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I chuckle. “Love you, too, Michael.”
Tucking my phone in my pocket, I walk toward Celeste’s car. She stays inside for a few seconds—probably regretting saying yes—before decisively opening her door, stomping out, and all but slamming it behind her.
I bite my lips on a grin as her frowning face swings toward me. I remember this mood well. Jeremy and I would use code words to warn the other when we witnessed it first.
“I’m here,” she says acerbically. “Now what?”
“Wait here a sec. I have to grab something from my trailer. Then we can go for a walk.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
I turn quickly to hide my smile, then jog to the trailer. I grab the bag off the counter, snag a bottle from the mini-fridge, and jog back to her.
She peers at the bag. “What’s that?”
Playing it casual, I dig around and pull out a Snickers bar. “Since it’s between breakfast and lunch, I thought you might want a snack.”
Her blue eyes narrow. She snatches the candy bar from my fingers and rips it open. “Thanks,” she mumbles around a mouthful. After another bite, she eyes the bottle of iced tea. I hand it to her. She cracks it open and guzzles, then recaps it with a sigh. “You’re weird, Lucas.”
My brows lift. “Why am I weird?”
She shakes her head, looking away. “Never mind.”
She’s weirded out that I remember her favorite candy and drink, and that I knew she’d be hangry when she got here.
The struggle not to smile grows.
I rub the bridge of my nose, looking anywhere but at her. “So, walk?”
“Sure.”
Weed-infested gravel crunches under our feet as we take the path toward the Lodge. The breeze stills, and the cloying scent of evergreens and arid earth wraps around us, as familiar as we once were to each other. But the air is also thick, tacky with time that stretches to its breaking point in the space between us.
Melancholy drifts with the pine needles, riding the breeze as it kicks up again.
I should have listened to my gut and canceled.
“Can we get in there?” asks Celeste in a muted voice. She’s pointing at the Art Barn.
I swallow. “Yeah. I have the key.”
We veer away from the Lodge toward the barn, every step taking us closer to the mural she designed and I helped her paint. I can’t remember where Jeremy was that day, but he wasn’t there. This project was ours.
I close my eyes against a vision of Celeste’s face, young and sputtering and aghast, right after I doused her with a bucket of green paint. At my sides, I rub my fingers together, remembering the feel of slick paint all over me from her revenge.
Celeste walks faster—or maybe my footsteps slow—and she touches the feet of the bald eagle we painted.
“Wow, this is so bad.”
It’s perfect, I want to say, but I don’t.
She looks back at me—the girl who was mine, the woman who isn’t—and cocks her head. “What’s wrong with your face?”
For once, I can’t think of a comeback. “Nothing. Let me open it up for you.”
Walking swiftly to the front of the building, I use the master key to unlock the big doors. Then I pull them open and walk inside.
A sensory avalanche flattens me.
