Page 22 of Only in Your Dreams

“I—I told him to go,” I say, and I can barely hear myself over a clap of thunder. “I told him we’d ride with Summer.”

She stares uncomprehendingly. “Why didn’t she wait?”

Fuck.Fuck.

I shake my head. “I thought… She must have noticed him pulling away and assumed we got in with him.”

“You didn’t tell her to wait?”

She pulls out of my grip and pushes past me as though refusing to believe our reality based on my retelling. Determined to confirm this for herself, to make sure that we really are stranded here in the middle of the woods, in a brutal storm, with no cell service to speak of.

She only makes it another couple of steps before wheeling around again, this time with fury permeating her panic.

“I told you I’d be right back,” she shouts. “I told you to tell Summer to wait. I told you to go without me—”

“And look how that would have turned out!” I feel sick at the thought. “You’d be here by yourself, while I’m out there thinking you made it home with Summer.”

I force a breath into my lungs. Wrench my fingers out of the tight fist they’ve balled into at my sides, willing myself to beat back the panic. To get it together for her.

But when I look at her, standing close enough to see her through all this fucking rain, I already know it’s a lost cause. Her crinkled eyebrows. Gaping mouth.

The way her eyes are asking me:what the hell do we do now?

Chapter 6

Zac

“Melody, I’m going to need you to show signs of life. Say something.”

Mel sits frozen on Parker’s air mattress, terror etched over her face.

She’s so pale that her lips are turning a little blue, and I gather her sleeping bag and throw it around her, rubbing over her arms in an effort to help her regain some warmth. She must really be freaking out because this is as pliant as she’s been with me, letting me soothe her like this.

“Hey. You’re going to be fine, okay? It’s gonna be fine.”

But Mel doesn’t say anything. Just keeps staring at the other end of the tent in silent shock. Her hands are clasped so tight together they look several shades paler than the rest of her. When she doesn’t move, I reach for her chin, gently tipping it so that she looks at me with wide, blank eyes.

I cast around for something with enough shock value to snap her out of it.

“I… Did Parker ever tell you I coach my old college football team now? We haven’t won a game in years. I mean, we hadn’t won a game before they made me head coach, to be fair. But it’s not looking good. I’m on the verge of being fired, and we’re only a couple of weeks into the season.”

She only stares at me, so I try to come up with something better. “Do you know how long it’s been since my last date? Yeah, me neither. I’ve never… I mean, I’ve dated casually but…”

Christ, why the fuck am I telling her this?

My gaze falls to her clenched hands, sitting in her lap.

“You know, if you didn’t run back here to grab fuck knows what out of this tent, we wouldn’t be stuck—”

“You’re blamingmefor this? You didn’t tell them to wait for us!”

There she is.

She’s glaring, and I don’t know whether it’s the sleeping bag doing the trick, or my words have pissed her off that much, but she even has a twinge of pink staining her cheeks.

I sort through the stuff I salvaged from Brooks’s tent. The clothes we all left, the cooler full of food. “Maybe I didn’t tell them to wait, but they wouldn’t have had to wait if you did what you were told and got into the car. Here, change into this. It’s dry.” I hold out a sweater of Brooks’s but Mel stiffens, staring at it like it’s drenched in pig’s blood. “What?”

She takes in a long breath without meeting my eye. “No. No, thank you,” she says, wrapping the sleeping bag around herself.

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