I Am Girl Power

by Katie Cross

  “Congratulations, Lex,” I said, wrapping her in a hug. “You and Bradley will make the cutest babies. I’m so happy for you.”

  Inside, I shriveled away.

  The conversation rolled on. Lexie gushed about wedding plans while I picked at my rice. No matter what level of happiness I felt on Lexie’s behalf, my chest ached. Lexie—in her first and very successful relationship—would get married and move away. Just like Dana.

  And Elizabeth.

  And Jodie.

  As my best friends graduated to marriage, I’d clung to my career. Nursing had never let me down. Until it did. I couldn’t even hold onto a boyfriend for more than a few months lately.

  What is keeping me here? I thought, managing a half-hearted laugh at something Rachelle said. No job. No relationship. A best friend who would slowly slip away into her new life without me. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I blinked them back.

  Nothing. Nothing is keeping me here.

  With my phone hidden behind my knees, I started a new text to both JJ and Mark. Typing out the two words settled the boiling pain in my chest.

  I’m in.

  A flood of relief consumed me. The mountains. Lifting with Mom between meals. Mark and JJ and Dad setting marshmallows on fire. Repairing my broken heart by hiking every morning.

  Mom and I had always been able to talk for hours—I could tell her everything without shame. Dad and I would go to Rudy’s Diner for our favorite hamburgers. How much work could cooking for a handful of guys be, anyway? This would be a veritable two-month vacation in the mountains.

  My phone buzzed. Mark.

  You’re a wise little blister. We can’t wait to see you.

  Chapter 3

  Your New Kingdom

  One week later.

  The quiet rocking of the plane to Jackson City had lulled me into a doze. I jerked awake at the turbulence of the landing, my forehead pressed against the chilly, plastic windowpane. I’d stayed up half the night packing, cleaning, and reassuring Lexie that a bear wouldn’t eat me. Considering I’d originally told her about the trip via text message because I was too much of a coward to say it to her face, she’d handled the announcement with grace. And fifty replies.

  Dry air welcomed me into the terminal with a gentle embrace, so unlike the walls of humidity in the Midwest. Outside, mountains pierced the sky with jagged teeth of snow and granite. I tossed my backpack over my shoulder and shuffled through the airport, yawning.

  First order of business once I arrived at Adventura: take a nap.

  Running late, Mark said in a text.

  Where are you?

  Chasing tornados.

  Of course.

  We’ll be there soon. Ish.

  I eyed an empty bank of chairs. Would it be weird to nap in the middle of the airport? Deciding that Mark would tie me to the chair if he caught me, I moved on to baggage claim.

  A crowd of people clumped around a wheezy carousel as it belched duffel bags. Locating my ratty suitcase a few steps away, I grabbed the handle to wrench it free, but the wheel caught. My wrist twisted as the bag tumbled to the ground. The zipper split with a crack.

  Clothes spewed out like a cotton volcano.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, scrabbling after a pair of polka-dot underwear and a runaway tampon. A teenager guffawed while I seized a purple bra. Honestly. Of all the bras to lose in the airport…

  “Airports are the worst place to lose your underwear,” said a man in a worn baseball hat. He set my hiking boots next to me with an amused twinkle in his eye. “Looks like your boots are getting a head start on you.”

  “Uh, yeah … they’ve always had a mind of their own.”

  His shocking blue-gray eyes reminded me of a faded pair of jeans. His lip twitched, deepening a dimple in his right cheek. He hesitated, then reached past several pairs of underwear for a stray hoodie. Cheeks burning, I swept all the underwear into my arms and punched them into the corner of the suitcase.

  Once we finished re-packing my bag, he stretched out a hand. I hesitated, looking from his callused palms back to his shadowed face, then accepted. He pulled me to my feet.

  “Thanks for the help.” I gestured to the bag. And for not embarrassing me over the colors of my underwear.

  He shrugged it off, adjusting a backpack strap on his shoulder. My hand fell back to my side, tingling.

  “I’m Justin,” he said.

  “Megan.”

  “Megan?” He tilted his head.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  His dimple deepened again. I’d been wrong. His eyes weren’t denim but thunderstorm gray. Layers of amusement colored his tone. “Good to officially meet you.”

  A familiar cry jerked me back to reality.

  “Yoo-hoo! Littlest blister! Over here!”

  Two familiar oafs strode into baggage claim holding up signs that said, THAT’S MY SISTER. THE ONE WITH THE FACE and THE BLISTER HAS RETURNED. A knee-high dog with gleaming black fur trotted next to them.

  “Oh, Megan,” Mark sang. “It’s so good to see you.”

  I backed away two steps, palm raised.

  “Don’t you—”

  He charged, wrapped his thick arms around my shoulders, and yanked me off my feet with his violent love. My scalp burned under a brotherly knuckle rub.

  “Let me go!”

  “Never!”

  I nipped the fleshy part of his arm with my fingertips. He leaped back with a howl, releasing me.

  “No fatty pinching!”

  “Wimp.”

  Mark set his hands on his hips, studying me with a burgeoning grin. “In love and war, I suppose. It’s good to see you, blister.”

  “It’s always war with you, Mark.”

  He hauled me into a bear hug with a growl.

  “You’re a rotten brother,” I said into his shoulder, but I squeezed him tight. Unlike JJ, who had a lean runner’s body and muscular calves that belonged in a magazine, Mark had the meaty shoulders and legs of a weightlifter. They both loomed above me at six feet tall.

  JJ jerked me away and tucked me into his arms.

  “Took you long enough to return,” he muttered. His chocolate-brown hair coiled in a bun at the back of his head. A scruffy beard had filled out his face, hiding a strong jaw and cheekbones that made most girls swoon. JJ knew his power.

  I pulled away, flicking his bear-claw necklace.

  “Real classy. Fake?”

  JJ squeezed my shoulder. “Remind me to tell you the story. It involves a leprechaun, a sage old Native American man who I later find out is a ghost, and me wrestling a bear.”

  I laughed. “Naturally.”

  Mark grabbed my backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then shoved a brown paper bag into my chest. “You hungry? We already bought lunch. That’s why we were late. We got you tots. ‘Cause you’ll always be our little tater.”

  “And there’s Justus Aurelius, the gladiator,” JJ said, embracing the stranger who had helped me repack my clothes. “Your canine missed you, brother.”

  My mouth dropped.

  Justin knew my brothers?

  I elbowed Mark in the side. “You know that guy?” I asked while JJ and Justus Aurelius thumped each other on the back. Mark grabbed my bag, glancing over his shoulder as he headed toward the exit.

  “Who? Justin?”

  “Yeah.”

  He scoffed. “Of course we know him, Meg. The man is a freaking gladiator. Try not to fall in love with him, all right? He’s part-owner of Adventura. And that would, quite frankly, just get weird.”

  My hopes of a nap dwindled with surprising speed.

  JJ and Justin spoke quietly in the backseat the whole hour-long ride to Adventura. Snippets of their conversation drifted through my mind. Grandpa and assets and lawyers. I stayed in the front with Mark, grateful for a chance to compose myself after the embarrassment at the airport.

  My purple bra. I pressed my forehead against the windowpane. Polka-dot underwear. Seriousl
y.

  Mark narrated a tour of Adventura as we drove through it, skimming past the glittering blue lake and thousands of lodgepole pines.

  “Cell reception is best at the lodge and the main office. None at the ranges, but we’ll use radios to communicate. Sorry, blister, but you’ll have to explore it on your own time,” he said as we bounced down a dirt road. “We have work to do.”

  Adventura sat at the base of two mountain canyons. The archery and rifle ranges occupied the northern area, the lake filled the west, the parking lot and main office lay at the southern edge, and campsites scattered the eastern side. A lodge and the trading post stood right in the middle.

  When I stepped out of Mark’s truck, the bracing scent of wildflowers filled my lungs. Craggy peaks blocked most of the sky, casting long, cool shadows. In the distance, a creek bubbled.

  “Sweet chariot, Mark.” I reached for my backpack when Mark dropped the tailgate. Deep, rusted tire rims blended with the fading marmalade of the chipped paint. Inside, a woven mat partially covered a frisbee-sized hole in the middle seat.

  “It gets me all the ladies.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Bought it from a guy in Jackson City for a hundred bucks. It’ll withstand the zombie invasion, little blister. Tease me now, but you’ll be sorry when the zombies come.”

  The left bumper dropped with a groan.

  “You better pray for slow zombies.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder. JJ retrieved my broken suitcase and headed toward a one-room cabin off to the right. Justin faded into the trees, calling for his dog with a punctuated, three-note whistle.

  Mark kicked the bumper back up.

  “C’mon,” he said. “I’ll show you your luxurious private condo. Pets allowed. Hope you like squirrels.”

  Dust billowed beneath my backpack when I dropped it in the middle of the musty wooden structure. Cobwebs swept out from the rustic logs in gossamer curtains. Dead bugs overflowed from the windowsills. No cot. No shelves. No water source. Nothing but dusty air and rotting wood.

  “We can move you to a less ornate space if you’d like,” JJ said.

  “It’s…”

  Mark ducked around a cobweb. “Impressive?”

  “Clean?” JJ grinned.

  “Dry,” I said.

  JJ eyed a beam of sunlight streaming through a fist-sized hole in the ceiling. “For now.”

  “Just wait till you see the kitchen,” Mark muttered. “Let’s go check it out. JJ will get you a sleeping bag. I think we have a cot around here somewhere. The gladiator will know.”

  JJ made a sign of the cross. “May you survive without disease or maiming. I’ll wait here.”

  “Scared?” I asked.

  He smirked. “You should be, too.”

  With JJ’s warning ringing in my ears, I followed Mark. He gestured to the left, where a cabin hid behind tree boughs.

  “That’s Justin’s cabin.”

  His roof sloped more steeply than mine, and white lines of insulation puffed out from between the hefty logs like a gingerbread house. A tangled lump of saplings separated us, joined by a ribbon-like footpath cutting between the trees. I turned away, my cheeks warm.

  Not far from my cabin, a sprawling, rectangular building with a crooked Lodge sign sat at the edge of a meadow. Its covered front porch faced away from my cabin. Mark led me through the loose screen door at the back.

  “This is your new kingdom, blister.”

  One of four fluorescent tubes flickered to life at the flip of the light switch, casting an anemic glow on the cramped room. I stopped in the doorway, bracing myself. My eyes widened.

  “Oh.”

  The kitchen had an open, mildewed fridge, two sinks that shared a hanging spigot, and a restaurant-sized grill. An island counter occupied the middle of the room, leaving room for one person to walk around. The bottoms had fallen out of two cupboards along the wall. Cobwebs lined the rafters like a layer of thick frosting. Next to the grill, two holes smaller than my fist had been eaten into the wall at the floor seam.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I swallowed, nudging the fridge door closed. It swung open again. “Is … this it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s … ah … yep.”

  He kicked aside the carcass of a beetle. “The potential has rendered you speechless, I see. I will concede that it needs some cleaning.”

  “More like the full force of a thousand scrubbing bubbles.”

  “We have two gallons of Windex.”

  “Should be enough for the windows…”

  “Five containers of bleach?”

  “That’ll cover the floor,” I murmured, unable to decipher whether the floor in question was tile or dirt.

  Mark patted me on the back. “You got this, blister. It’s why we called you. We needed the best.”

  “Cleaning is my superpower,” I said.

  “I thought it was being annoying.”

  “I’m multifaceted.”

  He grinned, smacking me on the back again.

  “Ah, blister. It’s been boring without you.”

  Despite my love of tackling a dirty surface and exposing the gleam beneath, I’d need a fairy-godmother-sized miracle. I eyed the foggy windowpanes over the sink with growing reservations.

  “Where have you been cooking during renovations?” I asked.

  He snorted. “Real men microwave. And eat a lot of cold cereal in the office. This fridge isn’t working yet. I have a repair guy coming in this weekend. Oh, there’s a pantry.” He pointed to a thin door opposite us. “Don’t go in there until you have some kind of mask, though.”

  “Ha. Right.”

  His expression didn’t falter. “Not kidding.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I never kid about noxious mold.”

  He ran his palm over the smooth surface of the grill. Dust bunnies gathered on his fingertips, and he flicked them away. “Also, we’re not sure if the grill works. And before you go crazy on loaves of homemade bread, a squirrel may be living in one of the two ovens, so do a critter check first.”

  He strode through a swinging door that led into the rest of the lodge. I stared, blinking. Wait. Did he say homemade bread? I followed, eager to escape the stinky confines of my new office.

  “Wait a second. No one said anything about homemade brea—”

  I stopped in a cavernous room with an open ceiling and smooth, cement floor. Half a dozen tables with benches crowded one side. A blackened, empty fireplace filled the wall on the opposite end. The rampant dust lent it an old-world charm. At least I had someplace cool to escape. That kitchen would broil like the furnaces of hell come July.

  “The staff will eat and meet here.” Mark stood in the middle of the room, his lips pursed as he stared into the rafters. The gauzy strands of a spider web floated by, and the smell of pine drifted into the room.

  “Keeping this place clean will also be my responsibility?” I trailed a finger along a dusty windowsill.

  He clicked his tongue as he pointed at me. “Nailed it. We’ll have campers in here for crafts on Wednesdays. But otherwise, you own it.”

  “Great.”

  He jammed his hands into his front pockets, his wide shoulders angular in his loose t-shirt. His obvious adoration for such a helpless place reminded me of an overly proud papa that wanted to show the world his wrinkled, squalling new baby.

  “So,” he drawled. “What do you think of Adventura so far?”

  A single sentence couldn’t contain my thoughts. They’d clearly worked hard to bring Adventura up to date. Fresh roofs on the staff cabins. A brand new dock at the waterfront. The camp pulsed with its own current of life, as if the trees anticipated the bustle of the coming weeks. I felt as if I’d been taken from real life and set on a new planet. One that stirred my blood with the song of the mountains.

  “I think it’s … wonderful,” I said.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”<
br />
  I grinned. “Yeah. I mean, the kitchen is horrific. We’ll probably die of some incurable disease before it’s cleaned. But the rest of Adventura is great. You’ve worked hard, Mark. I’m really proud of you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, returning his enthusiastic smile. “This is amazing.”

  He slapped both hands on my shoulders and spun me around, steering me back to the kitchen. The puff of his chest gave him away.

  “All right. Cheesy time is over. Get your grubby little hands on a bottle of bleach. I’m not paying you the big bucks to stand around and talk about how much you love me, am I?”

  Kitchen Supplies and Shopping List

  Biohazard signs

  Sponges the size of my face

  A gallon of hydrochloric acid

  Drywall

  Spider bombs

  Shoe inserts for Mark’s stinky feet

  Dog treats to bribe Atticus

  A hungry, vicious cat

  Gas masks

  That evening, I stood in the middle of my cabin and stared at a sleeping bag and foam pad from JJ. With a pair of sweats and a hoodie, it would be warm enough for tonight.

  “Sleeping on the floor it is,” I said. Granted, I hadn’t expected a resort or maid service. Or squirrels as roommates.

  A lantern hanging from the rafters shed yellow light onto the wooden floor, which I’d swept clean twice already. Somehow, pine needles littered the floor again. I didn’t dare unpack my suitcase—where would I put everything? I thought about walking to the office, where Mark and JJ slept in the attic, but decided against it. My head throbbed. I just wanted to sleep, even on the ground.

  I eyed my extra hoodies. They’d make a decent pair of drapes for the night, which would keep out some of the cold. I’d stuff a shirt full of clothes to use as a pillow…

  A knock on the screen door startled me.

  “Just me,” Justin called through the screen. “I have a few things for you.”

  I stepped back. “Oh, sure. Come on in.”

  His beautiful dog slipped in ahead of him, black coat gleaming in the light. Justin propped open the door, dragging something metal behind him. My eyes widened, and I crossed my arms over my chest in horror. I’d already taken off my bra! A pair of JJ’s old high school wrestling sweats—threadbare and baggy—hung off my hips. With a messy braid and no makeup, I’d likely stun Justin with my dazzling au-natural appearance.