Jonah says, “Hal,” and looks back at me.
I take a deep breath. We have to stop eventually.
But god, another night on the forest floor.
I don’t know what about the dark makes everything stand out so starkly—the cold, the loneliness, the panic.
“Hallie,” says Jonah.
He can sense it, I guess. Or it’s written totally plainly on my face.
It doesn’t matter. I’m shaking. I’m just cold and I’m just—I’m scared.
Jonah crosses the couple of steps it takes to close the gap between us and says, “Hey, look up.”
I do. There’s nothing.
He says, “You see that constellation?”
I frown. “What constellation?”
“Up there?” I follow his finger. “It’s called Orion.”
I roll my eyes. “Thanks, yes, I know what Orion looks like—”
“Well, we only say that now because they used to call him Old Ryan.”
I pause. I stand up a little straighter. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Old Ryan. He was a hunter.”
Okay, well that part is true, so now I’m really not sure where he’s coming from.
“He had two brothers: Young Ryan and Medium Ryan. And one day they were all out hunting—”
“Jonah, you expect me to believe that Orion—”
“Old Ryan, please give him the proper respect.”
I cross my arms over my chest and blow out an exasperated breath through my nose. “You expect me to believe that Orion had two little brothers who were named, IN THE ANCIENT GREEK, YOUNG RYAN. And MEDIUM RYAN.”
“Thank you for paying attention; the class is all impressed at your display of knowledge. Now. Let me continue.”
I throw my hands in the air.
Jonah looks up at the sky. “Now, one day, the three brothers went hunting in the woods. As you can see around Old Ryan up there.”
“There’s no woods around Old Ryan. Orion. Oh my god.”
His eyes start to sparkle. “Young Ryan had gotten jealous of Old Ryan’s treatment as a hero even though Old Ryan was a fool with nothing special about him but a magical bow that only he could lift. But Young Ryan was a shapeshifter. A Trickster.”
“This—is this Loki? Are you talking about Thor and Loki—”
“So he and Medium Ryan conspired against him, because he was bound by a vow never to harm either of his brothers.”
“Who bound him?”
“Well that’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?”
I stare at him, nonplussed.
He raises a brow and says, “A witch.”
“What’s her name?”
“Witch.”
“Jesus.”
“Now you’re being weird about it. So Medium Ryan runs off with Old Ryan into the woods. and even though they’re looking for more traditional game, Young Ryan turns into a monstrously huge water bird. And he flaps in front of them, glowing and majestic, an absolute trophy. Old Ryan is overcome and shoots at his brother. Medium Ryan, of course, misdirects the arrow, so it only nicks him, but that’s enough.”
“How?” I say.
“How what?”
“How does he misdirect it?”
“Magic.”
“From what?”
Jonah looks down his nose at me and says, “The witch.”
“Oh my god. Jonah.”
“Who shows up the moment he draws blood. Old Ryan is very sad, of course, utterly repentant, but the witch and her magic care not. He has broken his vow and now must be cast off the earth into the sky.”
“The end. Thank god.”
“And that,” says Jonah, “is where we get the phrase, Shoot for the loon. Even if you miss, you’ll still become a bunch of stars.”
“Jonah,” I groan. I grab his arms and I actually shake him. “That whole thing? Was that whole thing for a punch line?”
“It was to impart knowledge to you; I’m trying to help you.”
“It’s bullshit!”
“It’s not bullshit,” he says. “It’s all true.”
His mouth is turned up and then he’s laughing and I’m laughing and . . . and I can’t even be mad because for two minutes, I forgot I was terrified.
And now I’m not shaking and ready to bury myself in the ground.
I shut my eyes.
Reorient.
I’m prepared to find a place. To sleep. On the cold ground. Again.
I blow out a breath, open my eyes, then they widen. “Wait,” I say.
He furrows his brow. “What?”
“Oh god. Yes. There. Look.” For the first time in hours, I have energy. YES. I point several yards away and he follows my finger to what I am 99 percent sure is a hunting blind.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“OH MY GOD,” HE says, and I swear it sounds almost sexual.
“Thank fuck,” I say. “Thank fuck for hunters, oh my god oh my god.”
Jonah powers toward the structure so fast that he’s moving at just this side of a run, and so am I. We reach the base of the tree and I shake out my hands to release the nervous energy, which is pretty stupid, I guess—conserving energy is the thing to do right now. But it’s instinct. I’m so freaking excited.
The blind is constructed in a tree, and there are haphazard steps nailed up the trunk. They lead to a box big enough for a person and a half, but the important thing is that it’s wooden and it’s enclosed, and the only windows are closed up with a tarp.
Oh my gosh, it’s like a five-star hotel.
I clasp one of the steps and that’s it, now I’m crying.
Jonah says, “Pull it together, man.”
“I can’t.”
“I know,” he says. “Goddamn, it’s beautiful.”
I pull myself up the treehouse ladder step by step. It wasn’t clear to me until this moment just how weak I’d gotten over the last couple days, but thank god I lift heavy. Thank god I’ve been training to firefight for two years and these guns absolutely do not lie.
Because those, even weakened, are what allow me to make it to the top.
Jonah is struggling just a little, and he scoffs at first when I offer him a hand to pull him into the place, but not for so long that he doesn’t eventually suck it up and accept my help.
We hoist him into the blind and he shuts the door behind him.
The instant temperature change is incredible. It’s just a couple degrees, probably, but it means everything.
“Jesus,” he says, “you’re absolutely jacked.”
I grin and strip off my coat, because it’s way too close in here for us to both be done up like marshmallows, and the shield the wood provides has raised the temperature so much that I’m actually surprised that I’m a little uncomfortable.
I’m sure I won’t be in a minute.
But I do strip off my coat, and then I flex.
Jonah rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling.
“Impressive,” he says.
“Oh, I know.”
“And cocky.”
I shrug, lit up from the discovery, and the compliment, and . . . and the fact that we are two not-entirely-small people in a blind built for a person and a half.
I sink to the floor and Jonah sinks with me, but we can’t do that without tangling our legs together.
I try not to look at his face, to keep from acknowledging that my thighs are draped over his, that every time he shifts his foot, his shin brushes my calf.
“So, okay,” he says. “I’m not—trying to be weird about this, but I’m going to take off my coat.”
I do look at him then. “Join the club,” I say. Mine is balled up behind me, giving me something to lean up against.
“Yeah,” he says. He laughs and it’s nervous. He sheds his coat, bumping my chest with his arms and who knows what other parts of him on the way out of it. Then he sets it behind him like I’ve done and shudders.
With both of us out of our massive laye
rs, suddenly it seems so clear, so overwhelming how close we are to each other in this dark little box.
There is a wall at my back and side, and only a couple inches between my left and the door.
Jonah has even less space.
I can’t move without every surface of my leg running over his calves, his torso, his thighs.
I blow out a breath and grab for the backpack I brought, shoved uncomfortably into the corner of the blind. I have a toothbrush, and I just yank it out of the bag with no fanfare, for something to do with my hands.
I brush my teeth, right there in the blind, like an absolute weirdo.
Then I open the door and spit.
Jonah looks at me like I’m a complete freak and says, “Are you serious?”
I shrug. “If no one thought that bringing a toothbrush to an event where drinking was going to occur, to freshen breath before going home to our parents, that’s their fault.”
He snorts. “You’re something.”
“Do you . . . want to use it?”
He wrinkles his nose. “Your toothbrush? I’m good. Give me some of that toothpaste, though, I guess.”
He wets a little corner of a blanket in some snow that’s stuck to the outside of the blind, squeezes on some toothpaste, and scours his teeth with the fabric. Then he spits out the door.
It’s a flash of freezing cold, then warmth again, and we are left with quiet.
“Shit, that’s so much better,” he says.
And then we are here with nothing to do but breathe and acknowledge the absolute lack of space between us.
The dark, which makes it hard to see your hand in front of your face, let alone the other person. Makes everything feel even closer.
He shifts on his butt and his leg runs over mine.
I swallow hard, breathing in the scent of mint and old wood and the clean fury of the snow outside.
Jonah runs his thumb over his lower lip and says, quiet, “Again, not trying to be weird.”
I raise an eyebrow, hoping that masks the nerves, the height in my pulse, the quick shallowness in my breathing.
“But you should like . . . shove up against me. I’m not trying to come onto you; it’s just that—”
My stomach swoops and twists. I don’t know if I’m relieved he’s not trying to come onto me or disappointed, and that’s so confusing that I don’t even want to begin to deal with it, so I just cut him off and slide over to him. My knees press into his thighs and I turn around and lean so my back pushes into his chest, and I am sitting between his legs.
He blows out a shaky breath.
It’s . . . well, it’s cold. Of course he’s shaking a little.
He pulls his legs in tight to me so that his inner thighs overtake my outer thighs, and his arms curl around my chest.
My head relaxes against the curve of his throat and I can feel his heart beat into my back.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Nature, I did not order this. I ordered two hunting blinds, there seems to have been a mistake; this forest only has one.
He exhales and it lifts the hairs on the top of my head.
I don’t just hear it when he clears his throat; I feel it.
“Wish we had a fire,” I say. I whisper it. Talking feels too loud.
He moves his jaw, but I don’t know what his face looks like. I just feel the hard slant against my head. He moves, and something rustles, and the entire expanse of his chest draws fire over my back. That’s one way to do it.
He comes back out of the bag he was evidently rummaging in with a little candle, and lights it with the lighter he keeps in his back pocket after pulling it a full five times.
“Cool,” he says, late night scratch in his voice. “It would be good if the lighter I’d brought hadn’t been fucking empty.”
I actually laugh.
At a certain point, every absurd problem becomes legitimately funny.
As long as you don’t think about it too hard.
Jonah pulls me in closer to him, and I grab my big, fluffy blanket from the other side of the blind to drape over us.
I can feel his muscles relax—strand by strand.
“You’re gonna be so grounded after this,” he whispers into my hair.
My pulse jumps so hard that there’s no way he doesn’t feel it.
“Can you imagine?” I say. “My dad will lose his shit.”
“No prom for you.”
“Not now.” I shift, lean a little farther back so my hair falls over his shoulder and he sucks in a breath.
I feel his heartbeat speed against my spine.
“Why—” he starts, then abruptly stops.
I wait, trying to decide if I can let it go.
I can’t.
There’s nothing, nothing to distract myself. I say, “Why what?”
“Why do you guys hate me so much?”
I furrow my brow and turn my face, forgetting just how close we are, not realizing that that move will put my mouth a literal breath away from his throat. Just a centimeter from brushing his jaw. “I don’t hate you.”
He makes this noise that’s caught between a choke and a laugh.
“I swear,” I say.
“Your parents hate me.”
“Well.”
“Mmmhmm,” he hums against my jaw.
“In fairness, my parents hate, like, everybody.”
“You,” he says, “are just afraid of me.”
I frown. “What?” And whip my head so that I’m staring at him, even though it puts us in absolutely uncomfortable proximity. Even though it forces me to consciously still so that I don’t shift and brush his mouth with mine.
. . . Thank god for toothpaste.
“Come on,” he says, fingers slipping around my wrist, thumb pressing into my pulse. “It’s like a rabbit’s.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Why do I freak you out, Hallie?”
“You don’t.”
He blinks, and I suddenly realize how long his eyelashes are.
His jaw is a little tight, mouth a disbelieving line. He’s not mad, he just . . . thinks I’m full of shit.
I say, “I’m more afraid of my parents than I am of you.”
“Well, no shit.” He laughs and his breath is warm on my mouth.
And because it’s easier not to look at him, because it’s easier not to feel his laughter on my lips and watch his eyes react to everything I say, I turn again and lean back into his chest.
There is so much more of us pressed against each other this way, but it’s not so intimate that I can’t breathe.
The wind whistles through the slight imperfections in the wood the hunter used to put this blind together.
I shut my eyes, even in the dark. “It was easy to be just a little afraid of you.”
He doesn’t answer.
He breathes.
“As if you don’t want people to be afraid of you.”
The tiniest hum in his chest. It’s almost an acknowledgment, but it stops just short.
I say, “You and Jaxon are so just—so wild, you know? And I only see you for fifteen seconds at a time and it’s always one or both of you getting yelled at and one or both of you giving the middle finger to whatever authority figure has you nailed that time. I’ve heard the stories, dude.”
He practically harrumphs. “What stories?”
“Lighting up in the principal’s RV?”
He laughs out loud, raspy in my ear. “Oh shit, I’d forgotten about that.”
“You’re both getting into fights like every other week—”
“I’ve gotten into two fights. Jaxon’s the Rocky Balboa here, not me. I might have let those rumors run, but in reality? The two fights I’ve gotten into, his scrawny ass got me into—what do you want me to do? Just let him get it handed to him because he couldn’t keep his head down when a couple fucks decided they weren’t going to leave him alone?”
“Hm,” I say. That’s . . . different than the
impression I’d gotten.
“Didn’t you punch a cop?”
He literally snorts, then shoves me just a little and presses his fingers into my shoulder so I’ll turn around and look at him.
“Look at me,” he says.
Something hot coils in my belly. It’s so dark and it’s so quiet, and well. I look at him.
“I didn’t punch a cop.”
I wait.
“I punched an MRA fuck in proximity to a cop. That’s different.”
Cool, I’m turned on again by the mental image. What is wrong with me? (Nothing; fuck those guys.) I say, to quell the nerves in my stomach, fluttering up through the pulse in my neck, “Well. You and Jaxon spend like all your free time smoking weed and that’s a fact.”
He’s quiet for a little while, quiet enough that I wonder if maybe he’s fallen asleep. Quiet enough that I find myself shifting against him, finding the perfect crook under his arm for my head to rest, cuddling into him like he’s a guy I’m allowed to touch.
He speaks again, low and serious into my ear, and this time when he talks, his fingertips move against my hipbones. They are slow and non-threatening and casual, and I don’t even know if he knows he’s doing it except that it feels so good I’m about to full-on shudder; he’s got to know. He says, “You sure about that?”
I intend to say yes. What I say is, “No.”
His fingers freeze, just for a second. Then they begin their steady back and forth over the goosebumps on my skin again. He says, “Your cousin’s my best friend and I’ll have to kill you if you tell any of your people, but he gets up to some shit.”
“Are you seriously telling me you’ve never done drugs, man?”
“Fuck no.” He laughs again. “I’m saying that a full three-quarters of the stuff I’ve taken the blame for in your family has been Jaxon, and I’ve told him to let me fall on my sword because his parents know and his sister knows and I don’t give a shit what everyone else thinks because none of them can disinvite me to Shabbat dinner for it.”
The venom in his voice has me reeling a little.
I say, “Oh.”
He says, “Like either of us has even had the damn time to get up to much after freshman year. We’re both in core classes now, man. I’m up until three a.m. anymore, it’s to study.”
The Liar's Guide to the Night Sky Page 11
