Page 77 of The Invitation
Georgia
Rains patters against the roof.As soon as Ripley closes the door, the sound intensifies. It’s harder. Denser. It’s hail.
He flips on the lights.
“Right on time,” Ripley says, knocking water droplets off his hair.
I roll my eyes. “You say that like you planned it.”
“I accept your gratitude for me finding you a warm, dry, safe place to stay during a thunderstorm. You’re so welcome.”
“And I accept your apology for not listening to me when I predicted this exact situation.”
He side-eyes me, heading toward the table. “So you get credit for the cabin?”
“Okay, fine. This situation minus the cabin. But the fact not to be overlooked here is that we wouldn’t have needed the cabin had we not decided to hike a mountain on a day it was clearly going to storm.”
He grumbles something I can’t hear—lucky for him.
The cabin is small, but clean, with a gray sofa beneath a window. A wooden table sits along a wall. There’s a large fireplace made of stone in the center of the structure, and a kitchen with the basics—a simple, stainless sink, dorm-sized refrigerator, and a cooktop—is tucked behind it. It’s slightly musty, but not bad.
I cross my arms over my chest, shivering. “This place is kind of cute.”
“It’s better than getting pelted with ice out there.”
“True.”
I peek in two rooms on the far side of the cabin. One is a bedroom big enough for a bed and a single nightstand. The other is a bathroom with the tiniest shower I’ve ever seen, toilet, and sink.
Ripley slings his backpack onto the table.
“We just wait it out in here?” I ask. “I didn’t even bring a book.”
He pulls his phone out and holds it high into the air. “There’s a tornado warning for this area right now. We’re supposed to take cover, so, yeah, we wait it out here.”
The wind picks up, howling through the trees, and the windows rattle. When a tree falls just outside the cabin, the force of the crash makes me jump.
Ripley comes around the corner from the bathroom with two towels, handing me one.
“Here,” he says. “Get dried off.”
I force a smile at him. “Thanks.”
I start with my hair. Ripley tosses his towel over a chair and picks his phone back up again. He walks to the window, staring at the screen.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I have spotty reception, but I’m trying to get a text to Tate to go through in case he can swing by my house and pick up Waffles.”
My chill is pushed away by the warmth that floods my veins.
I’ve been with men—with people—in similar situations before. They worry their car will be destroyed in a storm. That no one will know where they are. They panic about how to get to safety, or how they’ll pay for damages, or that they’ll miss a meeting.
Ripley is worried about his puppy. I cannot deal with this information.
“There,” he says, pausing a few moments before putting the phone back on the table. “Tate’s going to go get him.”
I stare at him, confused.
