All Rhodes Lead Here

by Zapata, Mariana

  From the way he’d checked out our waitress’s ass and the hostess’, I figured he wasn’t feeling the chemistry either. That or he expected me to be blind. Either way… it was a bust.

  I wasn’t heartbroken.

  And I was going to pay for my half of the food.

  Pulling into the driveway not too long afterward, I was surprised to see that the garage door was still wide open. I had just barely closed my door when a shadow covered the gravel right in front of the opening. By the length and mass of it, I knew it was Mr. Rhodes.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi,” he replied, stopping right on the edge of the concrete floor.

  I stepped closer, my toes just on the other side of where the foundation was and peeked in and up. “Did you get the opener fixed?”

  “We have to order a new one,” he replied, staying right where he was. “The motor burned out.”

  “That sucks.” I looked at him. He’d shoved his hands into his dark jeans.

  “It was as old as this apartment is,” my landlord explained.

  I smiled faintly. “Did Amos bail on you?”

  “He went back inside about half an hour ago, saying he had to use the bathroom.”

  I grinned.

  “You’re back home early,” Mr. Rhodes added out of nowhere in that serious voice of his.

  “We only had dinner.”

  Even though it was dark, I could sense the heavy weight of his gaze as he said, “I’m surprised Johnny didn’t ask you to go out for drinks after.”

  “No. I mean, he did, but I told him I’d been up since five thirty.”

  The hands came back out of his pockets as he crossed his arms over that swimming-pool-sized chest. “Going out again?”

  Someone was chatty tonight. “No.”

  I was pretty positive the lines across his forehead deepened.

  “He checked out the waitress’s ass every time she walked by,” I explained. “I told him he needs to work on that next time he goes on a date.”

  Mr. Rhodes shifted just enough under the light that I saw him blink. “You said that?”

  “Uh-huh. I messed with him about it nonstop for the last half hour. I even offered to ask her for her number for him,” I said.

  His mouth twitched, and for one split second, I caught a hint of what might be a stunning smile.

  “I didn’t know you were best friends growing up.” That was really all I’d freely gotten out of Johnny about Rhodes and Amos. I hadn’t pressed. That information alone had been interesting enough.

  Rhodes tipped his head to the side.

  “What about you? Do you go on dates?”

  The way he said “No” was like I’d asked him if he’d ever considered cutting off his penis.

  I must have flinched at his tone because he softened it when he kept talking, looking right into my eyes all intense when he did. “I don’t have time for that.”

  I nodded. That wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say that. And as someone who had… not even been second best… it was fair. It was the right thing to say and do. For the other person. Better to know and accept what your priorities were in life than waste someone else’s time.

  He worked long hours. I saw how late he came in some days and how early he left on others. He wasn’t exaggerating about not having time. And with Amos… that was an even higher priority. When he was off work, he was home. With his son. As it should be.

  At least I had no ideas in my head about this hot guy. Look but don’t touch.

  With that in mind… “Well, I don’t want to keep you. Have a good night, Mr. Rhodes.”

  His chin dipped, and I thought that was all I was getting, so I started moving toward the door, but I only managed to take about two steps when his rough voice spoke up again. “Aurora.”

  I looked at him over my shoulder.

  His jaw was tight again. The lines across his forehead were back too. “You look beautiful,” Mr. Rhodes said in that careful, somber voice a heartbeat later. “He’s an idiot for looking at anyone else.”

  I swear to God my heart just totally stopped beating for a second. Or three.

  My whole body froze as I felt his words burrow deep in my heart, stunning the hell out of me.

  He moved toward the middle of the garage on the outside, those big hands grabbing hold of the door’s lip.

  “That’s really, really nice of you to say,” I told him, hearing how weird and breathy my voice came out. “Thank you.”

  “Just speaking the truth. ‘Night,” he called out, hopefully oblivious to the destruction the verbal grenade he’d just launched at me had caused.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Rhodes,” I croaked.

  He was already pulling the door when he said, “Just Rhodes is good from now on.”

  I stayed frozen there for way too long after the door had closed, soaking in every word he’d spoken as he headed to the main house. Then I started moving, and I realized three things as I went up the stairs.

  I was pretty sure he’d checked me out again.

  He’d told me to call him Rhodes, not Mr. Rhodes.

  And he’d waited for me on his deck until I’d unlocked the door and gone in.

  I wasn’t even going to try and analyze, much less overanalyze, that he’d called me the b-word earlier.

  I didn’t know what to think about anything anymore.

  Chapter 16

  I was excited about my hike that morning, even though I’d had to wake up at the crack of dawn to do it.

  I’d still been squeezing in jumping rope a few days a week, longer every day it seemed like, and I’d even gone as far as wearing a light backpack sometimes while I did it. Was I anywhere near ready to do Mt. Everest? Not in this lifetime or the next unless I developed a lot more self-control and stopped being scared of heights, but I had finally convinced myself I could handle a difficult hike. The four-mile one we’d done had been rated as intermediate, and I’d survived it. All right, barely, but who was keeping track?

  Mom had a little star and a wave-like symbol next to it. I hoped it meant something good since her information had literally been pretty direct with no other notes on it.

  Every day I could feel my heart growing. Could feel myself growing here in this place.

  The truth was, I loved the smell of the air. I loved the customers at the shop who were all so nice. I loved Clara and Amos, and even Jackie was back to making eye contact with me… even though we didn’t talk much. And Mr. Nez made me so happy during the few times I’d gotten to see him.

  I was doing a lot better at work. I’d put up a bat house. I’d gone on a date. I was owning all of this. I was settling in.

  And finally, I was going to do this hard-ass hike.

  Today.

  For not just my mom but for me too.

  I was so motivated I even sang a little bit louder than normal while I got ready, telling someone about what I really, really wanted.

  Making sure I had all of my things—a life straw, a bottle with a built-in water filter, two extra gallons to start with, a turkey and cheddar sandwich with nothing else in it so that it didn’t get soggy, way too many nuts, an apple, a bag of gummies, and an extra pair of socks—I walked out, double-checking my mental list to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.

  I didn’t think so.

  Glancing up as I made it to my car, I spotted Amos trudging back to the house, shoulders slumped and looking exhausted. I bet he’d forgotten to roll the trash can to the street and his dad had woken him up to do it. It wouldn’t be the first time. He’d complained to me about it before.

  I lifted my hand and waved. “Morning, Amos.”

  He lifted his hand back, lazily. But I could tell he noticed what I was wearing; he’d seen me leave the house enough to go for hikes to recognize the signs: my dark UPF pants, long-sleeved UPF white shirt I’d bought at the store layered over a tank top, my jacket in one hand, hiking boots on, and a cap barely resting on the top of my head.
r />   “Where are you going?” he asked, pausing on his journey back to bed.

  I gave him the name of the trail. “Wish me luck.”

  He didn’t, but he did nod at me.

  One more wave and I ducked into my car just as Rhodes came out of his house, dressed and ready for work. Someone was running later than usual.

  We’d barely seen each other over the last couple of weeks, but every once in a while, his words the day of my date with Johnny came back to me. Kaden used to call me beautiful all the time. But out of Rhodes’s mouth… it just felt different, even if he’d said it casually, like it was just a word with no meaning behind it.

  That’s why I honked, just to be a pest, and noticed his eyes narrow before he lifted a hand.

  Good enough.

  I was out of there.

  * * *

  I’d hoped in fucking vain, I realized hours later when my foot slipped on a patch of loose gravel on a downhill part.

  Mom had put the star around the name of it to symbolize the stars she’d seen after getting a concussion crossing the main ridge of the trail.

  Or maybe a star to mean you had to be an alien to finish it because I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready at all.

  Fifteen minutes in, I should have known I wasn’t in good enough shape to do this in a day. It was five miles in, five out. Maybe I should’ve listened to Rhodes’s advice way back when he’d suggested I camp, but I still hadn’t been able to talk myself into doing it by myself yet.

  I’d sent Uncle Mario a text to let him know where I was hiking and approximately what time I would get back. I’d promised to text him again when I was done, so that someone knew. Clara wouldn’t worry unless I didn’t show up at the shop the next day, and Amos might not notice I wasn’t around until he hadn’t seen my car for too long, and who knew what he’d consider to be too long.

  You didn’t know what it was like to be alone until you didn’t have people who could or would notice if you went missing.

  Besides being out of breath, my calves cramping, and having to stop every ten minutes to take a five-minute break, everything had been going okay. I was regretting it, sure, but I hadn’t given up hope that I could actually finish the hike.

  At least until I got to that damn ridge.

  I really had tried to catch my balance on the way down, but I’d hit the ground hard anyway.

  Knees first.

  Hands second.

  Elbows third when my hands gave up on me and I’d gone face-first.

  Into gravel.

  Because there was gravel everywhere. My hands hurt, my elbows hurt, I thought there might be a chance my knee might’ve been broken.

  Could you break a knee?

  Rolling onto my butt, careful not to slide farther off the trail and toward the jagged rocks below, I blew out a breath.

  Then I looked down and squeaked.

  The gravel had scraped my palms raw. There were little pebbles buried in my skin. Beads of blood were starting to pop up on my poor hands.

  Bending my arms, I tried to glance at my elbows… only to see enough to imagine that they looked the same as my palms.

  Only then did I finally take in my knees.

  The material covering one of them was totally torn. It was scraped raw too. The material over my other knee was intact, but it burned like hell, and I knew that knee was fucked up too.

  “Oww,” I moaned to myself, looking at my hands, then my elbows—ignoring the pain that shot through my shoulders as I chicken-winged my arm—and finally back at my knees.

  It hurt. Everything fucking hurt.

  And I hadn’t brought anything with me as first aid. How could I be so dumb?

  Slipping my backpack off, I dropped it on the ground beside me and peeked at my hands once more.

  “Owwie.” I sniffled and swallowed hard before looking back the way I’d come.

  Everything really did hurt. I’d liked these pants too.

  There was a tiny stream of blood going down my shin from my knee, and the urge to cry got worse. I would’ve punched the gravel if I could close my fist, but I couldn’t even do that. I sniffled again, and not for the first time since moving out here, to basically the middle of nowhere, but for the first time in a while, I wondered what the fuck I was doing.

  What was I doing with my life?

  Why was I here? What was I doing, doing this? I was doing hikes by myself with the exception of the one time. Everyone had their own lives. No one would even know I’d hurt myself. I had nothing to clean my wounds with. I was probably going to die from some weird infection now. Or I’d bleed out.

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I felt one little tear pop up, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand, wincing as I did it.

  Pure frustration mixed with throbbing pain formed a ball in my chest.

  Maybe I should go back to Florida, or go back to Nashville, it wasn’t like there were any chances I’d ever see Mr. Golden Boy there. He rarely left the house. He was too hot shit to hang out with normal people after all. What the hell was I doing?

  Whining, that’s what.

  And my mom never whined, some small part of my brain reminded the rest of me in that moment.

  Opening up my eyes, I reminded myself that I was here. That I didn’t want to live in Nashville, Yuki or no Yuki. I’d liked Florida, but it had never really felt like home because it seemed more of just a reminder of what I had lost, of a life I’d had to live because of the things that had happened. In a way, it was a bigger reminder of a tragedy than even Pagosa Springs.

  And I didn’t want to fucking move from Pagosa. Even if all I had were just a couple friends, but hey, some people had no friends.

  Just earlier, when I hadn’t been feeling so pathetic, I’d thought that everything was working out. That I was getting somewhere. I was settling in.

  And now all it took was one little thing to go wrong and I wanted to quit? Who was I?

  Taking in a long, deep breath, I accepted that I was going to have to go back. I had nothing for my hands, my knees ached like fucking hell, and my shoulder was hurting more and more by the second. I was pretty sure I’d be in unbelievable pain if I’d dislocated it, but I’d probably just hurt it a little.

  I had to take care of myself, and I had to do it now. I could always come back and do this hike again. I wasn’t quitting. I wasn’t.

  Picking the hand that looked the worst, I set it palm up on top of my thigh, gritted my teeth, and started picking out the gravel that had decided to make a home in my skin, hissing and groaning and flinching and saying, “Oh my God, fuck you,” over and over again when a particular piece hurt like extra hell… which was every piece of gravel.

  I cried.

  And when I finished that hand and even more blood pooled in the tiny wounds and my palm throbbed even worse, I started on the other.

  I was taking care of myself.

  There was a small first aid kit in my emergency roadside bag, I remembered when I was nearly done with my other hand. I’d bought it when I got my bear spray. It didn’t have a whole lot, but it had something. Band-Aids to help me survive the entire two-and-a-half-hour drive home, on top of the time it would take to hike back out.

  Oh my God, I was going to cry again.

  But I could do it while I dug out rocks from my elbows, I figured, and that was what I did.

  * * *

  Three and a half hours and a lot of curse words and tears later, my hands still ached, my elbows did too, and every step I took hurt the joints in my knees and the painfully stretched skin covering them. If I didn’t have black pants on, I was sure I’d look like I’d gotten into a fight with a bear cub and lost. Bad.

  Feeling defeated but trying my best not to, I sucked in one breath after another, forcing my feet to keep fucking going until I made it to the stupid-ass parking lot.

  I’d gone through periods of pure rage toward everything on the way down. Over the trail in the first place. Over doing this. Over the sun being out
. At my mom for bamboozling me. I’d even been pissed off at my boots and would have taken them off and thrown them into the trees, but that was considered littering and there were too many rocks.

  It was the boots’ fault for being slippery, the sons of bitches. I was donating them the first chance I got, I’d decided at least ten times. Maybe I’d burn them.

  Okay, I wouldn’t because it was bad for the environment and there was still a fire ban in effect, but whatever.

  Pieces of shit.

  I growled just as I turned on a switchback and came to a sudden stop.

  Because coming toward me, head down, backpack straps clinging to broad shoulders, breathing steadily in through his nose and out through his mouth, was a body I recognized for about ten different reasons.

  I knew the silver hair peeking out from under a red ball cap.

  That tan skin.

  The uniform.

  The man looked up then, blinked once, and stopped too. A frown took over a face that solidified I knew the man on his way up. And I definitely recognized the raspy voice that asked, “Are you crying?”

  I swallowed and croaked, “A little bit.”

  Those gray eyes widened just a little and Rhodes stood up even straighter. “Why?” he asked very, very slowly as his gaze swept over me from my face down to my toes before going back up. Then those eyes flicked down to my knees and stayed there as he asked, “What happened? How bad are you hurt?”

  I took a step that was more like a limp forward and said, “I fell.” I sniffled. “The only thing broken is my spirit.” I wiped at my face with my sweaty forearms and tried to smile but failed at that too. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  His gaze went back to my knees. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I slipped along the ridge and thought I was going to die, lost half my pride along the way too,” I told him, wiping at my face again. I was so fed up. Beyond fed up. I just wanted to get home.

  His shoulders seemed to relax a little with every word out of my mouth, and then he was moving again, setting down two trekking poles I hadn’t noticed he’d been holding along the side of the trail and slipping his backpack off too before he stopped in front of me and kneeled. His palm went around the back of the knee with the ripped pant leg, and he gently lifted it. I let him, too surprised to do anything other than stand there trying to balance as he whistled under his breath, inspecting the skin there.