Chapter Twenty-six #2
There wasn’t time to go back to Lyle’s condo and grab the outfit Sharon liked, but maybe she’ll only listen to the audio.
Besides, I like what I’m wearing: black quick-dry pants, hiking boots with chunky socks, and Lyle’s ring on a chain around my neck.
Sloane bemoaned my fashion choices, then rolled up the sleeves of my sky-blue shirt to better show my bandage and win the sympathy vote.
“At least this matches your eyes,” she said, smiling at me with her matching cyborg-pale baby blues.
I look like what I am: a canoe instructor who’s also a take-no-shit emergency physician.
I’ve seen enough film sets in Vancouver to know what one looks like, but it’s surreal to see one here . A diesel cube van rumbles in the parking lot, giant cables snaking from its rear doors. I step over a branching array of cords feeding cameras, laptops, lights, and a sound mixing board.
Lyle’s nowhere to be seen. I’ve never been in this place without his huge presence filtering everything to gentle golden perfection.
A tallish, slim white guy with a clipboard and a sour smirk stands at the entrance to the clearing. An earpiece nestles against his cheek, its clear plastic cord coiling down the back of his neck.
“Name.” His eyes flick across my face.
“Stellar Byrd.”
He checks his clipboard. “I don’t have you on my list.”
“I’m looking for Lyle McHugh. Can you tell him I’m here?”
“The greenroom is off-limits,” clipboard guy says, his cool tone dipping to subzero. “You’ll have to wait until after the recording session.”
Time to work the problem another way. “Let me make a call. I’m sure I can sort it out.”
“You do that. Kaythanksbyeeeee.”
I stroll casually toward the parking lot while scanning the buildings for signs of a greenroom.
Bingo—the cookhouse has a new generator outside and a portable satellite clamped to the roof.
It’s the building I’m least familiar with, Jasvinder being an extremely territorial chef.
It also has a couple of burly people with headsets loitering outside the front door.
But they don’t know the Love Boat like I do.
Three minutes and a quick detour through the woods later, I’m crouching on the hillside behind the cookhouse, peering through the back window. Jasvinder’s steel prep table has been pushed aside to accommodate folding chairs, equipment cases, and a mountain of bags and backpacks.
In the center of the main room, Lyle sits cross-legged and barefoot on Jasvinder’s anti-fatigue mat, eyes closed.
He’s wearing his dark-khaki Carhartt overalls over a white T-shirt, topped by his favorite red-and-black checkered lumberjack shirt.
The studio makeup hones his features to gleaming edges, his straight nose more regal than ever.
I’ve so rarely seen him by himself. Even that first morning at camp, down by the water, it felt like the river was his buddy. He makes friends with birds, for god’s sake. Right now he looks so desperately alone I consider breaking this window and tumbling inside.
Lyle rises from his meditation, exchanging courteous smiles with a woman wearing a black multipocketed apron. She motions him to a director’s chair, where she twirls a few of his more rebellious curls around her finger before laying them to the side of his face.
My legs twitch. I wish I could take off down the camp road the way I’ve done so many times in the last two weeks. Run and run until every breath stabs my chest and I forget what it’s like to see him preparing for the most important interview of his life without me.
The stylist pulls out a powder brush and tips Lyle’s chin up for a spot check. His eyes rise to the window, widening when they meet mine. The stylist turns to see what he’s looking at.
I duck in a hurry, flattening my back against the side of the house. Shit. Shit shit shit. I don’t think the stylist saw me, but I’m sure Renee Garner doesn’t play around when it comes to security.
A minute later, the awning window tilts open, its jointed arms preventing it from extending fully. I look up to find a pair of pissed-off forest eyes and half a head of professionally tousled curls staring back.
“What are you doing?” Lyle hisses down at me.
“I’m here to rescue you,” I whisper back wildly. “Shit,” I say, as voices approach from the side of the house. “Get out of the way; I’m coming in.”
“You can’t come in! Someone will see you!”
“I can’t stay out here, or I’ll get detained.
” My head and shoulders slide easily through the window, but my ass catches in the narrow opening.
Fuck. Today would be the day I’d misjudge an opening after a lifetime of getting tapped to squeeze into friends’ ground-floor windows when they lost their keys.
“I’m stuck. You have to pull.”
He tugs, managing to lever the window tighter over my butt. He has to hold it open with one hand while I grab his waist and slither in, then wrap my legs around his to keep from thumping to the floor.
“Careful of your stitches,” he scolds, hoisting me up by my waist. “And keep it down. There are people in the other room.” He sets my feet on the floor, gesturing at the door to what used to be the bedroom. I brush off my pants, but there’s a wet green smear on my shirt that’s beyond help. Oh well.
In my pocket, my phone chirps. Lyle flinches like I farted at a funeral.
“I’m sorry!” I whisper, setting it to Do Not Disturb. “There’s never service in camp.”
“Renee’s team set up a hot spot,” he shoots back, practically exploding from anxiety. “You need to hide.”
“Where?” I gesture at the open room with no closets or cupboards. “And actually, I’m not here to hide.” I puff out my chest. “I’m here to do this podcast with you.”
His face closes down. “No, you’re not.”
I send my arms wide. “Well, I’m not letting you do it alone. These people are professional interrogators. They’ll lure you into a trap and add you to their taxidermy collection. You need a co-instructor to throw a question to if you get stuck.”
“No, I don’t. For the last time, Stellar, get out of here. You’re supposed to be saving your reputation, not ruining it.” He crosses his arms over his Carhartts, all stern and forbidding.
He forgets I’m not scared of him.
“You look cute. And I’m perfectly capable of keeping myself safe. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“Stellar!” He throws up his arms. “You are terrible at protecting yourself.”
“I am not .”
“Yes, you are! At the hospital, you could’ve gone to your boss privately, gotten a good deal for yourself, and let your friend suffer. Instead, you fought for transparency, no matter what it cost you.
“And at the Love Boat, instead of sucking up to an influential guest, you knocked yourself out making Brent do his share. You launched yourself into the middle of a lake with no paddle, at night , to rescue a dog bigger than you are!”
He plunges his hands into his hair, ruining the shining ringlets.
“I mean, I love Babe! I’m glad she’s okay!
But you cannot pretend a person who wanted to protect herself would’ve done that.
Your whole profession is about caring for people’s hurts, but you’ve trained yourself to never let anyone see when you feel pain.
” His eyes skip to the long bandage on my arm, then back up, his neck flushing with regret.
Chills grip my skin. I thought I was good at keeping myself safe. After all, I’ve been the only one doing that job since I was twelve, with the exception of Liz.
And now, with the exception of Lyle.
He takes my face in his hand, thumb stroking my cheek, fingers cupping my square Byrd jaw with a tenderness that makes me want to cry.
“You’re the most selfless, fair, moral person I know.
You have more integrity and fire and… and fight than most people can even dream of.
And you have a chance to reclaim the career you love,” he says, his voice low.
“Let me take care of the Love Boat. Protect yourself, for once, and let me make up for the time I didn’t protect you.
I have to, Stellar. If you come on the podcast, Renee will ask about Grey Tusk General and your gig work.
She’ll ask how you and Sloane are connected.
She’ll corner both of us with the fake engagement. It’ll be a goddamn disaster.”
He’s flushed, mouth turned down, swearing. I could do what he’s asking. He’ll take the heat for both of us, and I can hide in his shadow.
He’d give me everything, if I let him.
I look up into his pleading face, his green eyes tired and sad.
I can’t mess with his makeup, but I can grab Jasvinder’s kitchen stool and step up to his level.
I can smooth his curls the way I saw the stylist do it, then put my thumbs in front of his ears, stretch my fingers down his neck, and feel his pulse leap under my palm.
There’s a gap in his left eyebrow, and I suspect the makeup artist has trimmed there so the camera can more easily see his stitches.
I think of him that night, keeping himself away from the people he loved to keep them safe. Isolating himself while I was surrounded by love and care.
We’re not so different, he and I. We’re both bad at protecting ourselves. But we can try to protect each other. It’s harder to be soft than strong, but for Lyle, I want to be both.
“The thing about a disaster, Lyle,” I say softly, “is you get to choose who you want to be. And I don’t want to be the person you owe something to. I want to be the person who takes care of you. Because I love you, Lyle. I’m in love with you.”
Lyle’s hoarse, joyful bark of laughter unknots my stomach. His eyes glitter like a forest at dawn, golden and green, a sheen of wetness catching the light like dewdrops gathering at the tips of leaves. “Stellar,” he starts, his voice pitched way down low, like a natural disaster.
“I’m not finished,” I say. “I’m coming on the damn podcast, and if Renee asks whether our engagement was fake, I’ll tell her Fisher’s a crack in our collective asshole.
” He laughs some more, and I can’t get enough of the sound and feel of it.
“And I’ll tell her that sometimes in whitewater, people need to fall in to understand the lesson they’re here to learn.
I had to make a lot of mistakes before I figured out I wouldn’t have asked just anyone to marry me, no matter what was at stake.
I proposed to you because I couldn’t stop thinking about you for a whole year.
I asked you to marry me because you’re the best, kindest, most selfless person I know.
And I want to tell the world how proud I am of everything we did at the Love Boat.
We helped people and fought injustice and fell in love.
The program worked for us, and I was actively trying not to fall for you. It’s that good.”
I already have his face in my hands. It’s only natural to touch my lips to his mouth so I can watch the corners turn up. “Peck,” I whisper, and watch the sun come out in his smile.
“I’ve waited a long time to say I love you , Stellar.
So fucking long.” He drapes my arms around his neck, reaches for my thighs, and lifts me into his arms. He kisses me like he’s gulping air after a long, scary swim, like he wants to breathe me in again and again.
Our mouths were meant to come together this way, meant to give and take everything, always, forever.
I forget about his makeup and my stitches; there’s only the two of us, bodies and souls, need and love, ripples pushing us together the way we were always meant to be.
“Ahem.”
By this point, I should know we’re destined never to kiss uninterrupted.
Lyle sets me back onto the stool, his hands coming to my waist. Together, we turn to face the music.
Standing in the doorway to the cookhouse’s back room, a protective cape over her silk blouse, is Renee Garner.
“This must be Dr. Stellar Byrd,” she says, her smile big, her Texas accent bigger. “I hope you changed your mind about coming on the podcast. I’d sure love to have you.”
Lyle grips my hips convulsively, but I drop another peck on his cheek. “I’d be honored, Renee. I can’t wait to tell you about Lyle and the Love Boat.”
“Let’s get you in makeup, then. No time to waste.”
Lyle and I are bustled off to separate rooms, me to get a full face of makeup, him to fix what I messed up. In my opinion, he looked better after I kissed him—a little rumpled, a little tidy.
It’s weird to touch my phone at camp, but when the stylist goes on a quest for the perfect shade of eyeliner, I pull it from my pocket and type “Lyle Q. McHugh” into the search bar of my messaging app.
His three texts pop up, marked with last year’s date. I still don’t like how they look. Lonely. Waiting for someone to take care of them.
But I can fix that.
You up?