Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Everett
I wake up smiling.
That’s my first confirmation.
My body’s sore in a good way, my sheets smell faintly like darkroom chemicals and Sierra’s shampoo, and for a solid three seconds I don’t remember there are cameras on my mountain, my father hates my guts, the internet thinks I’m exploiting my family legacy, and I almost blew up the best thing that ever happened to me in a single, spectacularly stupid sentence.
All I remember is her.
The feel of her thighs locked around my hips.
The way she said yes like she was throwing herself off a cliff and trusting me to catch her.
The way she stopped me—right when we were finally connected, fully, completely—and turned the moment from lust into truth… that wrecked me.
God.
She hadn’t even come yet, and she still let go of the physical so she could give me something bigger.
She told me she loved me.
Not breathless. Not desperate. Just honest.
Like it was the only thing that mattered.
She took my face in her hands—the same hands that have been hiding behind cameras for eleven years, documenting everything except what she really felt—and she looked me in the eye.
And she said it.
I love you.
Three words I’d imagined coming from her a thousand times. In the quiet hours behind bars I tended across the country. In the moments before sleep when her face was the last thing I saw before consciousness slipped away. In every version of a future I wasn't sure I'd ever get to have.
None of those imagined versions came close.
Because in my imagination, she said it to me.
In reality? She said it for me. For herself. For the seventeen-year-old girl who fell in love and the twenty-eight-year-old woman who finally stopped pretending she hadn't.
She said it when I least deserved to hear it.
Hours after I'd cornered her. After I'd pushed. After I'd used Eleanor and Jedediah's story—the thing she trusted me with—like a weapon.
And she gave me those words anyway.
Not because I'd earned them.
Because she was finally ready to stop carrying them alone.
Today’s goal: get her alone so I can hear it again.
The thought has a grin splitting my face until the harsh hammering of the goddamn knock of doom startles me upright in bed.
“Everett!” That’s Becky at the front desk, voice too bright and too high. “You need to see this. Now. Like, now now.”
I groan, scrub a hand over my face, and roll out of bed. Muscles protest. Certain parts of me stretch in a smug, satisfied way. I yank on sweats, a thermal, and the first flannel I grab off the chair.
When I open the door, Becky’s standing there in her Morgan Lodge fleece and Christmas leggings, eyes about three sizes too big.
“You okay?” I ask, because that’s what I’m supposed to do when my staff looks like they’re about to start screaming.
She blinks. Her gaze runs over my face. Whatever she sees there makes her flinch back a little.
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “You’re…happy.”
I frown. “Is that a problem?”
“No! I mean—yes. I mean—it’s weird. Lately things have been… you know what, never mind. It’s fine. It’s just…” She shakes herself. “You need to see outside.”
That wakes up the part of my brain that pays the bills. Weather. Liability. Transportation. The mountain never stops being dangerous, it just takes turns with how.
“What happened?” I follow her down the hall, running my fingers through my hair since she didn’t even give me a chance to brush my teeth, let alone my hair.
“Just wait,” she says. “You’ll see.”
We hit the main landing, turn the corner, and—
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
The world beyond the lodge’s glass front is white.
Not dusted. Not flurries. Buried.
It’s like somebody picked up the mountain and dropped it into the middle of a snow globe, shook until everything disappeared.
I walk straight to the window, press my palm to the cold glass. Snow is piled halfway up the railings on the front steps. The parking lot is a series of suspicious mounds. I can’t even see the main road, just a white blur where the plowed lane used to be.
“It wasn’t on any of the forecasts,” Becky says, hovering at my shoulder.
“Last night it still said forty degrees and rain. Then at like three a.m. it all flipped. They’re calling it a freak band—lake effect meets pressure system, but we don’t have a lake so make that make sense.
I don’t know—point is, highways are shut down in both directions.
The county issued a travel advisory about forty minutes ago. ”
“How bad?” I ask, even though I can already guess.
“Shelter in place if at all possible. No unnecessary travel, emergency vehicles only.” She swallows. “They had a plow try to come up the access road on the north side. It slid into a ditch.”
Perfect.
“Okay.” I blow out a breath, force my shoulders to loosen. “We’ve got generators. Firewood. Kitchen’s stocked. We prepped for full occupancy anyway. We can ride this out.”
Becky looks at me like she expected shouting. Or at least a few creative curse words.
“Is everyone freaking out?” I ask.
“Guests are…mixed,” she says carefully. “Some think it’s magical. Some are upset. A few are already at the desk asking about refunds and ‘guaranteed checkout times.’” The way she air-quotes it tells me this conversation did not go well for her. “Also, Tara Greene is up and filming in the lobby.”
Of course she is.
The knot that’s lived under my breastbone for the past forty-eight hours should tighten.
The one that says: They saw you at your worst. They saw you go head to head with your father and spliced it for clout.
They turned you into a drunk frat kid who returned home to turn the legacy into dollars and when that didn’t work out, you swindled it out of your three best friends by attaching them to the sinking ship.
It doesn’t.
Instead, I think about Sierra in the darkroom, pressed tight against me. The way she looked at that photograph of me—like I was something worth saving.
She told me she was choosing us.
I’m holding her to that.
“Okay,” I say. “We’re moving any outdoor programming indoors.
Fireside chat becomes great room storytelling.
S’mores get moved to the big hearth. We’ll run cocoa and mulled cider all day.
Talk to kitchen—no one’s leaving, so we’re feeding everyone like it’s a snowed-in holiday.
Extra snacks, board games, movie marathon in the lower lounge.
The magical ones will be delighted, the pissed ones can soothe themselves with carbs. ”
Becky nods, fingers flying on her tablet as she takes notes. “On it.”
“Housekeeping needs to prep rooms like everyone’s staying another night,” I add.
“Fresh towels, extra blankets, make sure every bathroom has stacked toiletries. Tell maintenance to triple-check the generators and the fireplaces. I want carbon monoxide detectors tested before lunch. We’re not screwing around with safety. ”
“You got it.” She hesitates. “The county emergency line asked us to keep vehicles off the road unless it’s life-or-death.”
“Fine by me.” My jaw tightens. “If anybody has a problem with that, they can take it up with the sheriff’s office.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
For a heartbeat, my chest gets tight in a completely different way.
It’s her.
One text. No frills, no emojis, just pure Sierra.
SIERRA
Are you awake or dead?
Awake. Questionable on the dead part.
Why?
SIERRA
Need a favor.
Important.
Potentially illegal.
…Sierra.
SIERRA
Kidding.
Mostly.
Just don’t freak out.
You do understand that’s not comforting?
SIERRA
Good.
Keeps you sharp.
I slide my phone away, turn toward the back corridor—and walk face-first into a wall of flannel and judgment.
Roman stands dead center of the hallway like he materialized from thin air, arms crossed, face carved from quiet judgment.
Behind him, Nolan and Caleb flank like we rehearsed this.
Roman lifts a brow. “You look weird.”
“Good morning to you too,” I say. “In case you missed it, we’re buried under a freak snowstorm and possibly trapped on the side of a mountain. I think weird is allowed.”
“It’s not weather weird,” Caleb says, squinting at me like he’s checking for signs of possession. “It’s your face. Your face is acting weird.”
Nolan studies me the way only Nolan can—clinically, silently, unfairly.
“You’re…calm,” Roman adds. “And one of your eyebrows isn’t twitching which is signature Everett in high stress situations. It should be twitching.”
“Maybe I’m growing as a person,” I say. “I’m evolved.”
Caleb snorts. “And how did that happen? You didn’t go to therapy.”
“Exactly,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder. “Raw improvement. No co-pay.”
Roman doesn’t move. “You’re smiling.”
I resist the urge to touch my mouth. “I smile all the time.”
“No,” he says. “You charm all the time. This isn’t your customer service smile, it’s not your PR smile. Your affable bartender smile—” He gestures at my face like it’s a crime scene. “—is not that.”
I glance between the three of them and absolutely don’t picture their sister’s thighs wrapped around my face.
Much.
“You going somewhere with this,” I ask, “or are we just doing a feelings circle in the entryway while the staff panics?”
Caleb’s eyes widen like a lightbulb went off. “Holy shit. You got laid.”
Nolan closes his eyes. “Jesus, Caleb.”
Roman just sighs. “Subtlety was never his strong suit.”
“I am not discussing my sex life with you,” I tell them, heat climbing my neck. “Or lack thereof. Or whatever category last night falls into.”
Caleb lets out an unhinged little cheer. “Last night. You said last night. Past tense. Time-stamped. This is real-time intel, baby.”
“Shut up.”
“Wait. You didn’t hook up with the woman who bought you in the auction right?” he asks, because why start respecting boundaries now.
Roman winces. Nolan shakes his head like there’s no hope for the youngest Barrett brother ever having a filter.