Page 32 of The Rookie
Filled with a renewed sense of purpose, I nod. “Okay, I’ll see you then.”
13
LOGAN
It’s still dark out the next morning when my brother Matt wakes me with three quick knocks on the cabin’s front door followed by one slow one. Our secret knock as kids.
My eyes are closed, but I smile before grunting and rolling over. It’s too damn early for this, but I agreed to go hunting with him today. He said we had to get an early start, but if I’d known he meant before dawn, I might have reconsidered.
The door opens, and he calls out, “Wakey, wakey.” His voice sounds way too cheery for whatever ungodly time this is.
“Go away.” I tug the blankets over my head, as if that will block out his enthusiasm.
“I brought coffee.”
“Leave it on the table and then go away,” I say with a groan.
A low chuckle is followed by the sound of his boots crossing the floor. “Come on, it’ll be fun. And I need your help.”
“You do not,” I grumble.
Matt hunts without me all the time. Turkeys in the spring, elk in the early fall, and then deer later on.
He chuckles. “Come on. Get up.”
Realizing he’s not going to stop until I do, I shove off the blanket and sit up. “Fine, but give me that coffee.”
Fifteen minutes later, I’m dressed in warm clothes and hiking through the woods beside Matt. Thankfully, the thermos of coffee he had for me is strong, and it’s working to improve my mood.
“So, did you and Graham make up, or what?” he asks, referring to our fight the other night. One that I’m not proud of, for the record.
“Yeah, we did. All good now.” I spent the day yesterday helping him brew beer.
He shoots me a curious look. “Do I want to know what you were fighting about?”
“Nope.”
The less stress for this family right now, the better, I figure.
“All right, let’s talk about Summer.”
Uncertainty squirms inside me. Last night, things went too far. I’d hoped kissing her would take the edge off the need that had been clawing at me for days. But it didn’t, not at all. It only made that need grow more insistent, fiercer. Darker somehow.
“What about her?”
Matt smirks. “First, she’s smoking hot.”
“Don’t.” Stepping over a fallen log, I give him a warning glare.
“What? I have eyeballs.”
“Well, keep yourballsto yourself.”
He chuckles. “Oh man, don’t tempt me. Do you know how fucking horny I’ve been?”
“No, and I don’t want to know.”
But the truth is, I do know, because I’m in the same boat. Or at least a similar canoe. An adjacent watercraft.
