Page 111 of Famous for a Living

I would live fully in the moment.

“Oh.” There’s surprise in his voice. He seems to grasp that this really means something. “Oh, no problem, take mine.”

I smile as I take the silver flip phone in my hands and open the screen. I have absolutely no idea what to do from here.

“His number’s 834-228-0912.” He looks over as the truck rumbles over the gravel spotlit in the otherwise black forest. “Then the green button.”

I laugh out loud. “You have Kevin’s phone number memorized.”

He raises a brow. “I have everyone’s number I need to know memorized. If it’s not, I don’t need to call them. How many numbers do you have memorized?”

“Me?” I think. “No one. Not a single person.”

He shakes his head as he turns the wheel. “I can’t believe that.”

“Serena’s starts with a 646.”

“All Manhattan area codes start with a 646.” He glances over, lips twitching.

“Fine.” I press the green button and put the phone to my ear as it rings. “What’s my number?”

“It’s 646-228-5464,” he says, as quick and automatic as if I’d asked him the number for 911.

Kevin and Jax hear me out about Mina, and aside from Jax calling out totally inappropriate comments about the date—I try to keep Zaiah from hearing by muffling the phone while pretending to fuss with my hair—they take up the torch to bring Mina into town.

We take more turns than I anticipated through the gravelly woods, turning at brown road signs every now and again until even they end. We keep going.

“You know, I forgot to worry about if you were going to murder me,” I say, watching us turn onto a single path. “I’ve been out here too long. I’m completely losing my street skills.”

“I find it much more exhilarating to worry about the stray anaconda.”

“There are anacondas?” I say, my breath hitching. “Tell me you’re kidding, Zaiah. I know you’re kidding.”

He stares straight ahead.

“I need to hear these words. I need to audibly hear them in this space.”

He pauses. “There are no anacondas in Montana.” He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. After my exhale he adds, “Just cougars, mountain lions, wolves, grizzlies, rattlesnakes, and the stray poison.”

I open my mouth to retort, but I’m distracted by the way his hand is covering mine. He rubs my skin with his index finger in an automatic way, as though comforted by the soothing feel of my skin.

As though he’s done this a thousand times with me.

As though this is our normal.

I blink as I glance out the window nonchalantly, finding myself holding my breath for fear he’ll stop. “Fine. Cougars, mountain lions, wolves, grizzlies, rattlesnakes, and stray poisons. But after that, I’m putting my foot down.”

“Noted. As senior ranger I will be sure to tell all other dangerous animals we are full and to try Canada.”

He holds my hand until we reach his cabin, and when we do, I can’t help but feel my lips part in surprise.

“This is your cabin? This? I’ve been living like a girl in the house on the prairie, and you’ve been living in this?”

Zaiah smiles as he pops open the door. “You ask Terry if you can build out your own cabin. I’m sure he’d let you too.”

“Wait,” I say, just as he shuts his door. “You built your own cabin?”

The cabin shines like a beacon in the surrounding canopy of black forest. There is an opening between the trees directly above it, and the sky is so bright it almost looks unbelievable, like someone has taken the sky and photoshopped it with an additional hundred thousand twinkling stars to give it such magnificence. I have never seen so many stars.