Chapter 24 #3
She shrugs, casual on the surface, but her gaze holds mine a second longer than necessary. “I mean… I just feel like you would. So I wouldn’t even have to use my superpower-level stubbornness.”
It isn’t a question. It’s an assumption.
Rachel glances at the half-empty cooler. “You think there’s one of those craft beers left? The fancy kind?”
“I’ll check,” I say, standing and stretching. “If not, we’re cracking open the emergency Oreos.”
“God bless your priorities.”
When I come back with the last craft beer and the half-smashed pack of Oreos, she scoots over to make room on the log.
Rachel leans back on her hands, looking up at the sky. “I always forget how many stars there are out here. It almost looks fake.”
I follow her and look out to the sky. She is right, the sky is scattered with them.
“Yeah,” I reply. “You don’t see this back home. Just clouds, traffic lights, and planes.”
She pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them. “Sometimes I think I’d trade everything for quiet. Just… stillness, you know? I forgot how much clarity this place gives me. I forgot how much I love this place.”
“I think you’d get bored here,” I admit.
She turns to look at me, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Wow, thanks.”
“I mean it in a good way. You’ve got too much spark in you. You’re not meant to sit still.”
She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t argue. Her face is half-lit by the fire, soft around the edges, gold licking at her cheekbones and dancing in her eyes.
I nudge her knee with mine. “You okay?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Her eyes stay on the fire, the flames reflected in them like she’s watching something burn itself down. The corner of her mouth pulls, uncertain. “I’m fine,” she says finally. “Just tired.”
“Come on, Sunny.” My voice drops. “It’s me you’re talking to.”
A beat of silence stretches between us, the fire crackling in the quiet. Then she says, almost offhand, “Do you ever think we’re gonna find that?”
“Find what?”
She nods toward the cabin, where laughter still drifts through the walls. “What they have. Margo and Josh.”
“Sure,” I say too fast, eyes fixed on the flames like they might give me cover.
She turns fully then, studying me. “That was a very non-answer.”
“I mean—” I shrug, forcing something that almost passes for a smile. “You’ll find it. I don’t doubt that.”
Her gaze sharpens, cuts right through me. “You keep saying you. Like it doesn’t apply to both of us.”
I exhale slowly, dragging a hand through my hair. “Because it’s easier.”
“Easier,” she echoes. “To believe in it for me but not for yourself?”
I don’t answer. I jab at the fire instead, sparks leaping up into the dark. The heat kisses my face, but it’s nothing compared to what’s humming low and insistent in my chest from sitting this close to her.
She shifts beside me. The blanket slips from her lap, baring a stretch of skin that glows gold in the firelight. It pulls my eyes right to it.
“Rhett,” she says softly.
“Mmhmm.”
“Why do you call me Sunny?”
Her eyes are hazel and wild, sunlight caught in whiskey, and for one suspended second I lose myself in them.
My throat works. I open my mouth, then close it again. Finally, I say, “I’m not sure. Just… suits you.”
“Why don’t you have a nickname for Margo?” She tilts her head, letting her hair slip forward, catching the firelight.
“I don’t know, Rach,” I mutter, leaning forward on my elbows, anything to put space between us Anything to stop the way her eyes are reading my every thought.
She doesn’t let me retreat. Her hand brushes against mine. Such a simple contact, but it sends a jolt straight through me. I can feel the heat pooling in my chest, the slow, dangerous pull of wanting her.
She’s pushing tonight, and I’m fighting tooth and nail to resist giving in. Every instinct in me says to lean in, to close the space between us, to finally stop pretending I can walk away from this. But I wanted to talk to Josh first, wanted to make sure I wasn’t crossing a line I couldn’t uncross.
And yet… I’m not sure I have the strength to stop this.
“Am I special, Rhett?” she murmurs, teasing. But she’s daring me to say the thing I’ve been keeping quiet.
Her lips catch the glow from the fire, full and inviting, and a pulse of heat surges through me. I swallow hard, trying to will my hands and my words to behave, but all I can think is how easy it would be to lean in and maybe, just maybe, brush her lips with mine.
“Why are you asking a question you already know the answer to?” I whisper back to her.
Her lips part. I lean in. She leans in. Our noses brush. Her hair drifts across my face. The world shrinks to this inch between us.
But right as I am about to close the distance, chaos ensues. There is a tussle from the treeline and something is coming directly at us.
“Rhett!” Rachel screams, voice sharp with laughter and terror. “I told you the lake was haunted. It’s going to get us!”
We both jump up, throwing the blanket aside, hearts racing.
A racoon comes directly towards us on some sort of suicide mission it seems. The firelight flickers wildly as we run, tripping over roots, stumbling toward the cabin.
Rachel’s shriek turns into laughter mid-run, high and breathless.
I grab her hand just to keep from colliding.
“Hold on!” I grab her hand to steady us, and she yanks it away, squealing, laughter cutting through the chaos.
By the time we hit the porch, panting, wild-eyed, we’re bent over with laughter, tears streaking our faces.
She gasps, trying to catch her breath. “We should go in before that thing kills us.”
I grin, leaning close. “Yeah it’s probably best we call it a night.”
She opens the door into the house, and I follow, the warm light spilling over us like a shield against the dark outside.
It settles on her, washes over me, and for a second, I just watch her move through the room, thinking how ordinary everything looks.
And how wrong that is, because nothing about her has ever been ordinary to me.
I am going to tell her. I’ve decided. No more pretending.
No more holding back. But I have to be careful.
I have to talk to Josh first. He needs to know my intentions.
I need him to understand that I’m serious, that I’m willing to risk everything.
I have to make sure I’m not walking into this blind, that I’m not just chasing a moment I’ll regret.
I have to be ready for the possibility that it could all go wrong, that the one person I’ve been closest to for years might pull away. I might lose her. I might lose the easiest, safest friendship I’ve ever had. I could push her away and never be able to bring her back.
But even knowing that, even feeling the risk in my bones, I can’t stop the pull. I’ve tried to shove it down, to pretend my heart doesn’t leap every time she laughs at something stupid I said. But I feel it. All of it. And I know, deep down, I won’t stop feeling it.
I am going to tell her everything.