AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Max, I love you—” Well that was news to me, and he might’ve been into guys since we hit puberty, but that didn’t stop the territorial twist in my stomach. Bullshit, of course, she wasn’t actually fucking mine. “—but like hell am Iclimbingup amountainlike this.” Noel gestured vaguely to the body I was ardently attemptingnotto look at.
Elora came gliding into the space, already in some athletic getup that showed more skin than I was strictly comfortable with. Sisters belonged in turtlenecks unless they’d found a man blessed by her brothersandher father. End of the fucking story. Not this strappy crop top shit. Men are sleazy as hell, and Elora, of all people, deserved a king who worshiped her, not some dog panting after her body.
“He’s right, babe. You can’t miss a day like this here. You’ll thank us once you're out there.”
“Not sure if you’ve been to Florida, but it’s flat as hell,” Noel pointed out before taking another long sip that apparently earned a sex-like moan that did unwelcome things to my circulatory system. “I’ll slow you all down.”
“We will not abandon you, my little cabbage.” Max glanced my way and wrinkled his nose. “Well. Grouchy McGee might, but El and I will move slow with you. Just soak up some vitamin D. Get some fresh—not rainy—air.”
“Fine,” she said with a sigh and another wistful sip from her mug. “Damn, Maxipad, you make a good cuppa coffee.”
Noelie-bean…Maxipad…little cabbage?What the hell had I come home to? How the fuck long were we on the boat? It wasmybag of coffee she was praising. He’d just poured it in the filter and added water, not spent an hour deciding between samples at a roaster in Seattle before getting on a standing order so my chronically rotating guest list always had the best.But whatever.Annoyed—and bitter at myself forbeingannoyed—I moved for the kitchen to top off my depleted cup as Elora kept up her chipper chattering.
“If you don’t have anything to wear, I’ve got extra and you’re right about my size. Come on,” she said, making grabby hands at my fake girlfriend. “Let’s go before the clouds come back.”
* * *
“Look!El, it’s like a little fairy garden.”
I’m not exaggerating when I tell you the best damn part of our hellish, eternally damp island was the way the sun lit up the forest. You know, when it dared to make an appearance. Everything was green here. Even the tree trunks were half consumed by emerald moss. Blankets of it hung from branches and coated the dirt. Noel had been exuberantly exploring her new surroundings like a six-year-old we surprised with a trip to Disney World. She gave off mad golden retriever energy, and I’d bitten back a smile more than once.
“Fiddlehead ferns!” Elora chirped back, skipping up beside her and grinning. El loved Mistyvale the most out of all of us kids. We might have all grown up here, but from the time she could talk, she romanticized everything. And I meaneverything. We weren’t going grocery shopping, we wereembarking on an adventure. We didn’t walk, weexplored. That one time she fell in a puddle, she actually just learned what mud felt like beneath her clothes and decided it wasn’t for her. But kudos to that kid in class who liked to bathe in it. More power to you, man.
I’d always assumed she was an oddity—one of her kind—but as she knelt beside a beaming Noel to study the way the fiddleheads curled in on themselves in a tight little spiral, I realized Brin and I had been correct in assuming there were actually two of them. Go fucking figure.
“They’re so cute. When they unfurl, they look like tiny little dancers.” Elora gave an apt imitation of the way the leaves uncurled. “Faeries really would love them. I wonder if they have these in Ireland.”
“You can eat ‘em,” I added as Elora yammered on about her deep adoration of the little greens.
“What?!” Noel gasped, turning to face me with comically wide eyes. My shrug was evidently unsatisfactory as that adorable face was turning scowl-like. Max, ever the hero, had to pipe in, for once in my favor.
“Nah, he’s right, Noelie. As kids we’d all harvest them and cook them right up. Honestly, this place is a forager’s paradise.”
“Hunting and fishing are both abundant too.” Judging by the wrinkle in her little freckled nose, she didn’t much care for my addition. “I didn’t sayyouhad to do it.”
“Good, thank you. Once it’s dead and dismembered, it’s easier to stomach eating something that was perfectly content, minding its business.”
“Jesus,” I said, fighting back my smile as I shook my head. Max’s knowing attention chapped my hide, his smirk growing as he bypassed me, a hand on a mossy trunk for balance, and I pretended not to notice him. “Brutal.”
“Am I wrong?” she said with a reserved giggle.
“S’pose not.”
“Suppose,” she scoffed, accepting my outstretched hand as she stepped over a log. “What do yousuppose? I said it how it is.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Just hadn’t heard anyone say it that way, that was all. Now I was losing the fight with my face, trying not to grant her a smile. Refusing to release control of my own faculties, I picked up the pace, continuing on down the trail.
“You’ll have to learn something about me,” she quipped, a bit breathlessly as she fought to catch up on those tiny legs of hers.
“What’s that?”
“I’m always right.”
Cute. Shooting my skepticism in her direction, I drawled, “That so?”
“Yes,” she chirped, nodding vehemently. I wanted to slide a knuckle down the smooth bridge of her nose as she lifted it into the air and push the little button on the end.Attracted to a nose. That was new, and Axel was right—I was fucked.
“Really.”
