Page 7 of Close to the Edge

“Hey,” I say, trying and failing to keep my damp patches away from Evie’s pretty white sundress. She doesn’t seem to care at all that I show up here every week looking like roadkill, but that doesn’t stop me from flushing with embarrassment right now. “Is someone here?”

“Rowan’s friend Ash,” Evie supplies, stepping back to beam at me, then ushers me toward the carved bench seat. There’s a strange light in her eye, like she’s in on a private joke. “They were in the military together, and he’s staying with us for a few days. He’ll be out in a sec. Nice guy.”

Military, a tiny voice hisses in my brain, but I squash it down. No need to jump to conclusions. The chances of this Ash being my mystery man from last night are slim as hell. It’s more likely that I hallucinated him from sunstroke.

“How was your shift last night?” Evie’s question is innocent enough as she settles by my side, but there’s a weird eagerness in the way she watches me. “Did anything eventful happen?”

I shrug, leaning forward to the jug of ice tea set out ready with glasses on a low table. Condensation beads the sides of the jug, and ice cubes clink as I pour two glasses. “Not really. The usual stuff, you know? Hikers and bikers and drunks, oh my.”

Evie takes a glass and settles back, one hand on her bump. She looks oddly disappointed. “Never mind.”

The breeze ruffles the nearby branches, and we both fall silent as we take sweet, cold sips. Evie’s feet swing below the bench—a short person experience that is lost to me.

“Though I saw this guy,” I hear myself blurt, flushing bright red as soon as the words are out. And I don’t know why I’m telling her this, why I think anyone else would be remotely interested, but Evie brightens up visibly so I keep going. “Outside Flint’s last night.”

“What kind of guy?” she asks quickly, eyes darting to the open doorway. The voices inside the cabin are still engaged in low, rumbling conversation.

“A… a big guy. Tall and muscly and, you know. Really handsome,” I finish lamely, already regretting this opener. “Well. In a rough, rugged kind of way. I’ve never… um. Never liked someone like that. You know, crushing at first sight.”

Evie’s heels kick faster beneath the bench, and the ice rattles in her glass. She looks nearly as agitated as I feel. “And did you talk to him?”

My shoulders droop. “No. I was serving drinks, then I had to go inside. By the time I came back out, he was gone. Part of me wonders if I even saw him at all, or whether I just… imagined him.”

“You definitely didn’t imagine him,” Evie says, and she sounds so sure that I find myself perking up too. Hey, maybe I don’t sound insane after all! “In fact—”

“Is she here yet?” Rowan asks, stepping through the doorway, then grins wide when he catches sight of me. My chest warms with relief, like it’s done every time over the last year when I’ve seen my brother looking healthy and happy. “Hey, squirt. Did I ever tell you about my buddy Ash?”

“Yeah, of course…” I start to say, then the words stick in my throat as a towering man squeezes through the doorway behind Rowan.

The man straightens up and looks at me, a polite smile already locked and loaded. It freezes on his face, and something like panic flares in his chestnut eyes.

My heart jolts. My cheeks burn.

Mystery man.

Evie kicks my ankle beneath the bench seat.

“Breakfast’s on,” Rowan says, settling into the rocking chair. “Let’s all get acquainted.”

Oh, brother.

Four

Ash

The angel from Flint’s is here in the flesh, dressed in a baggy red t-shirt and shorts, laughing nervously at Evie’s chatter as she forks up home fries from a bowl in her lap. Every now and then, she darts a curious look at me, and each time it’s like a spear lances clean through my heart.

Tess. Rowan’s younger sister. It is her. They’ve got the same misty gray eyes, the same dark hair and tan skin, the same dimpled cheeks when they smile. They’re so clearly siblings now that I see them on the same deck.

And I am royally fucked, because I cannot look away.

Tess.

Part of me is listening dutifully to the conversation, and the rest is digging through dust-covered boxes of memories in my brain, trying to remember all the stories Rowan ever told me about his baby sister. Like the time she pranked him at ten years old by rigging up a sheet to dance in his bedroom doorway like a ghost; the time she won a gymnastics ribbon in middle school. The fact that she had a pet goldfish once called Harry. Every crumb of detail I dig up about her, I pounce on hungrily.

Tess. Christ.

She’s staring at me now, gray eyes unblinking, like she’s as enraptured by me as I am by her—and if that’s not wishful thinking, I don’t know what is.

---