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“I can’t.” I step closer to Rory, who looks a lot less curious about the phone thing than Phoenix. But when he wraps an arm over my shoulders and pins me to his side, I realize that was probably a bit of a ruse.
Phoenix steps toward me sweetly, cupping my face in one hand while the other reaches into my hoodie pocket to fish out my phone. If he takes too much time, or touches me more than he probably needs to, I don’t say anything about it. But I do cringe away from him when he squints to read the caller ID.
“Why aren’t you answering Nic?” His sharp tone needles me, the suspicion coming in waves. “Are you fighting?”
“Is she jealous?” Rory suggests, tucking my hair back from my face. “I’d be jealous.”
“She’s not jealous,” I insist, rolling my eyes in Rory’s general direction. “We’re fighting right now. Well, I don’t know if it’sfightingtechnically. I just don’t want to talk to her right now. Or Nolan. So if you see him calling, don’t pick it up either.”
“Why?” Phoenix scrolls through the notifications, then drops my phone back into my pocket where he’d found it. “What happened?”
“She bought me tomatoes. You know how much I hate tomatoes, and I consider forgetting it a capital offense.” At least it’s easier to lie when everyone knows I’m not even trying to make myself sound believable. “It’s a three day ban on communication, but she’s trying to reduce her sentence.”
I make the mistake again of looking at him, though it’s supposed to be just a quick check to make sure he doesn’t actually appear angry. Instead, his gaze catches mine, holding it with his own dark blue, disdainful look.
“I gave you a tomato out of Dad’s garden when you were a kid and you didn’t three-day-ban me.”
“I think we’ve established you’re a special case.”
“I think you’re lying to me.” The tractor pulls up to a stop in front of us, the wagon it’s pulling is covered with a myriad of hay bales that create different levels of seating inside the wooden boards that make up a flimsy barrier between the wagon and the ground beyond.
“I think we’re about to go on a really cool haunted hayride and I don’t want to ruin it by discussing how my supposed best friends went to see Evan at the hospital then sat around talking to Ava about myfeelings,” I hiss, a little more loudly than I intended to. My heart thrums in my chest, making my palms tingle as I finally move to glare up at Phoenix, who is definitely standing closer than I’d expected.
But his expression is unreadable. He watches me, clearly thinking about something, before leaning forward to brush his lips so slightly, so sweetly, against mine. I could sigh like a fairytale princess, but somehow I hold it within myself.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, his forehead pressed to mine as the people in front of us start moving.
“Don’t be.” I point to the small line, glad that we’re some of the few people here tonight, which probably has something to do with Hollow Bridge setting an advised curfew and telling people not to go out for their own safety.
But that doesn’t really apply to the three of us, when Phoenix and Roryarethe danger, and I’m here to cheer them on, apparently.
I’m a bad person.The thought has been swimming around my skull all day, and hits me again as I step up onto the wagon. I follow Phoenix as he winds his way past and over hay bales, until we reach the back. He perches on one, Rory next to him, and without hesitation I sink onto the floor of the wagon, my back pressed to Phoenix’s knees. Immediately he opens them, drawing my back against his thighs and leaning forward so he can hook an arm around my shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of my head as he does.
“Well, I didn’t know the floor was an option,” Rory mutters, sliding down to sit beside me instead of perching on the hay bale. He leans against my side, and I tentatively reach out for his hand, noting that Phoenix moves so both of us can sit against his legs and he can throw an arm over Rory as well.
Rory, in response, pulls my entire arm to him, wrapping his fingers around my wrist and keeping it in his lap.
“Just don’tdoanything to them. Please,” I request softly, hating that I can’t trust that they just won’t.
Rory chuckles as he turns, face close to my ear, when he says, “I’m not a fan of killing someone for hurting your feelings, darling. Even if it’s for one of you two. That’s how one of us ends up in jail, and I like myself way too much for prison.”
“You really do,” I agree whole-heartedly. “I just…”
“Don’t trust me?”
“It’s not just you.” I glance up at Phoenix, who raises a brow in my direction as the tractor hitching into motion throws me back more firmly against the v of his thighs.
Including us, there are only eight people on a wagon made to seat at least twenty. The others are up near the front, three of them in one group and a couple as the other. They pay no attention to the three of us, nor can they hear what we say, I’d bet, unless we make an effort to be heard.
“I feel like a bad person today,” I admit, wishing this wouldn’t keep coming back to make my day suck. “I mean, more than just today. Butespeciallytoday.”
“Why?” Rory’s own tone is callously casual. “You knew we’d kill her anyway, with or without you last night.”
“Well, yeah… But it’s not just that.”
“Then what is it?” he presses, his attention almost too much for me. I look away, to the edge of the woods as a woman with a cleaver runs out, begging us not to go into the woods beyond. A smile hitches at my face as she runs after us, her voice hoarse from all the screaming I’m sure she’s done over the past week alone. Phoenix, for his part, seems content to listen, his fingers ghosting through my hair as he does the same for Rory.
“I don’tfeelbad,” I whisper, unsure if either of them can hear me. “For Ava or Evan or Emily or Jack. I don’tfeel badfor them.” When I glance at them, it looks as if they’re taking that information in stride.
