“So you’ve worked hard to prove—”
“That I’m not a total fuck-up, yeah. I’ve worked hard to rebuild Marco’s legacy, leaving no time to focus on a relationship, but I don’t want to disappoint my mom any more than I already have.”
I know the feeling.
“If she wants a girl on my arm, I’ll give her a girl on my arm.” Nixon slips the coin into his pocket, then finishes his beer in one long swallow.
“You surprise me, Nixon. For the past few months, you’ve portrayed this suit-and-tie, too-busy-for-love kinda guy and yet, once or twice, this softer side of you pokes through. This mushy center. It catches me off guard.”
“You’ve caught me off guard, too.” The fire flickers in his eyes as he holds my gaze.
Should he look at me like that?
Should I want him to?
“Whoa, careful,” he says.
“What?” Was my stare that obvious?
“An ember bounced on your sleeve. Your sleeve is burning.” He flicks off the glowing coal and pats out the smoke.
“Thanks. That could’ve been bad.” Without thinking, I slide my sweatshirt sleeve up my forearm. “Thank goodness, I—”
“What happened there?” Nixon points at my scar.
“Oh, God.” I hurry to pull down my sleeve.
Nixon places his hand on my wrist. “Don’t.”
I haven’t discussed my parents’ accident in years, and with no more than a few people. Shown my scar to even fewer. But something in the warmth of Nixon’s touch tells me it’ll be okay.
He lets go of my arm.
Before I realize it, I start to tell him my story. “Sophomore year in high school this guy I liked asked me to meet him at a party in Oceanside. My parents said no. Defiant and totally pissed off, I pretended to have a headache and went to bed around nine p.m. An hour later I sneaked out the guest bedroom window and met my friends. We went to the party and that guy kissed me. My first kiss, actually. I remember thinking, This is the best night of my life.”
“First kisses can do that.”
“Yeah, everything was great until Mom checked on me before going to bed and discovered I wasn’t home. Such a stupid kid.” I pick up a broken twig. “They picked me up and the entire way home I sat in the back of the car pouting like a spoiled brat. Thinking only about myself, embarrassed my parents dragged me out of the party, thinking that guy would never talk to me again.”
I toss the stick into the flames, wringing my hands, grateful that he’s quiet. Just listens, doesn’t judge.
“We approached this intersection and I remember thinking, Good, the light is green. We’ll get home faster. I didn’t want to be in the car a moment longer because I despised the way Mom rubbed Dad’s temple and how he drove with two hands gripping the wheel. It was them against me, and I couldn’t stand being trapped in the backseat with them another minute. Told myself I’d sneak out a hundred times more, just to get away. Those were the last things that ran through my mind, how much I hated them and having to answer to their rules, how much I wanted to get away from my parents.” I wrap my arms around myself. “We didn’t make it through the intersection. Some guy ran his red light and smashed into Mom’s side of the car.”
I close my eyes, remembering the screams, sirens, and smells. The nosy people, standing curbside watching the firefighters straighten the mangled metal crushed around my mom and dad while I picked at a knot in a tree umbrellaed over the sidewalk, nothing but a cut on my arm. I remember a neighbor lady wrapped in a blue robe who put her hand to her mouth when they placed Mom on the stretcher and covered her with a white sheet.
Nixon says nothing.
My tears blur my vision of the flames. “The police report said driving while intoxicated, but it doesn’t matter what they wrote as the reason. I’m the reason my parents were driving across town at twelve forty-two a.m. I’m the reason a drunk driver plowed into my dad’s Jeep Cherokee. I’m the reason steel crushed the life out of my mom’s body. I’m the reason my dad died on the operating table two hours later. I’m the reason Jo lost her family.”
“Bree—”
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to try to make me feel better.” I wipe the tears from my cheeks. “I’m ashamed and I miss my parents. Simple as that.”
“People aren’t judged by their worst moments. Draw attention to what shaped your life, don’t hide from it.”
“I’m not worried about being judged.”
“Then why do you keep the scar hidden?”
“Because it’s a painful reminder. Because I don’t want to explain what happened. Because I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. Because I don’t want to be judg—”
“The accident wasn’t your fault. You weren’t behind the wheel.” He stares at me with eyes as hard as flint. “Your parents and their memory should be honored, not hidden.”
Maybe it’s his definitive gaze or the unvarnished timber in his voice, but for the first time in my life, I almost believe it’s true.
A few more minutes of silence pass, and I stare at the flames whirling in the shared space between us, unsure of what to say. Swallowing the rest of my beer, I want to make a turn in this conversation. No one likes talking about dead parents. Especially me. “Sorry, you didn’t come here to listen to me rattle on about my sad story. So, enough of that. Now, where do I . . . you know . . . tinkle?”
“Tinkle? Are you four years old?”
“Ha ha.”
“There’s a bathroom up the road.” He hands me the lantern. “Want me to walk you?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.” Gravel crunches under my feet and crickets chirp in my ear as I head toward the restroom. Though I’m still not a fan of the outdoors, especially at night, I am savoring the break from city life. The brisk air. The slow, quiet evening. And, I must admit, I’m relieved to have shared the weight of my past.
I reach the bathrooms only to find a sign that reads SORRY—RESTROOM BROKEN. USE ONE AT HOST’S OFFICE. Seriously? The office is more than a mile away.
Nixon’s drunk a couple of beers; I don’t want to ask him for a ride. And I sure as hell don’t want to walk.
I survey what’s around me. Nothing but campfire glow and billowing smoke clouds the shadows. We are camping. This is what campers do, right? Become one with nature. Give back to the earth.
I weave through the thick trees, sneaking a peek at the Boy Scouts’ campsite below. Except for a citronella candle burning on the picnic table, it’s dark. They’re likely catching frogs or rebuilding a beaver’s dam or something nature-y.
I set my lantern on top of a large boulder and out of sight from the road, I duck behind the rock and slide my jeans around my ankles.
This morning I never thought I’d cruise up a mountain on a motorcycle, roast a hot dog, and pee in the Idyllwild forest. Come to think of it . . . this whole experience is liberating. Kinda free. Kinda I-am-woman-here-me-roar stuff.
And then I hear it.
The wiggle of a branch.
The scratch-scratch on the boulder.
My eyes adjust to the darkness and I see it.
Two beady eyes fix on me. Sharp claws glint in the lantern’s light.
A squirrel.
Stay still, Bree. Relax. No sudden movements.
He scuttles closer. The scamp chitters at my feet.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
A rational reaction would be to shimmy him off my foot, calmly walk toward Nixon—after I pulled up my pants—and say, “Funny story, a squirrel scurried across my foot. Ha-ha-ha.”
But the shifty bastard circles me. His tail brushes along my ass.
“Aaaagh!” I try to scramble to a stand, but my jeans tangle around my feet and I plummet backward down the bank.
End over end, my body tumbles down the hill. I bump into and over sharp ro
cks, tree stumps, and pine needles. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I roll over damp mud and muck, grasping at branches, twigs, anything to slow my course. Finally, I land face-first in the dirt at the base of the Boy Scouts’ camp.
I look up as flashlights shine in my eyes.
One of the boys laughs. “Check out her butt.”
“Congratulations on the tension of the zip-ties.” I lift my bound hands in the air, sitting in Bill the host’s office. My overpriced jeans are ruined, stained with gunk, littered with holes.
“Care to explain why you went streaking through a campsite full of Boy Scouts?” he asks.
“I wasn’t streaking. I used the outdoor facilities because yours are broken . . . thank you very much . . . when a squirrel attacked me.”
“I highly doubt that, ma’am. A squirrel only attacks if his food supply is threatened.”
“Let me assure you, I did not try to eat his nuts.” Okay, that sounded very wrong.
“Excuse me,” Nixon says, walking into the office. “Mind cutting her some slack? She’s a camping newbie. Never peed in the woods.”
“No kidding?” Bill reacts as if Nixon said I’d been born with twelve toes.
“Forgive me for being civilized.”
The host’s wife walks in with HELLO, I’M HELEN written on her name tag. She exchanges glances between Nixon and me before covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh my gosh. Are you Bree Caxton?”
“Yes.” I wave as much as the zip-ties allow.
“And this is Nick?”
He nods. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“All this time I’ve wondered what you looked like. You’re just as handsome as I imagined.” She nudges my shoulder. “Bet you two do have a great time in the sack.”
“Helen?” Bill scolds.
“Oh, please, we were young once.” She slides her hands on her hips. “You know, you both have inspired me. After I read about the Tough Mudder, I took myself on a long walk and jumped over two logs.” She gasps. “Look at you, tied up like a criminal. Let’s clip you loose, shall we?”
“Yes, that’d be great.”
After a couple of autographs and an apology to the Boy Scout troop leader, I’m free to go.
“We’re so glad you chose our little campground as one of your rendezvous spots,” Helen says. “Holler if you need anything.”
“Thank you.” I slide onto the back of Nixon’s motorcycle, knowing Nixon paid cash and registered under my name so no chance of blowing his cover.
“Didn’t you see the boys’ campsite below?”
“It was dark. I figured they weren’t there. And what’s wrong with those boys, anyway? Sitting around without any lights on. Shouldn’t they be on their iPhones watching inappropriate Snapchat videos like normal kids these days?”
“They were studying the moon.”
“Oh, yeah? They should thank me, then.”
“What for?”
“I showed them a moon to remember.”
twenty-six
“Bree, wake up.” Nixon nudges my shoulder in the morning.
I force my eyes open and rub them to life. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, get up.”
“Why? It’s still dark. And cold.” I bury myself deeper into the sleeping bag.
“Put this on.” He tosses me his sweatshirt. “Hurry.”
With a half grumble, I pull it over my head and inhale the remnant smell of the campfire. And the remnant smell of him.
He hands me my shoes. “C’mon.”
I slide into my sneakers and pull my hair into a ponytail, grateful for the altitude, my run through the woods, and the couple of beers that helped me fall asleep quickly last night. We didn’t have an awkward moment at bedtime. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” Lit by the lantern, Nixon guides me up the road toward the mountain base.
We follow a windy makeshift dirt trail, hopping over cacti and snaking between bushes and rocks and then scrambling up a boulder fixed at the mountaintop. He sits on my right, close to me, for the rock is not much wider than the two of us.
I don’t inch away as Nixon’s thigh presses against mine.
He pulls a thermos and a blanket from his backpack and covers our legs.
The sun has yet to crest, but it casts an orange glow over the sleeping campground, the valley, and Strawberry Creek. Only a few birds are chirping.
Streaks of red, pink, and purple illuminate the dark sky. The sun is slowly rising and the brilliant rays warm the air as the sun, which now looks like a big yellow egg yolk, spills onto the horizon. I’m not a religious person, but there’s something spiritual about watching the birth of a new day, full of innocence, promise, and hope.
“Wow, it’s beautiful. I’m glad you brought me here.”
We say nothing, and seconds, maybe minutes, pass before he breaks the silence. “This land is full of secrets.”
“What kind of secrets?”
“See that peak?” He points past me at the tallest mountain across the valley, and then, lowering his arm, slides his hand beside my mine. He curls his pinkie around my own.
His show of affection surprises me. So does the feeling rushing through me.
Nixon.
“It’s called Tahquitz Peak, named after a highly regarded Indian who fell in love with the daughter of an enemy tribe. The pair lived on opposite sides of the mountain and sneaked away to meet on that peak. Every morning, for months, they watched the sunrise together.”
Our fingers are now entwined, one lost within the other.
“Now that’s a love story,” I whisper.
“Once her father heard about the two lovers, he forbade the union, said she could never see Tahquitz again.” He slips his hand away.
“That’s terrible.” Come back. “What happened?”
“Somehow Tahquitz got word to her. The two agreed to meet the following sunrise and run away together.”
“And they lived happily ever after?”
“She never came.”
“What? Why not?”
He shrugs. “No one knows for sure. Some say her father moved her to another tribe far away. Some say she died of a longing heart. Every morning for the rest of his life, Tahquitz climbed the peak and waited for her, but he never saw her again. He died on top of that mountain.”
“God, to be loved like that.” My eyes are moist now.
“Legend says, if you watch the peak at sunrise you’ll find his spirit—”
“Searching for her.”
“No, scampering away from a squirrel with his pants wrapped around his ankles.”
“You big jerk.” I punch his arm.
“Take it easy.” He laughs. “It’s a true story.”
“Whatever.”
I snatch the thermos from his grasp. “Hey! Where’d you get this coffee anyway?”
“Bill has a Keurig.”
Later, as we travel home, Nixon doesn’t remind me to hold on tight. He doesn’t ask that I press my chest against his back or melt my shoulders into his.
I just do.
But as Tahquitz Peak fades in the distance, I begin to wonder if the mountain air confused my senses. Is the feeling resonating within me from Nixon’s touch or simply my subconscious trying to mend my broken heart? But if it’s the thin air, then why did I feel this way at Tough Mudder? Why do I feel this way around him, all the time? Is there something more? Do I have feelings for Nixon? Does he for me?
Far too soon, Nixon cuts the engine and we climb off the bike outside my house.
Standing curbside, I remove my helmet and comb my fingers through my hair. My lips are chapped. My throat is dry. My heart is pounding. I don’t want him to go. Right or wrong, I want to know how he feels. Not sure if I should, even less sure that I shouldn’t, I stare into
his eyes. “Nixon, I need to ask—”
“Bree, let me say something first. You need to know, these past couple weeks have all been for show, but I—”
“Bree?”
I spin around toward a familiar voice.
Sean stands on my porch. “Can we talk?”
twenty-seven
Nixon hands me my bag, distancing himself from me as if I’m laced with anthrax. “I’ll see you around.”
Before I can say anything, he climbs onto his bike and rides away.
Sean joins me on the sidewalk. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Can I come inside?”
“I’m really tired.”
“I’ve something important to say.”
So did Nixon.
I glance down the street. Nixon stops at the intersection, balancing his bike with his foot planted on the ground.
You need to know, these past couple weeks have all been for show.
He turns right. His brake light disappears.
Sean grabs my bag. “Please, just for a bit.”
I’m emotionally exhausted, too weak to put up a fight. “Yeah, okay, I suppose.” I unlock the door. “Let me just change real quick.”
“Take your time. I’ll wait.”
I’m bothered, but curious about Sean’s unannounced visit. What could he possibly want? Is he here to tell me that while I meant nothing, Sara means something?
My head is fogged with thoughts. Sean and Sara’s dates. The book. Jo’s house. How much my life’s changed in a matter of weeks. Nixon.
Ten minutes later, I head downstairs.
Can I See You Again? Page 19
