Page 27 of My Star-Crossed Summer

“Tell that voice to take a hike,” she says. “It’s courtesy of Mom, and it’s a big fat liar. Contrary to what we’ve been told for most of our lives, we get to reject what doesn’t serve us. We’re never obligated to go down a path that someone else pulls us onto.”

“I like that idea.”

“Good,” she chirps. “Then put it into practice.”

“Bossy pants,” I tell her.

“It’s because I love you,” she says. “Now I have to go because there’s a hot, lonely Scot in my bed.”

I snort. “Love you more, Gwennie.”

“Call me anytime, okay?”

After we hang up, I head back to my room. A wave of giggles erupts from one of the rooms near mine, but otherwise, it’s quiet. After taking a quick shower, I put on my tee shirt and sleep shorts and climb under the covers. My bed is by the window, so the moonlight slices through the room and casts everything in a soothing blue light. I tell my brain to let these old mistakes go and to stop thinking about Noah, but that just means that his face is the last thing I picture as I fall asleep.

My brain is strugglingto make sense of the noise I’m hearing. It’s like the crinkle of a candy bar wrapper or the crunching of a peanut shell. But that’s impossible because I’m alone in this room—or at least I should be.

The room is dark as a cave, no longer filled with moonlight. It takes me a minute to remember that I’m in a tiny bed in a cabin in the mountains, and not in my house by the lake. My brain leaps to high alert, and all at once, I’m certain that this isFriday the 13thand some weirdo in a hockey mask is lurking in the shadows, waiting to do me in so my story can end up on the next true crime podcast.

Stop,I tell myself. It’s probably a limb scratching against the window since I’m basically up in the treetops here.

But the crunching noise starts again. I’m not imagining it.

I fumble for the lamp on the bedside table. When the light flashes on, I squint and survey the room, looking for the source of the noise. And I find it at the foot of my bed.

A mouse is perched on the blanket by my feet, sitting up on its haunches, its beady black eyes fixed on me. It’s holding a half-eaten peanut butter cracker in its paws, nose twitching as if daring me to say something about it.

“Gah!” I shriek, scrambling back towards the headboard. I hate the idea of a tiny creature scurrying up my pant leg or diving into my sleeve while I’m helpless in slumber. Ugh. This is not the kind of nature I signed up for.

I expect it to run away and disappear into a hole in the wall, like any self-respecting critter at the bottom of the food chain. Instead, it holds its ground and stares me dead in the eye while it gobbles up the last half of my cracker.

I ease myself off the bed, trying not to startle the mouse, because I can see tiny wheels turning in that furry little brain, and it looks like it could cause some mayhem if it wanted. Based on that diabolical glint in its eye, it’s definitely planning to crawl over my face as soon as I fall back asleep.

I scramble to find anything that I might use to trap it—a jar, a box, a paper bag—but there’s nothing in this sparse room that can be used to catch a rogue mouse. When I reach the desk, themouse springs from the corner of the bed and zips across the room, right towards me, fast as lightning. I climb on top of the desk chair so it can’t run over my bare feet, and it dives into the empty sneaker I left by the door.

“Ha!” I whisper-yell. I grab my pillow from the bed, yank the case free, and tiptoe over to the shoe. In one swift motion, I sweep both the sneaker and mouse into the pillowcase. Then I shove my feet into my fuzzy slippers and hurry out the door.

I’m halfway across the parking lot, headed for I don’t even know where when I hear a twig snap. I freeze, turning slowly as my heart leaps into my throat. That snap sounded like it was under the foot of a huge animal—a catamount? A bear? Some beastly thing with big teeth and ghastly claws and an appetite for young wayward women in fuzzy slippers who don’t know what to do with their lives anymore.

Noah’s voice comes out of the shadows. “Leaving under cover of darkness?” he says.

I startle, feeling the hair on my neck stand up. “Holy shirtsleeves,” I breathe. “Lurk much?”

He smirks, walking over from his spot under a big evergreen. His thin tee shirt strains across his shoulders, and his plaid pajama pants hang low on his hips. If he ever wanted a career change, he could model loungewear like this and probably retire at forty. Because even in an old tee shirt and flannel, Noah Valentine is drop-dead stunning.

“Should I even ask what you’re doing with that?” he asks. His hair’s standing up in every direction, and his big eyes look even wider in the moonlight.

“I caught a mouse in my room,” I reply, trying hard to ignore the faint outline of taut muscle I can see through that thin shirt. “He was helping himself to my snacks.”

“The audacity,” Noah says, his voice a low rumble.

He looks delicious with all that wild hair and scruff—and I’d sell my soul at the crossroads just to have him kiss me again, whispering my name as he tugs my hair and slides his stubbled cheek over my skin. But this is not a thought that needs to be planted in my mind before I go back to sleep because my dreams are vivid enough already, and my subconscious is a shameless, starving beast.

“They were very good snacks,” I say.

“I’m sure they’re delicious,” he says, his gaze dropping to my lips.

A tornado of butterflies swirl in my chest.No, I think.Focus.

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