Page 11 of Only in Your Dreams

I’m a few weeks off from unemployment.

I should be at home, plotting my next move. Figuring out how to squeak out a win while not a single person on the field seems to be able to catch a pass from the exceptional quarterback we’ve somehow managed to keep around after two failed years. I’m only here because Brooks somehow convinced me I was due for a distraction from work.

Outside, I listen to Brooks fumble around trying to erect his tent in the brutal wind. Right on cue, the wind picks up, flapping my own tent so loud it almost drowns out Brooks’s loudshit. When I stick my head out of the partially unzipped opening, I see his tent has tipped over on its side, the two front pegs flapping uselessly after getting ripped from the ground.

He’s a big guy, with the kind of build and long limbs that served him well during his stint in the NFL. But right now, he’s struggling to get a hold of this piece of canvas bouncing with the wind.

“You need any help, man?” I call to him.

He leaps for the edge of the tent and wrenches it to the ground, shoving a spike back into the dirt. “Got it.”

If I were an ass—which I rarely like to be, despite the shitty mood I’m usually in—I’d give him my smuggestI told you so. I sent around a text just this morning asking if we should rethink camping in this kind of weather. Besides the wind, the sky’s been threatening a torrential downpour for the past week.

No one else seemed especially concerned about it, though.

I leave Brooks to it, making myself comfortable on Parker’s air mattress. Pull out my phone only to remember there’s no cell service to speak of out here, and toss it down on the sleeping bag I’ll be using next to Parker’s mattress.

My fingers find the red, worn-out shoelace around my wrist. Twist it around compulsively. It’s becoming nearly impossible to do given how tight the thing’s become. I’ve been retying it within an inch of its flimsy life every time it’s fallen off over the past ten years.

Really, I should cut it off.

Burn it in a purging ritual, or something.

Hope it finally cleanses me of these incessant thoughts. Stops her from popping up in my head every other second.

I blow out a breath, shove the bracelet as far up under my sleeve as it’ll go. Stare at the roof of this tent until I finally hear the sound of tires crunching on the ground on the outskirt of our campground. Two car doors slamming shut.

Prince Parker blesses us with his presence at last.

“Too bad nobody warned us about the weather, huh?” I hear Summer say loudly, clearly meaning for me to hear it.

“Ah, don’t be a wimp,” Brooks replies breezily. “It’s no worse than the time we… Who’s this?”

And with those two words, our little campground is nothing but the sound of blowing wind. I sit up slowly, shoving the hair off my face.

Senses tingling.

Hair rising on the back of my neck.

“Oh,” Summer says after what feels like an eternity. “I keep forgetting you two haven’t met.”

There are goose bumps crawling up my arms, under the sleeves of my flannel.

“Hey, I’m Brooks.”

And then I realize what’s missing in this exchange. Not a single peep from Parker. He’d usually be passing judgment on our camp set up by now.

More silence. A throat clears. And then: “I’m sorry. I assumed Parker gave everyone the heads up I was coming. I’m Melody, Parker’s sister.”

Mother. Fucking.Fuck.

Like it’s got some kind of tether to her, the woman standing just feet outside the tent I’m now absolutely hiding in, the bracelet on my arm starts burning my skin. Like it needs me to know that she’s here, Melody Woods. Like I don’t remember the sound of her voice.

Like I haven’t been thinking about her—dreaming about her—for the past fourteen years of my life. The last ten of which were spent miles apart. Well, except for that one night, when we came within a handful of feet, just for a minute.

“I hope it’s okay I’m here,” Mel says. “I just moved back home for a bit, and Parker seemed to think it was a good idea. Though I did protest…”

She sounds different. Bright. Chirpy. I canhearher smile.

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