Page 23 of The Facade

I knew I’d wanted to talk to Ben and let him know I existed, but I was so not good at hosting people on my own. I liked being around people enough that I wasn’t a complete social disaster most of the time, but I was not the natural extrovert that Nash and Mack were. So I did always appreciate when one of them was there to help take some of the pressure off when I was around people I didn’t know very well.

I mean, sure, I knew all kinds of things about Ben—like how he was from North Carolina and had two older sisters and liked to do motocross when he was home for breaks—because I totally stalked his social media accounts over the summer. But I couldn’t exactly strike up a conversation about any of that since it would give away how much I’d learned about him online.

So instead of making small talk as we walked across the stone terrace and down the steps to the grass below, I stayed awkwardly quiet.

Ben followed me across the freshly cut lawn and soon we were at the garage with the ATVs.

“Do you prefer manual or automatic?” I turned to Ben after raising the garage door again.

“Let’s go with automatic,” Ben said.

“Good choice,” I said. If he’d said manual, I probably would have said the same thing.

I showed him which four-wheeler to use—the big green and black one my dad often took out when he wasn’t using the side-by-side. After giving him a helmet, I looked around the grounds wondering where Mack had disappeared to.

Was he purposely trying to give Ben and me some alone time? Because after the past few minutes of uncomfortable silence, I really wouldn’t mind having Mack or even Nash show up and talk about whatever random subject popped into their minds. At least then I might be able to relax.

I was considering heading back into the house with the excuse that I needed to go to the bathroom when Ben asked, “So, do you guys go riding very often?”

“We go about once a week when the weather is nice,” I said, relieved that he’d broken the ice with a question I could answer.

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah, it’s fun.” I pointed to his racing gear. “What about you? Did you just go out and buy that gear for this, or do you race?”

“Oh this?” He looked down at his shirt and pants, like he’d forgotten what he was wearing. “I’m pretty big into motocross when I’m home.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, pretending like I didn’t already know that about him. “Do you compete?”

“I’ve been in a few races, but nothing too big yet.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” I said.

Even though I knew it from his photos online, I actually didn’t know very much about the sport. I was about to ask him how everything worked when Carter and Ava, holding hands, came around the corner, along with Nash, Scarlett, and Hunter trailing behind them.

Elyse appeared out of the forest at the same time as well.

Oh well, I guess I would just have to ask Ben more about his racing later. It would at least give me a topic to bring up the next time I had a chance to talk to him.

Everyone greeted Ben and welcomed him to the house—everyone aside from my brother Carter, who seemed to tense when he realized my crush and I had been alone.

But Carter recovered from the surprise of seeing me actually talking to a guy quickly enough and started giving a rundown of where we’d be riding today.

As Carter pointed to the trail that went around the golf course and back to the very west end of the property, Mack finally rejoined us.

Where had he disappeared to for so long?

His gaze met mine as Carter asked everyone if they wanted to ride all the way through the secret trail we had that led to the falls. And I didn’t know what it was exactly, but Mack looked like there was something off with him. He usually had an enigmatic energy about him that you couldn’t help but be drawn to—like how he’d acted when he made that comment about telling Ben we’d been making out. But now he was broodier.

Had something happened in the past few minutes to change his mood?

I studied him as everyone agreed that going to the falls sounded fun, and when our eyes met, I mouthed,Everything okay?

He gave a non-committal shrug before looking away.

I furrowed my brow, confused. I started walking over to ask him what was going on, but before I could reach him, he climbed on his ATV and pulled onto the trail directly behind Carter and Ava—who were of course riding the same ATV because they were in the inseparable stage of their relationship.

Why was Mack rushing off?

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