“Are you in shock? Just going to keep nodding?” Amusement laces her tone. I’m sure my face is priceless. Shewalks over and plops herself down on the bed, laying back on my pillow. I silently take my place on Colin’s pillow, staring up at the ceiling. This is happening. I look sideways over at my happy friend and smile back at her.
“You’re obviously going to say yes, right?”
“How is that even a question? Yes, in a heartbeat. Taking his last name is everything I’ve ever dreamed of.Heis everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
“I’m so fricking happy for you!” We cheerfully bounce and kick our feet with excitement against the bed, but then I suddenly remember that my friend is hurting.
“Does it make you sad?” I ask her, thinking she might be fighting some feelings. I mean, considering, I probably would be.
“Why are you even wondering that? You deserve this so much! My whole situation doesn’t even matter in this moment.”
“Your situations always matter to me.”
“And I love you for that, but, girl…” Holly rolls her eyes in exasperation, turns toward me and clasps my hands in hers. “You’re getting engaged!”
“I’m getting engaged!”
We squeal with all the girliness we can muster, laughing hard when Bitsy poofs up and skitters off the bed in fright.
Chapter 25
Colin
Aboom of thunder has me jumping awake from my somewhat comfortable sleep.
“Holy fuckballs! I just almost pissed myself!” Mark hollers from his air mattress across the tent in his quarters. We have one of those separately spaced tents that has rooms branching off of a central room so people can be apart but still a part of the same space. It’s a pain in the ass to set up, but it’s nice. I chuckle, but inside I feel a tad nervous as the rain starts to pound down on top of us. This was most definitely unexpected.
“You have any service?” I ask him as we all make our way to the table and chairs in the center space. Mark shakes his head no, and Trystan holds up a finger as he stares hard at his phone. I have nothing. We both wait. Mark leans over the table to start up one of the LED lanterns in the center of the table. I look back up and around, checking to see how the tent is fairing. I hopethis passes quickly and we staked this baby down good. More thunder peals outside, and we all jump and laugh at the same time.
“I’m getting dressed in case shit gets real,” I say as a trickle of water drops from a corner in the ceiling.
“Good idea,” Mark mumbles.
The wind chooses that moment to pick up hard, howling outside and making me move a bit faster.
“Yeah, I’ll third that idea while that radar loads. If it even loads. Fuck.”
We all get dressed in record time.
“I don’t like these spin-up style storms. I grew up in tornado alley. The type of vibes this shit is throwing freaks me out. I’m not gonna lie!” Trystan hollers over the wind and rain hammering the hell out of the tent. “FUCK!” he yells.
“I don’t like the sound of that. What’sfuckmean, Trystan?” Mark asks nervously.
We both peek our heads from our “rooms” to see Trystan almost white-faced looking at his phone. He holds it toward me, and I see nothing but a giant red blob barreling toward our position with a big red square around the whole vicinity.
“We need to find some sort of shelter, like,now,” Trystan replies, all business. Mark curses under his breath.
“Only take what we absolutely need. We gotta move. How far out is it? Where the hell did this storm come from?”
We all fly back into our spaces and pack our immediate bags.
“There’s no way we can make it out of here to our truck in the dark in time!” Mark yells, panic lacing his tone.
“Trystan, do you remember seeing any places on our way in? Fuck, I don’t, but we are going to have to go through those few tougher areas to get back.”
“The only thing I can truly remember is that cabin near the head of the trail. I don’t think we’ll make it that far in time. Let’s move, guys. Leave the rest, we’ll have to come back after everything clears.”
“Got the truck keys!” Mark yells.
