Stranded

by Chance Carter

  “Is that what this is all about?” I shot back.

  “No,” she said. “This is about me enjoying spending time with somebody who’s nice to me. Is that so hard to believe?”

  “He’s only nice to you because he wants something from you.”

  “How the fuck would you know? And why do you even care? I’m not trying to make you jealous, Levi. I just want to have a nice vacation. You don’t get to come up here and bitch about me spending time with Josh just because you’re angry that I’m not sitting around pining after you.”

  My anger hit a stumbling block. Was she telling the truth? Instead of doing the levelheaded thing and backing off, as I likely should have, I ignored this bump in the road and stoked the flames of my anger with banked frustration.

  “You’re parading around with the one person up here who hates me most,” I said. “I would be an idiot not to think you were trying to make me jealous.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Do your legs ever get tired from all the jumping to conclusions you do?”

  “I’m merely examining the evidence in front of me.”

  “Not everything is about you, Levi,” Frankie snapped. “In fact, this whole goddamn vacation is about your brother and Val. We’re the best man and the maid of honor and we need to get along. End of story.” She groaned in frustration, scrubbing her hands over her face. “I can’t believe we’re going through this again. And this close to the wedding!”

  Her genuine dismay put a pin in my rage balloon. We’d been on one hell of a rollercoaster together since we first met, moving from enemies to tentative friends to lovers, to whatever the hell we were now. Right before the wedding was, as she said, not the time for us to take another nose dive.

  A voice inside of me urged that I should tell her the truth, tell her everything, but I didn’t even understand this knot of feelings for myself yet—never mind putting them into words.

  “I just don’t trust Josh. I don’t think you should either,” I said in a calmer voice.

  Frankie sat back and sighed. “Thank you for your unbiased and completely unsolicited input, Levi.”

  Her words dripped with sarcasm and just like that I was pissed off again. Frankie had a way of bringing it out in me.

  “Do you always have to be so stubborn?” I complained.

  “Do you always have to be so-“ She waved her hands, searching for the right word. “You?”

  We approached the top of the hill and Frankie stared straight ahead. I knew once we got there this conversation would be over, and I was running out of time to sway her. Not that I would.

  “You deserve better than Josh,” I said. “You might be stubborn and annoying but you’re miles above him.”

  “Oh, thanks,” she said with disdain. “I’m sure there was a compliment in there somewhere.” She shook her head incredulously. “You know what? He’s got you pinned down exactly. You think you’re better than everyone and you can’t conceive for a second that there’s anything under the surface that might be worth looking at. Well, fuck you, Levi.”

  She finished just as we reached the landing zone and one of the ski assistants came to help us unload. Frankie refused to look at me again. I refused to look at her too. When the others arrived a minute later, she plastered on a sugary smile and greeted them enthusiastically. I hung behind a little and watched them, wondering if the others saw through her jovial demeanor as easily as I could. They must’ve. It was as fake as Josh’s Rolex.

  She and Josh separated from the group and disappeared down the run together. Garrick and Val waited a moment and I skied up to them.

  “What the hell was that about?” asked Garrick.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Just some best man and maid of honor business.”

  He didn’t believe me but knew he wouldn’t get it out of me here.

  “Would this maid of honor and best man business have anything to do with your bad mood?” Val asked.

  “No. I just don’t like skiing.” I pushed off before she could ask any more questions, folding my body in to reach maximum speed. I needed space to think.

  Frankie was the opposite of the person I thought she was in the beginning. She couldn’t fake happiness to save her life and threw herself into her work with a passion I’d never seen before. It was special. She was special.

  Me, on the other hand, all I’d done so far was prove that her first estimation of me was on point. I hated that. I hated to see her look at me with undisguised disappointment in her eyes.

  I needed to make a change. I needed to fix things. If not for the sake of Garrick and Val’s wedding, then for my own crippled conscience.

  More importantly, I needed to figure out why the thought of Frankie stoked a storm in my chest.

  Chapter 30

  Frankie

  Knock, knock, knock.

  I stayed perfectly still, pretending that whoever was knocking on our door hadn’t just woke me up. I was still asleep. Nothing to see here. Warmth and coziness sucked me back down, my consciousness drifting off...

  Knock knock knock.

  I groaned. “Val?”

  “Yeah?” came her weak reply.

  “You gonna get that?”

  Val snorted and I heard the rustling of blankets. When I didn’t hear the accompanying sound of her feet on the carpet, I cracked open an eye. All she’d done was burrow further into her blankets.

  “It’s probably for you,” I reasoned.

  “Then be a good maid of honor and get it.”

  This was going nowhere. Whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to get the door.

  I heaved a sigh and slipped out from my blankets, padding over to the door. Every muscle in my body complained bitterly, and my motions across the room were mechanical. My thoughts were hazy, and mostly consisted of the desire to get back into bed the second I’d dealt with our unwelcome visitor.

  I cracked the door and adrenaline kicked me so hard in the gut that I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep for at least several days.

  Levi stood in the doorway, waiting with his arms folded. I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “Are you here to check if I had any overnight guests?” I asked.

  A troubled expression flickered over Levi’s features. “No.”

  “What do you want?”

  Levi ran a hand through his hair. Apparently, he hadn’t been expecting this much animosity, but it was the morning and I was still pissed from our argument yesterday.

  “I wanted to see if you’d come tubing with me.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Tubing?”

  “It’s like sledding but on inflatable inner tubes.”

  I shook my head. “I know what tubing is. I just didn’t think... Anyways, no.”

  His lips flattened and something a lot like hurt flashed in his eyes.

  “I’m too sore from skiing,” I added quickly. It wasn’t a complete lie.

  “Right,” he answered, nodding. “What if I said please?”

  I leaned against the doorframe. “Please isn’t a magic word that will make my aches and pains go away.”

  “Pretty please?”

  His hopeful expression was so cute that I couldn’t be mad at him. Besides, the fact that he wanted to hang out with me made me tingle down to my bones. If he’d only tried this tactic yesterday, I probably would have thrown Josh to the wind.

  “Fine,” I relented. “I need to get dressed. Meet you in the lobby in fifteen?”

  He grinned and the effect was dazzling. I melted against the doorframe, knees rubbery.

  “See you then.”

  Levi turned and walked away, and I took my time going back inside so I could properly commit his ass to memory.

  When I stepped back inside, Val was still curled under her duvet but had one eye trained on me.

  “Was that Levi I heard?” she asked.

  “Yep. He wants to go tubing.”

  I started rifling through my suitcase, pulling out a warm outfit for
the day. Val shuffled into a sitting position on the bed but kept the blankets up to her chin. Her hair stuck out at odd angles like straw at the back and last night’s makeup carved dark circles under her eyes.

  “Just the two of you?” she inquired.

  “Just the two of us.”

  Val snickered. “Sounds like a date.”

  I halted my search and popped up to glare at her. “It’s not a date.”

  “Sure it’s not,” she purred.

  I rolled my eyes and located a pair of pants and a hoodie. “It’s not a date, and if it is a date it’s only because Levi’s jealous of Josh and he’s making some kind of power play.”

  I’d filled Val in yesterday about Levi’s confrontation on the chair lift when we went back to our room to change after skiing. She was sympathetic to his cause since she seemed to think I was pushing him away for entirely made up reasons. It didn’t matter that I pointed out he didn’t reveal any interest in me besides our obvious sexual component. Levi just didn’t like when other people played with his toys.

  “Jeez, Frankie. Give the guy a chance.”

  “I’m going tubing, aren’t I?”

  “With the vibe I’m getting from you right now, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear you’re only going so you can finally kill him.”

  I snorted, undressing. “I’m not going to kill Levi.” I tossed my dirty clothes toward my suitcase. “Not right before the wedding. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “I’m touched,” Val replied in a flat voice.

  I blew her a kiss and started to pull on my clothes.

  “Maybe Levi likes you more than you think he does,” Val posed. “You could be thinking about this the wrong way.”

  My heart lurched at the thought. I shook my head. “Nope. Safer this way. Smarter.”

  Val might not agree with me but she kept her thoughts to herself as I finished getting ready.

  I made it to the lobby with a few minutes to spare. Levi was waiting by the front doors and he smiled when he saw me. I wondered if he knew how disarming that smile was, how it made butterflies wheel madly around my chest. Was it a mistake for me to come here? The last thing I needed was for Levi to embed himself further under my skin.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked when I reached him.

  I needed to know before I went anywhere with him. My life would be so much easier if Levi had a ticker tape sign going across his forehead that displayed his thoughts. Speculating would only drive me crazy.

  Levi stepped closer to me, his mouth twisting to the side. “You’re right. You’ve been saying since the beginning that we need to get along and all I’ve ever done is fuck that up.” He extended his hand. “I propose a truce.”

  I eyed his hand skeptically. “Haven’t we already tried that?”

  “We have,” he acknowledged. “But if at first you don’t succeed...” He sighed. “I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. It was wrong of me. I want us to be friends.”

  Friends.

  The word flashed neon red in my brain. Levi wanted us to be friends. I don’t know what I expected. He wasn’t going to drag me out of bed for a morning tubing adventure and cap it off by declaring his undying love for me, and I’d already scuttled the idea of us ever jumping back into bed together. Friends was the best option on the table.

  I clasped his hand and shook. “Thank you for the apology. Friends it is.”

  His lips quirked at the corners and I had to remind myself not to swoon. Friends didn’t swoon over each other.

  “Ready to go?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Our truce held through the morning, even though several occasions of Levi greeting me at the bottom of the hill with a snowball made me want to clobber him. I expected us to be awkward around each other for the first little while but we weren’t. We went straight back to our mountain selves, except with less hanky panky.

  After tubing, Levi suggested we go grab some lunch. I agreed, because all that exercise left me starving. We made our way to the cafe and snagged a table near the fire place. I surreptitiously slipped off my shoes under the table and stuck my feet next to the brick.

  “How’s your dad doing?” Levi asked. “Garrick told me about his surgery.”

  I flexed my toes, soaking up the fire’s warmth. “He’s good. He complains a lot about all the stuff he has to be careful of now to stay in good health, but my mom’s got him on a tight leash.”

  Levi chuckled. “Sounds like my old man.”

  “Your dad reminds me a lot of mine, actually. They’ve both got such big personalities.”

  “Yeah? What’s your mom like?”

  “A force to be reckoned with.”

  Levi smirked. “Must be where you get it from.”

  I lost my grasp of the English language for a second, but luckily the waiter came around to take our drink order. Levi ordered us each a hot chocolate and my mouth watered.

  The waiter left to make our drinks and my tongue untangled itself.

  “I grew up with two brothers and a sister,” I said. “In my house, you had to yell to be heard, and sometimes family events still resemble more of a war zone than a peaceful meal.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  “Yeah?” I challenged. “So where does all your moodiness come from? Were you the misunderstood one in your family?”

  Levi chuckled. “Hardly. I was battle-hardened on the playground.”

  “Pull the hair of a few too many girls?”

  “Just the life of a protective older brother. Garrick was a weird kid. Scrawny too. Kids used to tease him and I used to make them pay for it.” He reclined, tilting his head against the chair. “I had a quick temper and a low tolerance for abuse when it came to the people I loved. I guess I still do.”

  “Levi Wheeler, the Playground Protector,” I mused.

  “It wasn’t just the playground,” he said. “Garrick didn’t shoot up until after high school, but most people liked him and girls were inexplicably drawn to him, which made a few guys pretty angry. Garrick abhorred fighting but I sorted out anyone who I thought might be a threat to him, so he never had to.”

  I imagined Levi as a teenager, a scrappy thing with wild, dark eyes. I could see it still, under his veneer of civility. His suits and spreadsheets hardly screamed “brooding bad boy”, but I had no doubt that in his youth he would’ve been exactly the kind of guy I’d risk sneaking out after curfew to see. This image was so not helping me keep my mind in friends territory.

  “Garrick seems pretty unscathed by his youth,” I said.

  Levi nodded. “Sometimes I wonder if I should have let him get beat up a couple times. Maybe then he wouldn’t walk around with his head in the clouds so much.”

  “I disagree. I think it’s a beautiful quality for a person to have.”

  Levi cocked a brow. “Beautiful? It’s naivety disguised as positivity. That man is a sitting duck.”

  “I don’t think you give him as much credit as he deserves. Does he do a good job of helping your dad run the company?”

  Levi rolled his shoulders and sat forward. “Yeah. He misses things sometimes but never anything important.”

  “So he’s successful at his job, he’s about to marry one of the world’s top people, and he’s unwaveringly happy.” I caught Levi’s eye and pulled up one side of my mouth. “To me it seems like he’s doing a fine job at life.”

  Levi studied me for a moment, a thousand thoughts flashing over his face, and finally smiled.

  “You’ve got me there.”

  I batted my lashes playfully. “I did debate in high school.”

  “The puzzles pieces just keep falling into place.”

  Our waiter returned to take our food orders and dropped off two hot chocolates in tall glass mugs with generous squirts of whipped cream. My face broke into a cheek-numbing smile at the sight and I immediately went for a sip. I retreated with a burned tongue.

  Levi laughed. “Don
’t be so impatient. We’ve got all day.”

  “I feel like if I don’t get this beverage in my body right now I’m going to die.”

  “Did you do theater in high school too?” He rolled his eyes.

  I gasped in mock indignation. “Did you just call me a drama queen?”

  “Your words, not mine.”

  “No wonder you got in so many fights,” I said. “I’ve half a mind to throw a glove down right here and now.”

  Levi’s lips curled into a predatory smile, showing just enough of his teeth for me to imagine them sinking into my flesh. “I dare you.”

  A tremor ran down my spine and I gulped. I had a sudden vision of us rolling around on the floor, wrestling for dominance, and I squeezed my legs together to help soothe the pulsing ache that settled between them.

  “Not a good idea,” I forced out. “Can’t maim the best man days before the wedding. Think of what people would say.”

  Levi laughed and suddenly I could breathe again. “You’re probably right.”

  I went for my hot chocolate again, taking a smaller sip this time, and found it drinkable.

  Levi and I chatted for the rest of our lunch without further incident. Anyone walking by might easily draw the conclusion that we were old friends. By the end, it certainly felt like it.

  It was nice, in a way, even though I was still trying to put my feelings for Levi to rest. If we couldn’t be together in a romantic way, being friends with him seemed like a pretty stellar compromise. It was better than fighting or avoiding each other. It helped to know that the hurt would fade with time.

  Chapter 31

  Levi

  We walked slowly back to Frankie’s room, like neither of us was ready for the afternoon to end. The day went better than I hoped it would. Frankie didn’t hate me, I didn’t feel like punching anything, and we had established a firm footing with one another.

  We were friends. Friends who had seen each other naked, sure, but friends all the same. It was better than being enemies, though not as preferable as continuing to see each other naked would have been. I was comfortable during lunch and a few times I thought about asking Frankie why she didn’t want to mess around anymore. I didn’t. It wasn’t the kind of thing friends did.