Epilogue 1
Paige
I’ve been on this mountain for three weeks.
The principal says I can start with the fall program on a temporary contract.
Three months. Long enough to find out whether this life belongs to me—not just whether I belong with Mason.
I moved into Mason’s ranch. My guitar is in the study where the previous owner’s used to sit and Mason says it looks better there now because it’s being used.
The girls are all here. All six of us. This hasn’t happened since the reunion trip in July and the energy in Claire’s lodge is something I’ve missed without knowing I was missing it.
Jules flew in yesterday. Jules, who has been narrating everyone’s love story from her apartment in Chicago, who has the screenshots and the receipts and the running statistical analysis, who has been the voice of the group chat for the entire summer while refusing to set foot on the mountain again because, as she puts it, “I have self-preservation instincts and that mountain is a MACHINE.”
She’s here now. Staying with Mason and me because we have the space even though she said “I’m not staying with any of you couples, I can’t handle the eye contact over breakfast.” She arrived with two suitcases and an energy that could power a small city.
“I need to meet these men,” she said at the airport. “I need to see them in person. I need to verify that five of my best friends haven’t joined a mountain cult.”
She’s met them. She’s been here for twenty-four hours and she already knew Levi from July, she met Jasper (who nodded at her once and she said “he’s terrifying and I respect it”), Kai (who said four words to her and she said “I understand Tori now”), Leo (who talked to her for forty-five minutes about window restoration and she said “he’s a golden retriever in human form”), and Mason (who shook her hand and called her “the famous Jules” and she said “okay fine, I see why you shot a wolf for this man”).
We’re at The Burning Tree. All of us. All six women, all five men. The biggest table in the place, pushed together, the kind of loud, warm chaos that happens when nearly a dozen people who love each other are in the same room with food and drinks.
Jules is at the center of it because Jules is always at the center.
She’s telling the story of the group chat from her perspective, the whole summer, the running commentary, the mounting horror as one by one her friends fell for mountain men.
She’s theatrical and funny and sharp and she’s got the table in stitches and she’s doing the thing she does best: making everyone else’s story entertaining so nobody looks too closely at hers.
I look at her. Really look. Underneath the performance (I know about performances, I’ve been giving them my whole life) there’s a tiredness.
The same tiredness I had. The tiredness of being the bright one, the funny one, the one who makes the room go.
Jules has been cheering for all of us. Who cheers for Jules?
The door to The Burning Tree opens. A man walks in.
He’s tall. Easy smile. The kind of confidence that doesn’t need volume. He scans the room and his eyes land on our table and he grins and walks over and I realize he’s heading for Mason.
“Lane.” He claps Mason on the shoulder. “Heard you went domestic. Had to see it for myself.”
Mason stands. They shake hands. The handshake of old partners, familiar, weighted with years.
“Everyone, this is Dane Walker,” Mason says. “My old business partner. He’s from here originally.”
“I’m back because this mountain doesn’t let go,” Dane says. He’s easy and warm and his smile is the smile of a man who likes people and wants them to like him back. He turns to the table. “Which one of you shot the wolf? Because that’s the only thing anyone in town is talking about.”
“That would be Paige,” Jules says. She’s looking at him. I see her look at him and I recognize the expression because I wore it on a gravel shoulder two weeks ago. Not attraction, exactly. Surprise. The surprise of encountering something you weren’t braced for.
“Paige.” Dane extends his hand to me. “You’re a legend. The ranch hands won’t shut up about it.” He shakes my hand, warm and firm, then turns to Jules. “And you are?”
“Jules. The last one standing.” She says it like a challenge. Like a battle cry. Like the statement of a woman who has watched five friends fall and has no intention of being the sixth.
“The famous Jules.” He grins. “Mason’s told me about you. The one with the screenshots.”
“The screenshots are historical documents and I stand by every one.”
“I’m sure you do.” He sits down. He sits right next to Jules. Close enough that she has to shift her drink.
“You’re in my space,” she says.
“Your space is next to the last open chair. Take it up with the seating chart.”
“I don’t believe in seating charts.”
“That’s a shame. I’m very good at seating charts. Among other things.”
They look at each other. Jules’s eyes narrow.
Dane’s grin widens. The table goes quiet the way a room goes quiet before a really good song starts.
Everyone can feel it. Everyone can see it.
The thing that’s about to happen between two people who have just met and are already in a conversation that has nothing to do with what they’re saying.
“I don’t like you,” Jules says.
“You will,” Dane says.
Marissa catches my eye across the table.
Her eyebrows achieve a new personal altitude record.
I look at Claire. Claire adjusts her glasses and takes a sip of water and her face is perfectly neutral and her eyes are screaming.
Tori is watching with clinical fascination.
Jenna is already composing the photograph in her mind.
Jules turns to me. Her face is composed but her eyes are wild.
“Paige,” she says. “I blame you for this.”
“For what?”
“For whatever this is.” She gestures at Dane without looking at him. “I came here to meet the mountain men. I did not come here to be ambushed by a.” She gestures again. “A whatever he is.”
“I’m Dane Walker,” he says helpfully. “We just covered this.”
“I know what your name is.”
“You seem upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m recalibrating.”
“Take your time. I’ll be right here.”
Jules stares at him. Dane grins at her. The table holds its breath. Five couples and the last single woman and the man who just sat down next to her and the mountain doing what the mountain does.
Mason puts his arm around me. I lean into him. His mouth near my ear.
“Dane’s going to drive her crazy,” he says.
“I know. She’s going to love it.”
I look at Jules. She’s arguing with Dane about something that doesn’t matter (the correct temperature for a steak, it sounds like, a debate with no stakes and all heat) and her face is flushed and her hands are moving and she’s more animated than I’ve seen her in months and she doesn’t know it yet but I do. We all do.
The mountain is about to be six for six.