Chapter 17 – Davis
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DAVIS
Sitting next to Brayden at the ski rental counter after making sure he had a fresh notebook, a fully stocked mechanical pencil, and a plate of cheese and crackers—because she could never retain information on an empty stomach and she wanted to give him the best possible chance for success today—Davis clicked the join meeting button and waited for the adult learning center to accept their request.
“Why am I so nervous?” Brayden asked, chewing on his mechanical pencil until it made a cracking noise.
“You’re nervous because this type of stuff can be nerve racking,” she said. Nerve racking like deciding to be friends with a man who still stars in every single one of your fantasies. A man you can’t stop looking at or thinking about. A man you’re a few short hours away from meeting up with for your first friendly walk… “And because you care. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be trying to bite your pencil in half.”
Pulling the pencil out of his mouth, he said, “Oops.”
“It’ll be super chill,” she promised him, trying to promise herself the same thing. “We have the camera turned off, and we’ll be muted. So you can just relax and listen. ”
Tapping the pencil on the counter, he said, “Okay. I can do that—Shoot.” The host let them into the meeting, the screen showing an empty podium in a small classroom, and Brayden sucked air in through the cute little gap in his teeth. “Here we go.”
As the meeting started, a brown-haired, brown-eyed twenty-something instructor stepped up to the podium, and Brayden immediately said, “Ooh, she’s hot.”
Davis snorted, nudging Brayden’s shoulder with hers.
“What?” he laughed, pointing at the computer monitor. “It’s good motivation. I’ll learn anything she wants to teach me.”
When Davis rolled her eyes, someone knocked, and she and Brayden both whipped their heads up to find Ace standing in the doorway with Noah.
“Sorry,” Ace said, looking sheepish. “But Brayden told us he was coming over here to learn how to get his GED, and we both thought.” Ace and Noah shared a look, then shrugged. “Why not?”
“Really?” Davis jumped up, waving them over. “I love this for you! Here.” Giving Ace her stool, she pulled another one over for Noah. “Sit. The instructor just started. I’ll go get more paper and pencils.” She held up a finger as a smile shot across her face. “And more snacks.”
Stepping around the counter, looking back as all three men settled in, their faces lit up from the computer monitor’s glow, their expressions some mixture of guarded but determined, the strangest sensation overcame her. For the first time, she realized how much she liked helping the Little Timber men. It made her feel good, useful, when she worked alongside them every day, supporting them in whatever little way she could. She realized how much she was going to miss this, miss them—all of them—when she left. If she left.
She also realized they were going to need another computer. Maybe two.
Despite how much Davis loved having the men from Little Timber on the mountain, later that night, while Ace and Tex and Stanley waved a little too enthusiastically at her, while Brayden smiled a little too brightly when she walked past the firepit on her way to Kev’s cabin to pick him up, she really wouldn’t have minded just a tiny bit more privacy.
Waving back, her smile tight, cheeks hot, she climbed the steps up to Kev’s door.
“Hey,” he said after pulling the door open. He was fully dressed— thank god —in his faded jeans, a dark heather-gray T-shirt, and a smile. “Oh,” he said, popping his head outside. “It’s kind of chilly tonight, isn’t it?”
“Not too bad,” Davis said, though there was a mild nip in the midsummer air. It was a weird time of year in Montana. Blisteringly hot during the day, but the temperatures could drop into the forties at night.
“Hang on.” Keeping his door open, he walked to his closet, grabbing a red and black checkered flannel and tying it around his waist. “Just in case,” he said, stepping onto his porch, closing his door behind him. “Let’s go this way.” He angled his head to the porch steps leading away from the firepit. “The guys have been giving me hell since I got back from the barn. Can’t even go for a walk without it making front page news around here.”
“Good idea,” Davis said. “I was surprised they didn’t start applauding when I walked by.”
Kev snorted. “The restraint that must have taken.”
“We should really give them trophies.”
Grinning down at her, sliding his hands into his pockets, he said, “Medals at the very least.”
For so long, she’d tried not to look at him. Not to notice the way his bottom lip was a little fuller than the top. Not to let her gaze trace over the strong line of his jaw or down the straight slope of his nose. Not to connect the dots of the three tiny freckles on his right cheek. Not to lose herself in the deep blue ocean of his eyes, the dark forest of his lashes. Not to appreciate just how beautiful he was. She let herself indulge in it now.
After a long moment he might have spent indulging in looking at her too, he angled his head toward the steps again and asked, “Ready?”
Probably not, she thought. But she nodded, following him down the stairs anyway.
Side by side, they made their way to the cross-country trails. Past the spot where she’d run into him right after he’d gotten back. Where she’d tripped, lost her balance. Where he’d caught her, his hand fisted at her back, his body pressed against hers, his breath ghosting over her lips?—
“Ah,” she blurted out as she tripped again, over literally nothing this time.
His hand shot out for her elbow, steadying her. There was a jolt of electric heat where his fingers wrapped around her skin, so intense her eyelids tried to flutter closed. So sensual her teeth wanted to sink into her lower lip. And she’d willingly agreed to be alone with him? At sunset? In the woods? She was so fucked.
“Careful,” he said, his voice low, his hand pulling away almost immediately so he could slide it back into his pocket.
She didn’t think it was on purpose, her insistence on tripping whenever he was close enough to catch her. She wasn’t a clumsy person by nature. And yet… Maybe even her subconscious wanted his hands on her body. Maybe every single one of her neurons had decided to band together in a coordinated attack to make her feet heavy and her reactions slow in the off chance she’d fall into his arms.
She was so royally fucked.
They walked in silence for a while, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It was weird, the way it felt almost necessary. Like they both needed some time to get away from Bluebird, from Little Timber, from the rest of the world before he could eventually ask her, “How was your day?”
“It was good,” she said as they turned down a path that dove into the woods. “I worked the trails with the men this morning, rode twelve miles this afternoon, then helped set the guys up with their class.”
“What’s the race you’re training for? Tex said it was fifty miles or something. That’s intense.”
“It’s just this fundraiser thing,” she said, minimizing what the ride actually was, what she was raising funds for, what it meant to her. What it might mean to him. But she wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet. They were keeping things light, and that conversation would not be light. “I needed something to”— let me still feel close to you —“focus on this summer. But yeah, I hope I’ll be ready. The farthest I’ve ridden so far is thirty miles, and that made me so sore I could barely walk the next day. But the race isn’t until September, so I’ve got more time.”
“I guess you’ll have to do some training in Missoula, then? Since you’ll be leaving before the race?”
Her steps slowed, the decision she still hadn’t made looming like an anvil above her head. “Yeah. I guess so.”
When he nodded, his gaze falling to the white Little Timber sneakers most of the guys wore when they couldn’t afford their own shoes, she asked, “How was your day?”
Even though the sky had turned a muted, dusky orange after the sun dipped behind the trees, his smile lit up the trail when he said, “It was amazing. There’s this horse I’m working with at Jen’s. She’s a Mustang named River. She’s so beautiful, but pretty standoffish. She’d lived most of her life wild until she was caught.”
And while he told her all about this horse who didn’t trust people, a horse he’d decided to devote his time and energy to, just so she’d have a single friend in the world other than one of the barn cats, something inside Davis’s heart shifted, cracking like lake ice in the spring, settling, melting. Because she knew in that moment that she hadn’t been wrong about him. Despite what happened between them, despite her doubts and insecurities and the voice in her head that wondered if she could ever trust her own judgment again, she knew that Kev was a good man. Just solidly, wholeheartedly, sincerely good. She’d sensed it the first time she’d seen him from her mom’s window. Known it deep in her soul.
So maybe her judgment wasn’t defective. Maybe he was just a good man who made a bad mistake. A good man who, under previous Kev and Davis circumstances, would be holding her hand on this walk. She kind of wished he’d do it again now, take her hand, interlace his fingers through hers. But his stayed in his pockets. Which was probably for the best.
“That’s amazing,” she said after he told her how River had shoved him around today. “She sounds like a horse I’d want to be friends with. Prioritizing herself over everyone else. Claiming her space in the world. Not giving a single fuck what anyone thinks.”
“Right?” He laughed. “Like, she’s all why should I give you the time of day? What have you got that makes my life any better than it is now? Why should I trust you at all? It’s really making me think about a lot of stuff.”
Davis could see it, Kev walking out to River’s pasture every day, trying every day, waiting patiently. Not expecting anything, just hoping. She felt a sudden kinship with the mare. “Have you found anything?”
“Hmm?” he murmured, his amused gaze snagging on hers. “Found anything for what?”
Staring up at him as the crickets burst into their nightly serenade, she said, “Anything that makes her life better enough to want you around?”
The wry twist of his lips was so sweet she wanted to taste it. “Mints.”
“Mints?”
“She goes off the fucking rails for mints. Those little red and white ones.”
“Well, yeah,” Davis said with a laugh some might have called a giggle. “Who doesn’t love those? ”
“I know. They’re so good. She nearly tore off my jeans trying to get to them.”
A cough exploded out of her so quickly she barely had a chance to catch it in her fist. Pushing the mental image of Kev… jeansless , as far back in her mind as it would go, she said, “Cool.” Following the eloquence up with, “Um, do you think you’ll try to ride her?”
Ride her? Gah. It was getting worse by the second.
“Yeah.” He rolled his grinning lips together, his eyes sliding from hers down to her collarbone and not an inch lower. “I hope so, anyway.”
“Well then. I, uh”—she stumbled over a pebble, snorted about it, total nervous system failure—“hope she lets you.”
Once he was satisfied that she wasn’t about to fall again, he looked away, dropped his head back and said, “Beautiful night.”
Tearing her gaze from his profile, she joined him in looking up at the sky.
The stars had just begun to reveal themselves, tiny pinpricks of light twinkling in a sea of deep navy, dark purple, wispy pink clouds hovering above the trees. Reaching down for a pinecone, she picked her star, closed her eyes, and wished for something she probably shouldn’t wish for.
“What are you doing?” Kev asked while she hurled the pinecone at the sky.
“Making a wish,” she replied, finding another pinecone on the side of the trail. “My grandpa and I used to do this. We’d pick a star, make a wish on it, then throw pinecones until we knocked it out of the sky. Which, of course, we never did. But”—she grunted, launching her pinecone at the star as hard as she could—“it feels good.”
Stepping off the trail, returning to her side with a handful of pinecones, Kev said, “I want to try.” And then he pointed at his star, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and fired the pinecone into the sky like a high school quarterback .
“What did you wish for?” she asked, her skin drawing tight, her sophomore year football player fantasy apparently still alive and well.
After throwing another pinecone, the motion making his shirt ride up enough to reveal a sliver of smooth skin and toned muscle, he asked, “Is that what you and your grandpa would do? Tell each other your wishes?”
“Yep.” She nodded. “Every time.” This wasn’t even half true. For instance, she didn’t tell her grandpa when she’d wished for Trevor Lawlor to kiss her in the fourth grade, or for bigger boobs in the sixth. But desperate times…
Running a hand through his hair, his cheeks stained pink, he said, “Okay. I guess I wished for more.”
She cocked her head. And he huffed a laugh at her doglike request for elaboration.
“I, um, wished for more walks like this,” he said, toeing at the ground, becoming the human embodiment of the word bashful. “More pinecones. More chances to make more wishes with you. Just…more.” Before she could respond, not that she had any idea what to say, he asked, “What did you wish for?”
The crickets stopped singing. The breeze died down. And they stood facing each other in the silence. I wished for your hand in mine. “Kind of the same thing,” she said.
When he smiled down at her, she wondered if friends did this, wished on stars to have more of each other. Probably not. Friends walked on walks. They didn’t smile and gaze and wish. They walked. Walk, Davis.
It was clear that self-control was not her strong suit when it came to Kev, but gathering the paltry amount of it she did have, she turned away from him and started back down the path. He didn’t let her get far, falling into step with her, silent except for the gravel crunching and pine needles snapping beneath his feet. The sound was ingrained in her DNA, in her memories of her grandfather, her childhood, her entire life here at Bluebird. Even the parts of her life she didn’t want to think about. Like the fact that her mom was apparently talking to her dad again.
Angling toward Kev, she asked, “You believe in forgiveness, right?”
He spent some time considering the question, his brow furrowed thoughtfully, head tilted, lips pursed. And she realized that thoughtful, considerate Kev was even sexier than quarterback fantasy Kev.
“I didn’t used to,” he eventually said. “I’d heard too many apologies that weren’t genuine growing up. Too many sorry s that meant nothing because I knew he’d do the same thing over and over. And then, when I was using, I made too many worthless apologies of my own. Apologies that meant nothing because I knew I’d do the same things over and over. But now?” He made a low humming sound. It wasn’t quite a laugh, too self-deprecating. But it was close. “It’s safe to say that my feelings have changed. I know how hard it is to truly apologize for something. How scary it can be, for everyone involved. So if the apology is genuine, if it’s real, then yeah. I’m listening to it. I’m trying to forgive. It would be pretty hypocritical of me not to.”
Steeling herself, she asked, “Even if the apology is from my dad?” She waited for the anger to surface in him, the rage over what her father had done to the men, to him, tricking them into ingesting drugs, trying to get him thrown back behind bars. Trying to ruin their lives. So when he only said, “Sure,” she jerked to a stop like she’d run into a brick wall.
“Sure? That’s it?”
He shrugged. “If he was truly sorry. If he really meant it. If he was trying to make changes, make amends. Then, yeah. I’d absolutely hear him out. We all fuck up, Davis.”
“But his fuck-up was seriously fucked up,” she said, not entirely sure why she was trying to convince Kev to hold on to the grudge, to nurse his anger the way she’d been nursing hers. “It’s unforgiveable, isn’t it?”
He turned, facing her like bison faced winter storms, head on, determined to make it through. “We have to be able to change,” he said. “To grow. We have to be able to at least try to atone for our fuck-ups, even if we believe they’re unforgivable. Even if everyone else thinks they’re unforgiveable too. Because if we can’t…” When he trailed off, there was so much gravity in the pause, like what he was about to say was substantial. Vital. Like it was the linchpin his future might revolve around.
Running a hand roughly through his hair, he said, “If we can’t grow or change or try to be better, how can anyone ever trust us again? How can you ever trust me again? How can I ever trust myself?”
Blinking the sting from her eyes, she finally saw things through his. Maybe for the first time. Of course Kev was open to forgiveness. Of course Madigan was too. All the men at Little Timber probably were. Because they’d all made mistakes. Big, life-altering mistakes. They all needed forgiveness, from their families, from their friends. From themselves.
“Do you think I should forgive him?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Kev slid his hands back into his pockets. “Has he apologized?”
“I think he wants to,” Davis said. “He texts me all the time. He even called me once. But I’m still so mad at him.” The breeze picked up again, brushing a curl across her face. She tucked it snuggly behind her ear. “I haven’t talked to him since it happened. So I guess I haven’t really given him a chance to apologize.”
“Wow.” Kev rocked back on his heels, giving her a wry smile. “I never thought I’d have anything in common with Chuck, but that is highly relatable content.”
“Oh my god.” Davis plucked at her collar, pulling it above her chin, pretending to hide inside her shirt. “Okay. I get it. I’m bad at accepting apologies.”
When she lowered her shirt again, the amusement that had lit up Kev’s expression was gone, his dark, heated gaze rising from the bit of her stomach she’d accidentally exposed, sweeping up her chest, her throat, skating along her jaw.
“I’m only kidding,” he said, his voice a little gruff while he met her stare. While flames licked at every inch of skin his attention had roved over. “Relationships with parents can be complicated. Believe me.” That furrow sank between his brows again. “I know.”
Those two words, I know , the almost defeated way he’d said them, made her heart ache. Kev had told her a few things about his dad, none of them good. And he never said a word about his mom. She knew there was more there, a deep pain brewing under the surface. How deep, how bad things had been for him, she wasn’t entirely sure. When they’d been together, he didn’t seem to like talking about his childhood, and she’d never wanted to make him relive bad memories. She’d never wanted to make him sad or darken the mood in the limited time they ever had alone with each other. So she’d never asked, never pushed. But maybe she should have. Maybe a friend would ask. Maybe a friend would push.
“As for whether you should forgive him?” Kev blew out a breath. “That is some serious father/daughter stuff I have no business commenting on. But I’m here to listen. If you want to talk more about it.”
Deciding not to push now. Not on their first friends walk. She only said, “Thank you.”
With his hands still deep in his pockets, he smiled. “Anytime.”
And since she couldn’t just stand there and stare at him all night, she turned away, barely making it a step when he whipped a hand out, hooked his finger into the belt loop of her jeans, and pulled.
“Davis,” he whispered, tugging her close enough that her back nestled against his chest, her lungs reaching up and snatching her breath right out of her throat.
Her heart battered her ribs, her head tilting ever-so-slightly as his dipped down, his mouth hovering over the shell of her ear, his breath stirring the hairs at the nape of her neck when he said, “Wait. ”
“What’s happening?” she whispered back, gasping when his hand slipped to her hip, squeezing her there once, a warning to keep still.
As if she could move. As if she wasn’t rooted to the spot.
“Look.” His voice was low, the warmth of his body enveloping her, his soft curls brushing against her cheek while he reached across her to point into the trees.
The woods were dark, and her vision was hazy, her eyelids growing heavier with each expansion of his chest pressing into her back.
“I don’t see anything,” she whispered.
When he moved even closer. When he placed his fingers under her chin, skillfully turning her head, angling her in the direction of?—
“Whoa,” she said in a rush of air. “Look at him.”
Between the trees, just far enough away that they weren’t in any immediate danger, stood an enormous bull moose. As tall as a house, he flicked his ears back and forth, his antlers flaring wide above his head in the fading light, his gaze soft and focused somewhere farther down the trail.
“Amazing,” she whispered, not daring to move a muscle. Because of the moose, of course. Not because Kev’s body molded so perfectly to hers. “We hardly ever see them here. But they’re my favorite. Ever since I was a kid.”
“I don’t think he sees us,” Kev whispered back, his breath ghosting across her neck, a shiver racing down her spine.
“Not yet,” she said, barely making a sound.
Kev’s angle changed, his voice and breath and lips dropping from her ear to somewhere just below it. Like he was looking down at her, his gaze hot on the junction of her neck and shoulder. “Should we go?”
But I don’t want to go. I want to stay here with you. With your lips at my neck and your hand sliding across my waist…
When the moose started to swing his head their way, some lingering thread of self-preservation made her say, “Yeah, we should go.”
Slowly, he pulled his finger free of her belt loop, giving it one final tug she felt deep in her belly before letting her go.
Then they turned around, heading back toward the cabins in a silence so profound she wondered if the last few minutes had actually happened at all.