you please let me know?
I am at your flat. I let myself in after knocking for ten straight minutes and starting to worry that you had slipped in the bath and died, or choked on a burger and died, or stabbed yourself with a fountain pen and died.
Haha, my imagination was running away! Maybe I should be a writer?
Just kidding! But you are not home and your neighbour says she saw you getting in your car with a man who was not Henry.
A man who she said looked like a younger, more sexually charismatic Matthew McConaughey crossed with Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights.
His name is Lake or Forest or something?
What is going on? Are you going off the rails?
Has this man taken you? Why are you afraid, Gertie?
Please let me know so that we can address the ramifications of this on your deadline.
All best,
Bridget x
Is River awake too?
I head over to the French doors and open the curtain to see that he is indeed awake. There he is, sitting up on his chaise longue, a candle on a stool by his side, reading the first Bedlam Creek book.
He jumps a little as he spots me watching him through the glass. I pull open the French doors and step out into the balmy air, gasping slightly at the expanse of clear sky sprinkled full of stars, so unlike the thick smog of London.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ I say, leaning awkwardly against the wall.
‘Well, you did. I thought you were a creepy English ghost.’
‘I do resemble the living dead at daft o’clock in the morning. But would a ghost be wearing such cool Christmas tree pyjamas?’
River dangles the open book on the wooden arm of the chaise longue. ‘That’s exactly what they’d be wearing. Something completely befuddling, just to make everything more terrifying.’
I nod thoughtfully. ‘You know, we never hear stories of people seeing ghosts in modern-day clothes, do we? Don’t you think that’s weird?’
River laughs quietly. ‘Yeah. I’d love to see it though. A ghost in athleisure.’
‘Yeah, or a spooky hipster.’
‘Haunted by the e-girl.’
We giggle into the quiet night.
‘Reading anything good?’ I nod at my book.
‘Actually, yes. You got Cassidy spot on,’ River says with a surprised grin.
‘It’s strange. So many of the details you write in here are exactly like the Bedlam Creek I know and love.
But some are hazy, and plenty only halfway close to what Bedlam and its people are really like.
But Cassidy is … it’s just her. The wayward heart, the passion, the annoying absolute refusal to bend. ’
I’m surprised by how tenderly he talks about his sister, when in my stories, he does everything he can to prevent her from succeeding.
‘Hazy?’ I ask, perching down on the edge of the chaise longue and shivering a little as a gust of chilly air floats by, lifting the pages of the book into a flutter. ‘What did I get wrong?’
River hands me his robe from where it rests on the balcony railings. I wrap it over my shoulders. ‘Well, the local bar in Bedlam isn’t called the Tiddly Tap. It’s called the Tipsy Tap.’
‘The Tipsy Tap?!’
‘And you give Ethan Calhoun way too much credit. He is not that interesting or that handsome. He does genuinely adore Cassidy though.’
‘They belong together,’ I murmur, a burst of longing in my chest at how much I miss having them constantly chattering away in my head. How much I miss closing my eyes, sprinkling my fingertips over the laptop keys and willing these wonderful characters onto the page.
‘Well, it’s clear that whatever connection you have with Bedlam comes from Cassidy. The voice here, it sounds just like her voice. The details of her cottage, her love of horses and her best friend Sofia. They’re bang on the money.’
‘The details about you? Are they hazy too? Because all I ever saw was a villainous half-brother called River who wouldn’t let Cassidy work on the family ranch because he was determined to control everyone and everything around him at any cost.’
River frowns and scratches his jaw. ‘Look, before he died, my dad made me promise to keep Cassidy out of the business. He said, “Cassidy Oakley is destined for greater things than small-town ranching, not like me and you, son.” He was so proud when Cassidy started her PhD studies. And the truth is … I’ve felt obligated my whole life to follow in the footsteps of my father.
It didn’t matter what I might have wanted to do with my life.
I was an Oakley man and Oakley men ranched.
And even if I did hold a grudge against Cassidy for being the product of my father’s affair …
I didn’t want her to feel that same obligation as me. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’
My eyes go round. It was Chip Oakley’s idea to keep Cassidy out of the ranch? Not River’s? How did I not know this? I peer at River, my perspective on him shifting a little. ‘Does Cassidy know about the promise you made to your dad? Have you told her? In those exact words?’
River lifts his shoulders. ‘She wouldn’t believe me. She hates me. Which is fair enough. I did once put live worms in her boots.’
‘So that part was true.’
‘Afraid so.’ He leans back against the chaise longue, biting the corner of his lower lip again and again. The pair of us stare out over the rolling hills, a fresh peach sun starting to rise in the distance. ‘Anyhow, we should probably get some sleep. Dawn is breaking.’
I cover my yawn and stand up. ‘You’re right.
Goodnight, River.’ I start to head towards the room and then, for some reason I will never quite work out, I say the most embarrassing thing I have ever said in my life.
More mortifying than the time I called my English professor Dad.
Even more cringe-worthy than the time I tried to say absolutely fine and no problem and somehow said absolutely problem!
Worse, even, than when I voice-noted Henry to tell him I’d had a Brazilian wax and accidentally sent it to my gynaecologist Dr Amy Henry who I know listened to it because the ticks went blue. She did not reply.
More embarrassing than all of them.
‘River, am I sexy?’
I immediately clamp my hand over my mouth, the pure shame at having said that out loud setting my skin on fire. Am I sexy? Am I sexy?
Oh my God.
River turns to me slowly. ‘Sorry, what did you just say?’
‘Nothing!’ I sputter, grateful that I said it in a quiet voice and he didn’t seem to catch it. What the hell is wrong with me? Who asks people that, besides Rod Stewart?
I immediately race back into the hotel room and climb back into the bed, my face flaming.
A few seconds later I hear the doors slide back open. River strides decidedly over to the bed and sits down on the edge of it.
‘I would say that yes, Gertie. You are sexy.’
Oh no. Oh God. He did hear me.
I give an awkward laugh that’s not really a laugh at all. ‘I didn’t mean to make it weird,’ I explain with a grimace. ‘I was just … well, Henry. The way he was holding Marisol. He never held me like that.’
‘He didn’t?’
I shake my head. ‘He always said I was cute, rather than sexy. And now I’m wondering if that’s what he wanted this whole time. A sexy person. And, you know, I guess I just wondered if I could be that. If I had a hope of ever being the kind of woman who could be described as that. Sorry.’
Why am I still talking? Why am I giving an oral history for the most hideously mortifying comment I’ve ever made to anyone?
I want to slither down the plughole and disappear forever right now.
I pull the duvet up over my head and shout from beneath it, ‘Go! You should leave right now, River. Good night. Sleep well! May your dreams be sweet! All the best!’
A few seconds later, the duvet is peeled back from my face.
‘Henry said that to you?’ River asks quietly. ‘He said you weren’t sexy?’
I shake my head. ‘No, no! He just … he said I wasn’t, you know, sexual. He said I was cute and funny and bright but, oh, you know …’
‘No, I don’t know.’
I sigh, my cheeks turning pink. ‘He said that … sex wasn’t my strong suit.’
River’s eyes widen in horror.
‘I mean, he didn’t say it horribly. We were bickering and I’d literally just told him that listening wasn’t his strong suit.
So he was responding in kind. And when I said that in the future I would try to be sexier, he hugged me and said that I was more the cute and funny type and that’s how he liked me. So, you know … I wonder. That’s all.’
River scratches his cheek, brows furrowing.
‘What Henry said is bullshit, Gertie, and I think you know it too. Sure, you’re not someone who demands to be the centre of attention. But you’re soft, and real and open and unnervingly easy to talk to.’ He huffs a laugh. ‘Which is, you know, very fucking sexy.’
‘If you really believe all that then why did you insist I wear that stupid silver dress? The massive high heels?’
‘I forget,’ he murmurs.
River’s eyes blaze as he scans my face and then, just like on the dance floor, something in the air shifts.
The temperature, the energy, the weight of something intangible that suddenly feels very, very real.
It could be the alcohol from earlier, the relentless summer heat, the weird invisible burgeoning dawn lighting the room dreamily.
It could be that River and I are just looking at each other now.
Not laughing. Not even smiling. Just eye to eye.
As a wisp of breeze floats through the open doors, River softly presses a thumb to the edge of my jaw. My body feels instantly alert, heart performing a little drum roll of anticipation.
River blinks then, as if pulling himself out of an unwanted trance. He takes a deep breath and swallows, wincing as if something is stuck in his throat.
‘Aha!’ I blurt. ‘Still not ready to be kissed like that, right?’ It’s an attempt at light-heartedness, but it doesn’t land.