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“Peter Pan?”
“Forever young.”
I didn’t say anything, I was processing, when he did the impossible and actuallyvolunteeredsome information on his own accord.
“I climbed them all. Mount Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga—”
“Not all of them,” I noted, remembering his inner-arm tattoo.
He elevated an eyebrow. “Did I leave out anything? You know that Mountain Dew isn’t real, right?”
“Not Denali. And since mountains are measured from base to summit, Denali is technically taller than Mount Everest.”Yup, this girl googles.Watching him, I carefully added, “Don’t tell me you’re scared of climbing Denali.”
Instead of taking the bait, Riggs smirked, looking proud. “You know why I didn’t climb Denali.”
“Because you never want to visit Alaska.”
“Ten points to the woman with the pretty purple eyes.” He grabbed the bottle of water I’d brought for him, chugging it down.
“Why is that?” I pressed. “You don’t strike me as someone who’s afraid of anyone or anything. What’s in Alaska that makes you so terrified of visiting there?”
Tipping his chin up, Riggs watched me through hooded eyes. I could practically hear the wheels in his head turning. How much should he tell me? And why should he, anyway?
“We might need that for the marriage-based immigration interview.” I licked my lips, swallowing. “I should know.”
“Why would they care that I’ve never visited Alaska?” He frowned.
“Because!” I laughed nervously. “They’ll see that you’ve climbed all the other mountains. Your name is on the internet. You’ve done interviews. They’d want to know if you confided in me. Your loving wife.”
It sounded like such a fantastically daft excuse, even to my own ears. And still, Riggs looked like he was torn between talking about it and shutting me down.
I waited quietly, holding my breath. I didn’t know why it was so important for me to hear his Alaska story. Maybe because I knew, deep down, that he’d never shared it with anyone else.
“Guess it all boils down to mommy issues.” He sighed, kicking back on his elbows, stretching his long legs.
“I thought your mom was from San Francisco?” I asked tentatively.
“She was. She died in Alaska, though.” There was a pause, in which I could see him physically struggling to push the words out of his mouth.
“Alaska was the last place she’d run to after my grandfather told her to get her shit together and take care of me. Her no-good boyfriend was there, so that’s where she went. Apparently, once she got there, she found Nameless Boyfriend in a compromising position with a teenybopper who wasn’t her and lost her shit. She stole his pickup truck and drove off. Wanted to stick it to him, I guess.” A bitter smile marred his beautiful face.
A terrible feeling crept over me, and I couldn’t help but flinch, my muscles stiff, as I braced myself for what he was about to tell me.
“She might’ve been drunk or something, though they never found anything in her system.” Riggs clucked his tongue. “Or maybe she committed suicide. Who the hell knows? All I know is that she drove herself right off the road with complete disregard for who she left behind. The bottom line is, Alaska made me an orphan—not just a kid with troubled parents, a straight up orphan—and, irrational or not, I refuse to set foot in it.”
“I don’t think it’s irrational,” I said quietly, drawing circles with my fingers over the dust on the exposed concrete. “I think you’re protecting yourself. That’s smart.”
He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. I stared at him, mesmerized.
“But maybe you’re not an orphan after all,” I heard myself say. “Did you ever try to find your father?”
His eyes snapped open. “Shouldn’t he be the one to try to findme?”
“Ideally,” I admitted. “But we don’t live in an ideal world.”
“Ideally, he’s currently six feet under.”
“It wasn’t his fault that she died.” My voice was so quiet I was surprised he heard me.
