by A. K. Evans
It was a lot of fun—much more than yesterday—and Mack even showed me a couple of places he’d found the day before that I hadn’t yet seen.
“As much fun as I had today, I’m not sure I’m going to keep up with you,” I shared. “Two weeks of this is going to be a killer on my body.”
“So, if there’s a day you’re feeling particularly exhausted, just take a break,” he suggested. “It’s not like there are any rules here that say you have to ride every single day.”
“Yeah, I know. I just don’t know how you do the strenuous physical exercise every day,” I said.
“You get used to it. It’s pretty tough in the beginning, but if you did it regularly like me, you’d probably find that your body would actually crave it,” he reasoned.
I shook my head. No way. There was no way I could ever see that happening. “I’m pretty sure the only thing I’m ever going to crave is food,” I advised him.
Mack burst out laughing.
I looked over at him and watched. Though we’d been in each other’s presence over the last fifteen years, our friends were always around at the same time. And not once during that time had I seen him laugh like he was right now. I wasn’t even trying to be funny, and for some reason, Mack thought I was hysterical.
When he finally settled down and looked over at me with shining eyes, I admitted, “This was really fun today, Mack. I didn’t expect I’d feel this way so soon after what happened yesterday.”
“I had a great time today, too,” he replied, the smile still lighting up his face.
A few minutes later, Mack and I had made it back to the house. After we both got inside and stripped out of all our gear down to our base layers, which I still had yet to be unaffected by when seeing Mack in his, we both went to the separate bathrooms to take showers and warm up. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about him being naked just down the hall from me.
Stop it, Marley, I scolded myself.
I shouldn’t have been thinking about Mack like that. If we were lucky, we’d find a way to salvage our friendship. Anything beyond that was completely out of the realm of possibilities.
After I got out of the shower and got myself dressed in a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt, my phone chimed, indicating I’d received a text message. Picking it up off the middle of the bed, I saw that Beth had texted me.
Beth: Are things still civil between you and Mack?
My friends did not yet know what had happened yesterday, nor did they know that Mack and I were on speaking terms. They were all going to lose their minds. I decided to have a bit of fun.
Me: We just got back from riding together.
Her response came instantly.
Beth: Together? As in you and him?
Me: Yes.
Beth: What? How?
Time for me to take things up a notch. If this was already making her freak out, what I planned to share next would make her head explode.
Me: Well, I mean, we made breakfast together first.
Beth: WHAT?!?! What are we missing?
Me: All I’m going to say for now is that I decided to take Dakota’s advice.
There was a lengthy pause, and I started to wonder if Beth was reaching out to Dakota to find out what advice she’d given me. I got my answer when a new text had popped up from Dakota.
Dakota: You did it!! I’m so proud of you.
I laughed. Things were good, I was feeling happy, and my friends were excited. I decided it would be best to wait until they finally got here to tell them about what happened yesterday. I didn’t want them to worry, and considering I was okay, it seemed unnecessary right now.
Me: Long story on how it happened. I’ll fill you in when you guys get here. Have you decided when you’re going to head up here?
Dakota: We were planning on it tomorrow since things have gotten better down here with the roads. But that other storm is supposed to start tonight. If it’s a flop, we should be there tomorrow. If we get what they’re calling for, who knows?
That news upset me.
Well, mostly.
Obviously, I wanted the rest of our friends to get here and enjoy the mountain, the time away from work and responsibilities, and the fun. But I had to be honest with myself and admit that it was nice having this time alone to reconnect with Mack. For the time being, I was mostly trying to decide if it made more sense to wait until after we returned to Lily Canyon to bring up the past or if I should take advantage of the confined space and inability for us to escape one another and do it here.
Neither option was particularly appealing. Part of me believed it was because I didn’t want to ruin what I was feeling right now. Things felt good between us.
Familiar.
Safe.
That was the biggest deal of all.
I felt safe being around Mack. And I didn’t mean that in the physical sense either. Of course, I had never been concerned about my physical safety around him. But my heart? I never thought I’d ever be able to trust my heart around him. Maybe I still couldn’t. But for right now, I wasn’t worried about my heart. Or, I wasn’t worried about it in the romantic sense.
I might need to keep reminding myself of that fact, but what was happening between Mack and me wasn’t about romance. It was about our friendship. Getting that back was the priority.
And that was something I didn’t think I’d ever have until this trip.
Me: Keep us posted.
Dakota: Us. You’re already saying us.
Me: There is no us like that.
Dakota: I guess I’ll have to wait and see for myself.
I dropped my phone back down on the bed with a smile on my face and walked out of the room. I’d be happy to let the girls—and even the guys if they cared—to speculate about what was happening up here with Mack and me. When they saw us next, they’d see that we had merely found a way to get back on track to being friends.
By the time I got upstairs, Mack was already there. He was standing in front of the window where we’d talked to one another this morning, and he was watching the flurries come down.
“It’s already starting,” I declared as I moved toward him.
Mack kept his feet planted where they were but twisted his neck to look back at me. “Yeah, and it’s only supposed to get worse from here,” he replied as his eyes swept over me.
“I just talked to Dakota, and she said that they were all planning to come up tomorrow, depending on what happens with this storm,” I shared as I came to a stop beside him.
We both focused our attention outside the window as we stood there in silence. I wondered what was going through Mack’s mind. I wondered if he was having any of the same thoughts that I had been having.
Would our friends be here tomorrow, bringing an end to this time we had alone with one another? Would it be awkward for us when they were around again? Would things stay this way after we talked about what had pulled us away from each for so long?
“I don’t think they’re going to make it here tomorrow if the forecast is accurate,” Mack revealed.
“Really?” I asked, looking over at him.
He brought his eyes to mine and searched my face. “Do I hear excitement in your voice about that news?” he asked.
My eyes widened. “What? No.”
Oh God. What if he figured it out? What if he realized that I wanted just a little more time between the two of us? What if… what if he didn’t want the same?
“Sounded like it,” he returned.
I couldn’t quite work out how he was reacting to it all. Did he like the idea of me being excited or not?
Mack turned from the window and walked away without a word. I was worried he’d gotten the wrong impression, so I called out, “Mack?”
“Yeah, Marley?” he replied, looking at me once again.
“Is everything… are you upset with me?” I asked. “I wasn’t trying to be insensitive about our friends not being here?”
“I hate
that they’re all missing out on the fun right now, but there’s one thing I can’t seem to ignore,” he shared.
I nodded, already knowing where he was going with this, and finished, “If they had made it here that night, you and I wouldn’t be talking to each other right now.”
“Yeah.”
Things were getting heavy between us, and I didn’t want to risk whatever time we had left alone together not enjoying it. I could see this, or something else, was weighing heavily on Mack’s mind.
“Do you want to make dinner together?” I asked.
That seemed to lift his spirits instantly. He smiled at me and answered, “Yeah, that sounds good. What are we having?”
Relief swept through me. I returned the smile and said, “Let’s go see what you stocked this kitchen with, and I’ll toss out a few ideas. You choose what we make.”
“Works for me.”
With that, the two of us made our way to the kitchen. And while we cooked, I didn’t see or feel the tension or frustration from Mack again.
Mack
Too fast.
It was happening way too fast.
It had only been a mere twenty-four hours of me being back on speaking terms with Marley, and I was already feeling myself getting completely caught up in her like I had been all those years ago.
One day.
That was all it took.
I didn’t even know what to do about it, either.
Because as much as I was concerned about falling for Marley only to have my heart broken all over again, I didn’t want to stop it from happening. I didn’t want this feeling to end.
But I had questions.
So many questions.
And I had a feeling that until those questions were answered, I was going to be in a constant state of worry. Right now, things were good between us. But did we only have this because it was just the two of us here?
I hated to think that once everyone else arrived or once we both returned to our normal lives back in Lily Canyon, this would all go away.
Yet, no matter how many questions I had about what happened to us when we were younger, I couldn’t manage to bring it up. There was no doubt it would bring up awful memories, and I didn’t want to risk losing what we had right now.
I wanted to keep falling for her.
Every minute that passed, every time she spoke, and every look she offered all gave me something good to hold on to.
I didn’t want to go back to living a life without her in it. I barely survived it once; I wouldn’t make it through a second time.
“I have a confession to make,” Marley announced.
We had just finished having dinner and decided to come out onto the covered deck to try out the fireplace. It was definitely cold, so we brought out some blankets and bundled ourselves up.
Hearing Marley’s declaration, I had to wonder if I was about to lose the warm feeling that had nothing to do with the fire or the blankets.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to keep the sound of my voice neutral.
“I talked to both Beth and Dakota today,” she shared.
My brows pulled together. “Okay. Is something wrong?” I questioned her.
She gave me a look that told me she wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that question. “Technically, nothing is wrong,” she started. “But I thought I should warn you about something before you hear it from someone else.”
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she was going to tell me. “Alright. What is it?”
Marley took in a deep breath and blew it out before she explained, “Our friends, namely Beth, Dakota, and probably Faye, are thinking there’s more going on here between us than there is.”
If I wasn’t already curious about what this was about, that would have done it. “What do you mean?”
“Well, they’ve obviously been concerned because they know how things have been between us for so long,” she started. “But when I got out of the shower before, Beth had texted me. She wanted to make sure that you and I hadn’t killed one another yet.”
Even if Marley and I hadn’t ended up right where we were now, I never would have allowed things to get to a place where either one of us was that bad off.
“I’m guessing you told her that we’re both still breathing, right?”
“Yes. But I might have shared too much information,” she replied.
My brows pulled together again. “Like what?”
“I told her that we’d gone out riding together and that we’d had breakfast together this morning,” she explained.
It was starting to come together in my head, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions, much like I was assuming those three girls were making. “And from that, they thought what?” I asked.
“That there’s more to what’s happening here instead of just you and me figuring out how to get back to being friends,” Marley answered.
It took everything inside me not to come out and tell her that I wanted us to get back to being more than just friends. It wasn’t easy to do, but I managed. And that was likely because I knew this was important.
We did need to figure this out. We needed to talk about what went wrong so we could make sure we never ended up back where we were, even just yesterday morning ever again.
“What did you tell them?” I questioned her while hoping I kept the sound of my voice neutral.”
"I told Dakota, who ended up texting me after Beth did, that there wasn’t an us the way that she was taking it,” Marley shared. “I mean, they’re a little crazy. But I wanted to tell you about it because I didn’t want you thinking that I’d shared something with them about us that wasn’t true. They’re making it all up in their own heads.”
Hearing those words, I started to wonder if perhaps Marley wasn’t interested in seeing us get to the same place that I was. I wanted to believe, at the very least, that she intended for us to reconcile and repair our friendship.
I’d take it, too.
Even if I could feel myself falling for her again, if all she ever wanted was for the two of us to only be friends, I’d accept that. I’d accept it, and I’d do everything in my power to make sure we never went back to where we’d been for roughly fifteen years.
“I promise not to hold it against you,” I assured her.
“Thank you.”
For the next few minutes, neither one of us said anything. We simply sat there by the fire underneath blankets and watched the snow fall.
But after some time passed, I couldn’t stop myself from asking Marley about something she said. “So, you want that to happen?” I asked.
Confusion marred her features. “I want what to happen?” she returned.
“You said that Beth, Dakota, and Faye think there’s more than us just figuring out how to get back to being friends again happening here,” I noted. “I guess it just feels a bit surreal that we’re going to be doing that.”
Marley tipped her head to the side. “You mean trying to become friends again?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Is that… do you want that?” she questioned me.
“Yes,” I replied without an ounce of hesitation. Marley simply stared at me after I answered, and when the silence stretched for too long, I asked, “Do you?”
I watched as she licked her lips, and her eyes searched my face. Without an immediate response from her, I started to think that perhaps she didn’t feel the same. But eventually, I was able to release the breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding when she rasped, “I’d really think it’s time to see if it’s possible.”
Relief.
I felt such relief hearing that response from her.
I couldn’t begin to imagine a world where it wouldn’t be possible for us to figure it out, but I was still in the dark about what pulled her away from me to begin with. I didn’t want to think there was anything that we couldn’t work through, though. On that thought, I made a promise to myself that I was going to do whatever I
could to make sure we never went another day without speaking to one another.
And then I thought it was wise to tell her the same.
“It’s possible, Marley,” I promised. “We’ll make it happen. Whatever it takes, I’ll make it happen.”
Her eyes held mine for several long seconds before she pulled the blanket a little tighter around her body and smiled at me.
I might have been feeling frustrated about how much I felt for her in such a short time when I didn’t know the future of our relationship, but seeing that smile from her hit me somewhere deep. It helped to ease a bit of that frustration and made me believe that I’d actually be able to follow through on my promise.
For that reason, instead of feeling frustration about where things were, I started to feel a bit of gratitude. Because things could have been much worse. After all, I was finally being treated to a smile and conversation from Marley instead of glares and eye rolls.
Nine
Marley
Seventeen Years Earlier
“Marley!”
At the sound of my mom’s daily morning weekday call, I dove across my bed, reached out for my science book, and stuffed it in my backpack.
One of these days, I’d figure out a way to be on time, to be waiting for him instead of him having to wait for me. But today wasn’t going to be that day.
I’d stayed up reading a little late last night, so when the alarm clock went off this morning, I ignored it. My dad walked in fifteen minutes later and urged me to get up. It wasn’t until my mom came in ten minutes after that when I actually got out of bed. Then, it was a mad dash to eat breakfast and get myself ready for school.
I dashed down the stairs and saw Mack waiting by the front door for me.
“We need to work on this, Marley,” my mom scolded me. “You’re not being fair to Mack.”
“Sorry, Mom. At least the bus hasn’t arrived yet,” I reasoned as I walked over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
“Have a good day at school,” she called out as I moved toward Mack and the front door.
