Chapter Twenty Sage
Chapter Twenty
Sage
Travis is in his office once again, doing all kinds of research he refuses to tell me about.
I take advantage of the time spent out from under his watchful eye and get to work in the kitchen.
I preheat the oven and start putting my brownie mix together.
I leave everything but the butter out of the bowl.
Then I start making my cannabutter mixture.
Believe it or not, this is a recipe my hippie parents taught me ages ago. As soon as I was eighteen, they were more than happy to share their weed recipes. I guess that is a perk of growing up in a commune.
I add the butter to a pan and stir it constantly before adding in the weed.
The familiar musky scent wafts to my nose, and I inhale with a slight smile.
Since I’ve been in Lake Lure, I haven’t gotten properly stoned, and I am looking forward to it.
With everything going on with Eli, I could use a break.
I strain the weed out of the butter when it’s finished and add the remainder to the brownie mixture before pouring everything in another pan.
Travis walks out of his office just as I put the used buds in the trash can.
He looks around suspiciously, sniffing the air before his eyes land on an open window in the living room.
“You have to leave the window shut,” Travis says with an annoyed sigh as he walks toward it and closes it. “We’re in the middle of the woods. There are countless critters running around. I don’t like to smell skunk in my home.”
“Sorry,” I reply, smirking to myself because he really doesn’t know what I’m doing. Travis always knows what I’m doing, but he doesn’t right now. “It won’t happen again.”
His eyes land on my filming equipment, unpacked and strewn all around the living room. “What’s this?”
“Sorry, I’m about to move it all, I promise. I post travel vlogs on my YouTube channel every Friday, and I have to film some content for that.” I set a timer on my phone for the brownies before running around and gathering up everything.
Without prompting, Travis helps. I’ve always wanted a man who doesn’t need to be told what to do. Travis sees something that needs to be done, and he steps up. He might have his flaws, but he has a lot of good qualities too.
“Don’t get my house in the shot,” he advises as we walk outside, and I start setting up my camera. I nod and point the camera at the woods instead.
While I’m in the midst of setting up the ring lights, adjusting the microphone, and making sure my battery is at 100 percent, my phone alarm rings.
It takes only a minute to pull the brownies out of the stove and put them on the counter to cool.
As I catch my reflection in the oven glass, I give myself a little pep talk.
“Okay, don’t be weird. Just be cute and chill.”
I can smell the weed butter, and I’m tempted to dig right in, but I stop myself.
When I get back outside, Travis is sitting in a chair behind the camera. “Am I going to have an audience today?”
“I’ll admit, I’m curious about what you do.” Travis leans back and gestures for me to take my spot in front of the camera.
I never film while anyone is watching me. Honestly, it makes me feel a little self-conscious about what I do. When I’m alone, in front of a camera, I can turn on the charm with ease. But having Travis watch me makes me wonder if I’ll do and say the right things.
I take a deep breath and press the record button on the camera. “Evening, travelers! Welcome back to my channel. I’m coming to you today from beautiful Lake Lure, North Carolina!”
I smile and wave, almost immediately forgetting about the eyes watching me as I delve into my internet persona.
I go on and on about my journey to Lake Lure, how I hitchhiked to get to the Airbnb I’ve been staying in, and about the disappearances from the true crime podcast, playing it up to seem over the top rather than suspicious—like maybe there’s a curse or some haunted ground rather than an impossibly sexy murderer living nearby.
I’ll need to go back to Ryan’s place and film some B-roll of his yard and the interior of his cabin.
That’s how I’m able to review the Airbnbs the way I do.
People like Ryan see my content and want free advertising for their homes, so they let me stay in them as long as I post about them on my social media.
Then, after that, they have more clicks and bookings than they did before.
I don’t have to pay any bills, and they get some free advertisements.
It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Because of that, though, I skipped over Ryan being a creep when I first met him.
I also don’t say anything about meeting Travis during my travels. That one goes without saying. I can’t exactly admit to falling in love with a serial killer who is going to hunt down and kill my stalker, now, can I?
“I can’t recommend coming to Lake Lure enough! So if you’re looking for an East Coast getaway, look no further!” I stand motionless in front of the camera for a few brief moments, holding the smile on my face before letting it fall completely and stopping the recording.
I flip through a notebook I have and stand in front of the camera again, ready for a second round of filming. This time I’m more aware of Travis’s eyes on me as I move. I take a few deep breaths and go over some of the points I have for this recording in my head.
I turn on the camera and do the exact same thing over again, this time talking about hiking trails in the area. Travis watches me, squinting as he studies my every word.
My ears burn hot, and I’m thankful for the camera-ready makeup caked on my face to hide the redness I’m sure is there. Travis doesn’t say anything or offer any critique while I’m filming. I catch my mind straying from my travel guide to wonder what it is he’s thinking.
“What do you think?” I ask him when I stop the second recording.
Travis sits up straight in his chair and takes a deep breath while he looks me up and down. The way he looks at me makes me feel like he is some kind of scientist, discovering a new species for the first time. It doesn’t feel good. It’s not how I want him to look at me at all.
“I thought I was good at putting on a persona, but I’m nothing compared to you.
” His eyes scan my face, and I’m not sure what he registers.
I think I should feel offended by the comment, but he’s right.
That’s exactly what I do when I’m behind the camera.
“Nobody would ever expect there’s something different about you.
They don’t know what’s swimming beneath the surface. ”
“And what’s that?” I fold my arms across my chest and raise an eyebrow at him. He stares at me with a smirk on his lips, clearly enjoying the challenge I’m giving him.
“Darkness.” A chill runs through me, and I try to shake it off, but I can’t.
Maybe he’s right. There could be something about me that resonates with him; that’s why he’s let me in the way he has.
My phone rings in my pocket and jolts me out of my introspection. I look at it, surprised to see my parents FaceTiming me. It’s not Sunday yet, and they don’t normally reach out if it’s not part of our regularly scheduled time.
“Hello?” Both my parents are on the screen with wide smiles on their faces, waving at the camera. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, we were just calling because Gemma had an idea about having you film the annual solstice festival for your channel, and we wanted to see if you were interested,” Mom explains.
“Of course, we also wanted to see how you were doing,” Dad adds. “How is that fella of yours?”
I jump at the mention of Travis and smile, immediately clicking the camera reversal button on my phone to show him sitting behind the camera. My parents’ faces light up, seeing him for the first time.
“This is Travis! He’s helping me film some content for my channel right now, actually,” I say. A smile beams across my face as my parents take him in.
I see Travis in the small rectangle in the corner of the screen, stiffening, his face completely blank as he awkwardly raises a hand to wave. My stomach twists, and I immediately realize I shouldn’t have done that. I got carried away.
I click the button again and take the camera off Travis while forcing a smile.
“Tell us about yourself, Travis,” my mom says with a curious grin on her face. My dad is mumbling unintelligibly about something, which I think is him commenting on how cute a couple we make.
Travis doesn’t move from the chair, but I see how uncomfortable he is. I wish I could take it back. At some point he’ll have to meet my parents, but that has to be on his own terms.
He’s also a dangerous man, and I need to be careful giving out information about him. Especially considering there’s somebody nosing around, trying to look into him.
“He’s being shy,” I say, stepping away from Travis and trying to redirect the conversation away from him.
“Wait, I think I might be able to film the festival. When is it, again?” I ask.
Thankfully my parents are very easily distracted, and they don’t ask anything else about Travis as they start bombarding me with information about everything they’ve done.
I feign interest for a while longer, and eventually I manage to hang up the phone.
Travis is still sitting down behind the camera, and his hands are gripping the arms of the chair.
He might be mad, and I completely understand why he would be.
There’s a devious hope that he might punish me for what I did, just like he did in the gym.
I cautiously approach and take a seat across from him.
“I’m really sorry, Travis. I wasn’t thinking. I totally understand if you’re mad at—”
“I’m not mad.” Travis’s grip on the chair loosens, and he takes a deep breath as he looks around. “I was actually thinking about my parents. I was just comparing everything you told me about yours to mine. They’re just so different.”
I wait silently for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.
He just stares off into space while he thinks.
I want to ask more, but I know that would be pointless.
Travis is guarded, and I doubt he’s going to willingly give me information about his life.
He didn’t even tell me what happened to his sister when he mentioned her the first time.
I can’t help but wonder if I’ll ever meet his family.
If things go well between us, I know that I want him to meet mine.
What if the two of us end up getting married?
Are we going to have the big wedding of my dreams, or just a small courthouse wedding between the two of us so he doesn’t have to integrate me into his life fully?
“I’m all finished filming for the day,” I say, packing up my camera and tripod. Travis stands up and helps me before we walk back inside.
I set everything down in the living room before packing it into its proper place, not wanting to get on Travis’s bad side with the mess of it all. After I zip up the camera bag, I remember the brownies on the counter.
I run over to them and see that they are completely cooled, and I immediately cut into the pan. Travis watches me as I put a small piece on a plate for myself, and a smile creeps onto my lips.
Travis has been guarded since the moment I met him, and this could be my way to break his walls down. My special ingredient might just be his kryptonite.
“Remember how you said you’ve never had a brownie? Well, that’s about to change,” I say as I cut a piece for him and put it on a plate.
This should be interesting.