Chapter 11
We walk in silence, surrounded by shrieking children as we follow the trail.
The sun shines weakly through the trees but it rained heavily this morning and the ground is soft and muddy beneath my feet, coating the sides of my sneakers.
Every few steps, I get sprinkled from droplets still lingering on the leaves and eventually I pull my hood up, as one fat one catches me on the back of my neck.
“For someone who doesn’t like me very much you’re sure doing your best to spend a lot of time with me,” I say as I dodge a chocolate-fingered toddler running away from her father.
Luke doesn’t even turn around. “I’d spend a whole day with you if I got a thousand euros at the end of it.”
“Five hundred euros.”
“Half a day then.”
I scowl as a I halfheartedly pluck a few of the prizes “hidden” around us.
I leave most for the kids, even though they quickly get bored and start heading back to the clearing so they can eat what they found.
It’s not the worst idea. No one else seems focused on finding the grand prize, which makes me think what Luke said to Andrew about no one winning it is true and I’m about to tell him to drop the whole thing when he suddenly veers left, heading deeper into the trees.
“Where are you going?” I ask, stopping on the edge of the path. “Do you know how to read a map?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know that this part of the forest is not on it .”
He keeps walking and because he has all the clues, so do I. It’s not exactly Blair Witch territory. The forest isn’t that big and even from here I can hear the noise from the clearing easily. But it’s still a waste of my time.
“There are no eggs here.”
“They’re hidden,” he says. “That’s the whole point of the event.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You’re not going to find it on the trail,” he says. “No one has ever found it. I’m not even sure Andrew puts the egg in here. He just uses it to get people to take part so they can get money for next year.”
“You think he cheats?”
“I think he chooses his words carefully. But you want to find it, so we’ll try and find it. Someone came this way recently.” He points to the ground. “There’s footprints in the mud.”
“Uh, okay, Mr. Hunter Man.” I glare at his back as he keeps walking. “You better not get us lost.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
That’s what people always say before they get lost. I unwrap a miniature chocolate egg, chewing it mournfully as Luke keeps five steps ahead of me, like I’m not even there.
I’m surprised by how much it bugs me. This acting like I’m nothing to him. Like we weren’t halfway to the bedroom before he heard about Tyler. You don’t just turn off a person that easily.
Another drop of water falls, this time square on my head, and I stop beside a swollen tree trunk, done. “This is dumb. Let’s go back.”
“Abby—”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Would you just—” He breaks off as he turns, the annoyed look on his face vanishing in an instant.
“Would I just what?”
“You…”
My confidences slips a little. It’s almost like he’s fighting back a laugh.
“You used to do that all the time,” he says finally. “I’d forgotten.”
“Do what?”
He shifts his weight, sliding one foot out as his hands go to his hips. I realize with a start he’s mirroring my stance and quickly drop my arms.
“When we were kids,” he continues. “Whenever you wanted to pick a fight.”
“I didn’t pick fights.”
“What TV shows we watched, what game we played—”
“I was a confident child.”
“You were a brat,” he snorts. “But I was a pushover, so I didn’t help the situation. Come on. We’ll hit the trail in about five minutes and then we can head back.”
“And you can tell Beth that you did your duty?”
He tips his head back, glancing to the sky as if he’s praying for patience. Maybe he is.
My irritation fades, leaving a hollow kind of hurt in its place.
I’ve never really cared what people think of me. It never bothered me if I came off as too cold or too pushy or too ambitious. I didn’t have time to care. But with Luke…
“I didn’t waltz, you know.”
He looks at me in bewilderment. “What?”
“You said before that I waltzed back here, like it meant nothing. But it was really hard. Coming back here was hard. It’s still hard.”
“And you want points for that, is that it?”
“ No. But I want you to…”
He raises a brow when I don’t continue. “To what?”
I frown, distracted, as something glimmers in the corner of my eye. “To understand that I’m…” There it is again.
“Abby?”
I don’t answer, walking past him to a large oak tree up ahead. It could just be a piece of trash but it’s very…
“There.” I point at the golden egg nestled high in the branches.
Luke stands next to me, following my finger. “Holy shit.”
“That can’t be following health and safety regulations,” I say, staring up at it.
“I’ll find a stick.”
“You won’t be able to reach that high.”
He ignores me, kicking away leaves on the ground as he looks for a fallen branch.
“It’s too far up,” I insist. I eye the rest of the tree. It’s high. But Andrew had to get someone to put it there in the first place. Unless he just threw it.
“You could help, you know,” Luke calls from somewhere behind me.
I don’t answer, shaking a low branch. It doesn’t move and, as Luke shuffles around behind me, I circle the trunk, marking out my path. Or at least trying to. I’m not sure if I’m doing it right or what I should be looking for. But if I can make it to that bough I should be able to…
“What are you doing?” he asks as I grab hold of the first branch again and pull myself up.
“MacFarlane had a wall-climbing room.”
“Was that beside the room where they kept all their stolen money?”
“I’m choosing not to respond to that.” My arm muscles burn after weeks of no training but I manage to last a few seconds before falling back down.
“Let me—”
I try again, cutting Luke off as this time I successfully hoist myself onto the branch. “I’m good at climbing,” I explain, eyeing the next one.
“That’s great. Now get down.”
“Just let me try.”
“You’re going to fall and break something.”
“I’m not twelve years old.”
“Then stop acting like it.”
The next one isn’t as sturdy, so I eye another a little farther away. Thank God I wore leggings instead of jeans this morning.
“Abby? Could you just— Christ!”
I swing out my leg, my foot making contact with the branch as I cling to the bark of the trunk.
“I’m Free Solo -ing,” I call as I swing myself forward. “This is my Yosemite.”
“Would you stop?” He’s angry now, but I’ve never felt surer of myself.
With each branch I pass the egg gets closer.
That money gets closer. And the look on Louise’s face when I show up with the stupid prize gets so clear it’s like she’s right in front of me.
“What are you trying to prove right now?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything! I’m trying to get the stupid egg to give to my stupid sister!”
“Your sister?”
He sounds confused. Of course he does. As if he’d ever think I had a heart.
“I’m going to give the money to her,” I explain.
“Not that you’d ever assume that. You’d much rather think the worst of me.
” I bring myself level with the egg. “You and Louise always act like I have the worst possible motivations. Like I’m only here to mess with you. ”
“Aren’t you?”
“No!” I take a swipe at the egg and risk a glance down to see Luke staring up at me. From this angle, the ground looks very far away, even though it can’t be more than a couple of feet. “I wasn’t trying to lead you on, Luke. I don’t do things like that.”
“Fine. Come down.”
“I mean it,” I say, trying to reach the egg again. “I thought you were cute so I flirted with you. I don’t cheat. I’ve never cheated in my life.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me you were engaged?”
“Because I’m not!” I exclaim. “I lied, okay? I don’t have a fiancé.”
“What?”
“I said I don’t—” I yelp as my left hand slips from the branch. Something hard whacks against my shoulder and suddenly I’m falling, the wind whistling past my ears for approximately two seconds before I land flat on my ass in the mud.
Ow.
“Abby?” Luke’s concerned face floats above me. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I moan. “I fell like twelve feet.”
“It was four feet. Don’t move,” he adds when I try to sit up. “You could have a concussion.”
“The chivalrous thing would have been to break my fall,” I mutter as he glances over me.
“Then I would be the one on the ground.”
I blink up at the foliage above. “Did you just make a joke? A joke when I’m dying? Ow .”
“Sorry,” he mutters, pressing lightly on my shoulder. He leans back, seemingly satisfied that I didn’t break every bone in my body.
“Did I get the egg?”
“No,” he says. “But you did do some damage.”
I ease myself into a sitting position as Luke picks up a sturdy branch near the trunk of the tree. No doubt I have that to thank for the pain in my shoulder.
I watch as he hoists himself onto the first branch before swinging it deftly above his head. Leaves rustle frantically and a moment later there’s a light thump on the ground.
The egg is ours.
“How’s that for teamwork?” I ask.
“I said don’t move,” he says, exasperated. “You might have broken something.”
“Besides my pride?” I wince as I shift into a better position. It hurts a little but I’m not too bad. The mud must have helped.
He crouches beside me, still looking worried as somewhere in the distance a horn blares, telling people to come back to the clearing.
“We should get back,” I say. “Tell everyone how heroic I am and then get our money.”
But Luke doesn’t budge. “What do you mean you lied about having a fiancé?”
I sigh, wiggling my toes to see if they still work. “Exactly that. Tyler broke it off a few weeks ago.”
“But Louise said—”
“She thinks we’re still engaged. I didn’t tell anyone except a few friends. That’s why I wasn’t wearing the ring and then I was wearing the ring and then I wasn’t again. It’s because I dug a big liar’s hole for myself and I couldn’t get out of it.”
Luke Bailey does not have a poker face. Not like Tyler, with whom I was constantly trying to guess what he was thinking. With Luke, I can see every emotion clear on his face and so I don’t watch as he processes what I just said to him. Mostly because I’m scared of what I’ll see.
“I just didn’t want you to think I was cheating on him,” I say. “I’m not that kind of person. But I guess you don’t know what kind of person I am because you don’t know me. And that’s because—” I break off when he touches me, brushing a hand by my temple.
“Leaf,” he explains, holding it up as proof.
Leaf.
He drops it to the ground, his brow creased.
“I had a girlfriend in college,” he says after a beat.
“She broke up with me the day before she was supposed to meet my parents, and instead of telling them, I went alone and pretended she had the flu. Mam did a surprise visit a few weeks later and I told her she moved to Lithuania.”
“Lithuania?”
“It was the first place that came into my head. To this day, I have no idea why. I came clean then, obviously, but my first instinct was to lie. I didn’t want to have to deal with their reaction, not when I didn’t know my own yet.”
“You get it,” I say, relieved. It’s not until then that I realize how much I needed him to.
“I think so, yeah.” He sits fully on the ground beside me, not seeming to care about the mud. “I wish you hadn’t lied to me. But I can see why you did.”
He flinches then, wiping his forehead as a breeze shakes more raindrops from the trees.
The brief pause allows me to take him in, the day’s worth of stubble on his jaw, the green of his eyes startingly bright as he peers mistrustfully upward.
I swallow as the memory of what happened the last time we were this close flashes through my mind, and his gaze snaps back to me as though knowing exactly where my thoughts went.
“Can we start over?” I ask to distract him.
“What do you mean?”
“Just pretend like the last few weeks didn’t happen? We can be friends. Or friendly at least.”
He doesn’t answer for a long moment and I begin to wonder if I’ve seriously misjudged this whole conversation when he sighs.
“Beth didn’t send me after you today,” he says.
“I told you she sent me to apologize? She didn’t.
I followed you because I felt bad. I’ve been feeling bad for the last few days.
I just didn’t know how to make up for it. ”
“So you lied to me too.”
“A much smaller one,” he says, giving me a look. “But yes. And yes, we can be friends.”
“Friends with five hundred euro each.”
“You can keep the money, Abby. I was only trying to annoy you.”
“No, it was teamwork. Plus you need it just as much as I do.”
He starts to argue when he frowns. “I guess I do.”
“Then we’ll split it,” I say before he can change his mind. “It’s still four hundred and ninety-five more than Louise was expecting today anyway.”
He smiles but it fades quickly, his expression turning serious as he helps me up. “I’m sorry about Tyler.”
“Thanks. Me too. But I’m okay. I’m actually starting to think…
” I hesitate, embarrassed, but he just waits patiently, no judgement on his face.
“I think he made the right call breaking it off,” I say.
“And honestly? In the weeks after it happened I was more upset about having to tell everyone we were done rather than being done. Like I missed the life he gave me more than I missed him.” I push my hair back, finding a small twig.
“I know how that sounds,” I add, flicking it to the ground.
“It sounds like you’re moving on. Would you prefer to be heartbroken?”
“No,” I admit.
“If you were sad, people would tell you to cheer up. You can’t win. So don’t overthink it.”
I sigh. “You’re a nice guy, you know that?”
“So my mother tells me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. And I’m sorry I accosted you on the street and made you sleep on your couch.”
He laughs at that, a surprised huff that makes his eyes crinkle. “It wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve had.”
“You should try my bed,” I say without thinking. “I mean, because the mattress is like thirty years old and—”
“Abby.”
I clamp my mouth shut. “Maybe I do have a concussion.”
“We’ll get Tomasz to take a look. Can you walk?”
“I can try,” I say gravely, and he smiles to himself, tossing the egg into the air as we make our way back to the clearing.