Page 135 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

I stood and slipped on the boots Lucy had brought in. “Come on. Let’s go tackle the chaos. I’ve got more French toast left in me.”

“Atta girl,” she said, grinning wide.

We were halfway down the hall when Lucy’s phone buzzed in her hand. She glanced at the screen and stopped walking.

Her whole face shifted. “Oh,hellno,” she muttered.

I turned. “What?”

She held up the screen, her expression darkening. “Ava just posted. It’s… wow. It’s pathetic, honestly.”

My stomach twisted, but the fear didn’t come. Just a dull, tired throb. “What’d she say?”

“She’s calling your post manipulative. Says you’re trying to play victim. But likeeveryonein her comments is dragging her. It’s a mess. She’s clearly spiraling.”

I reached for my phone again. Just one glance.

And there it was. Her desperate attempt at relevance, her flailing grasp to rewrite the story I hadn’t even tried to spin.

But this time, I didn’t feel the need to defend myself.

I looked at Lucy. “I don’t want to fight her.”

“You don’t have to,” she said calmly. “You already won, Riley. You told the truth. You said your piece. And Ava’s showing everyone exactly who she is without you lifting a finger.”

Still, I paused. Old instincts begged me to say something. To correct the record. To push back.

But then Lucy added gently, “Do you want to give her more of your peace? Or do you want to protect it?”

I swallowed hard.

“I want to protect it.”

So that was what I did. With Lucy’s help, I blocked Ava’s account. I set boundaries. I muted the noise.

I chose peace.

Let Ava throw her tantrum in the digital void. Let her shout into an echo chamber. She could unravel herself.

That wasn’t mine to hold anymore.

The snow crunched beneath our boots as we walked the winding path toward the Wolfe brothers’ cabin, the trees heavy with fresh powder, glittering under the weak winter sun.

My breath curled in front of me in soft white puffs, my fingers clenched inside my gloves as I tried to settle my nerves.

Not about the weather. Not about the cabin.

But about what I was carrying. Inside me. Around me.

The secret that was feeling increasingly heavy by the day.

Garrett was already outside stacking firewood as if the world might run out of it tomorrow, his sleeves shoved up to reveal forearms that looked carved from oak and covered in faint sawdust.

“Morning,” Lucy called, grinning. “Can’t wait for lunch!”

Garrett glanced up, a smile tugging at the edge of his mouth when he saw her, but his gaze flicked past her, for the briefest second, to me. I caught the glint of heat there, the spark that always made my knees a little unsteady.

“Me too, I’m starving,” he said gruffly, hoisting another log onto the pile like it weighed nothing.

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