Page 118 of Prove You Wrong

‘Negative. Report to base.’

‘Fuck, man,’ the static pops and whistles, ‘if I come now, will you leave me alone to let me get on with this?’

‘Nate, this is code Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.’

He stows his walkie talkie and then gets back to typing on his computer with his giant fingers, or should I say finger, the laborious hunt-and-peck technique is painful to watch.

A minute later, the scuffing sound of feet approaches and my eyes flick to the doorway. I try to arrange my face into a position that looks calm and attractive and not at all like I’m about to cry. Or vomit.

What if I’ve blown everything?

The footsteps stop and there’s a knock at the door before Nate strides in, eyes flashing. He looks flushed.

I don’t think he notices me at first, so I speak up with a timid, ‘Hey.’ I squeeze the package tighter, my cheeks trembling as I try to offer a small smile.

‘Hi.’ His voice is cool, even.

Shit. No smile, none of his usual banter or nice words. He hates me.

‘Can we talk?’

‘Yeah.’ His jaw is locked tight, expression blank. He’s impossible to read.

I clutch the parcel tighter and head out of the door.

Chapter 35

Nate

The axe cracks into the wood, splitting it in two.Thwack. The pile of kindling is growing steadily in the corner of the barn. The interior, which, until recently, Chunk has been using for storage, is huge. Now we’ve cleared access to it, Chunk and I are setting the barn up as an event space. He’s installed a wood burning stove and I’m currently stocking the wood store. I’d asked Chunk for some hard labour, something menial and absorbing. He didn’t disappoint.

He also keeps giving me cake in a bid to cheer me up. I need this workout to burn off the slab of red velvet he foisted on me. I want to be at my absolute best when I convince Ella to reconsider. It was part of the deal, though. Cake and car in exchange for my first love. Phase one of the plan is complete. If only I knew what phase two needed to be.

I’ve somehow managed to stop calling her, commanded myself to back off a little, giving her some space to process everything.

She was devastated about her sister and lashed out at someone who’d forgive her. Been there, done that. The irony is not lost on me. I know deep down she didn’t mean what she said. I could see the pain in her eyes.

The radio crackles and Chunk is being weirder than normal, bringing back a ridiculous code we made up as kids but haven’t used in years. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. That used to be our way of saying something outrageous has happened and we can’t put it into words, either because we didn’t know how, or we didn’t want someone to hear us actually say What The Fuck? Him bringing it back to life now must be another way of him trying to cheer me up. I keep telling him, though, I don’t need cheering up. I need to get my shit together. Then I can make my own happiness.

I impale the axe into the log and take off my safety goggles and gloves. The sooner I can convince Chunk I’m okay, the sooner I can get back to this barn and work out what to say to Ella. Get her to understand how I feel about her.

Approaching the cabin, I make myself as loud as possible. It’s a habit I’ve fallen into after I realised I scared the shit out of Chunk once when he didn’t hear me approaching. He almost offloaded a paintball gun all over me.

I rap on the door to give him a heads up. I don’t know why Chunk wants to force-feed me cake. I get the feeling if I had long hair he’d be wanting to plait it or something. He’s gone into full-scale mother hen mode. But I wish he hadn’t. I’ve got some serious thinking to do and his good intentions are hindering it.

As I step into the cabin, Chunk has what can only be described as a shit-eating-grin on his face and, as my eyes adjust to the relative gloom, I realise there’s someone else standing there.

‘Hey.’ Ella’s nibbling on that bottom lip and I want to run to her. But I don’t. I don’t want to spook her. Instead, I freeze.

‘Hi.’Real smooth, Nate. My words are as barren as my tongue is dry.

‘Can we talk?’ She takes half a step forward, voice quiet, hesitant.

‘Yeah.’ This is what happens when I’m stressed. Words fail me.

Chunk speaks up. ‘I’ll hold your calls,’ he says, before starting his painstaking typing on the computer.

I love that prick. I don’t know if he thinks he’s helping by making me sound more important than I am, or if he knows this will lighten the mood, but, whatever his intentions, he’s made me chuckle. My initial panic, forgotten.

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