Chapter 3: I Don't Love Cade Hollis

I blocked the number.

I did not sleep.

By morning I'd built a fortress out of denial. Wrong number. Drunk text. Some idiot in a bar in Missoula. Because the alternative meant Preston Vale had found me in nine hours, and if I let myself believe that, I'd have to get back in the car, and I was so tired of getting back in the car.

So instead I made a chore chart.

Color-coded. Laminated. Beautiful.

The lodge held a vote and destroyed me 4–1.

"Democracy," Den said solemnly, "is beautiful."

"You didn't even read it."

"I read the part where I have to be conscious before ten."

The one vote in favor was Cade's. He didn't say anything. He just raised his hand, held my eyes for exactly one second, and put it down.

I thought about that one second for the rest of the day. That's the problem with quiet men. You start assigning meaning to their silences like a detective with a corkboard and a ball of red string.

I started avoiding him, which was difficult, because he was everywhere.

Kitchen at six. Mudroom at seven. Great room at midnight, reading avalanche bulletins with a highlighter like an absolute nerd who could bench-press a snowmobile.

Every single time, I malfunctioned. Dropped things. Said "you too" when he said "get some sleep."

Meanwhile Wren had decided I belonged to her. She followed me room to room. She left drawings on my pillow. She fell asleep against my hip on the couch one night and Cade came in and stood there looking at us with an expression I couldn't read, and then he left without picking her up.

"He can't watch it," Aiden told me later. "You in that chair. Her leaning on you. It looks too much like the before."

Then Kel dragged me into a two-hour war on the ancient video game console, and I laughed until my stomach hurt, and when I looked up, Cade was in the doorway with a face like a slammed door.

He left without a word.

"Was it something I said?" I asked.

Kel grinned. "It's something you are." Then, before I could ask: "Hey. Help me pick a gift? For a girl."

Relief. Blessed, boring relief. "Absolutely."

Except two days later I caught Aiden hiding his sketchbook from me, blushing to his ears, and I panicked and announced at dinner, loudly, that there was nothing romantic happening between me and anyone in this building.

"Noted," said Tuck.

"Devastated," said Den.

Afterward Kel pulled me out to the porch and showed me his phone. A necklace. Delicate gold, tiny sun.

"I bought it," he said. "For her."

And because my brain was fried and my ego was inflated, I put my hand on his arm and said gently, "Kel. I'm so flattered. But I don't love you."

He stared at me.

Then he laughed so hard he sat down on the steps.

"Ivy. She works at the bakery in town. Her name is June. I've been in love with her since the Fourth of July." He wiped his eyes. "Also — obviously — you're in love with Cade."

My entire body went hot.

"I am not in love with Cade."

"You look at him like he's the last helicopter out."

"I don't love Cade!" I said it loud. Loud enough to knock snow off a branch. Loud enough that my voice came bouncing back off the equipment shed. "I don't love him, I don't even like him, he's rude and silent and he thinks I'm—"

The screen door opened behind me.

Kel's face changed slowly. Like a man watching a truck slide off a road from a safe distance.

I turned around.

Cade stood there with a wool coat folded over his arm. He'd come out to bring me a coat. Because it was nineteen degrees. Because he'd noticed I was outside in a T-shirt.

He'd heard all of it.

His face didn't move. That was the worst part. Nothing moved.

He stepped forward and held the coat out to me.

"Come inside, Ivy," he said quietly. "Don't stand out here alone."

Then he went in.

I sat on those steps until my fingers went numb, holding a coat that smelled like cedar, hating myself in seven different languages.

That night I locked my bedroom door. Checked it twice. Checked the window latch. Put a chair under the knob like a woman in a movie who dies in act two.

It didn't matter.

At 3:04 a.m., I woke up because someone was breathing in my room.