Page 40 of Valley Girls
Rilla snorted.
“This is how you do me after my compliments? At least I’m not wearing my underwear in public,” Hico said.
“These aren’t underwear,” Rilla whispered furiously.
“Dude, you can pee through the hole there.” He waved circles at the general area of between her legs, yogurt going along for the ride.
“Watch that,” she said, grabbing his wrist and moving his yogurt fork back to where it would drip somewhere else. “If I had a dick,dick. I don’t. Therefore, not underwear.”
“Excuse me, can y’all keep the language down,” a woman said in a friendly tone Rilla recognized as being cutthroat church lady.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can imagine that is quite disconcerting to hear. We’ll be more careful,” Hico said with a tone so earnest, the woman looked suspicious.
“It’s almost ten thirty,” Gage said, crumpling the wrapper from his sandwich and standing. “You ready, man?”
“Where you guys going?” Rilla asked, wishing they would ask her along. Even if she could barely hobble.
“Getting wilderness permits to head into the backcountry for a climb called Pharaoh.” Gage looked at his phone. “It’s far enough out we’ll have to camp overnight. Heard it’s rad, though. A buddy did it last summer and I can’t get it out of my head.” He held out the phone to show her.
The picture was gorgeous. Purple light, silver granite, endless mountains, and wide smiles of everyone in the photo. The kind of thing that made you want to be that cool. That ecstatic. Her body ached and her feet wept, and still she handed the phone back, half wishing they would invite her along. She’d sayno, obviously. But to be asked ...
“Looks really cool,” Rilla said, trying not to sound wistful. “Does everything involve hiking?”
Hico laughed. “You could spend your whole life in the Valley and never run out of things to climb. I hate hiking, but I’ll do just about anything for something beautiful.” Hico stood. “The office opens at eleven, so we better go get in line. See ya.”
Gage waved.
The boys left, Hico’s rainbow socks turning brilliant in the sun before the door closed behind him.
The couch slowly expanded to adopt its original shape. The fan hummed above her. Someone near the unlit fireplace snored.
Rilla picked up her phone and stared at the still-blank screen, at the loneliness facing her.
She found Curtis’s Instagram again. He had posted a picture of a Solo cup on his truck two days ago.Hey, how are you?she messaged him, feeling reckless and desperate. In the quiet, her heart thumped hard as she watched the message send and sit there.
Rilla picked upThe Scarlett Letterand tried to read.
Fifty pages later, there still had been no reply, and Rilla hobbled over to the grill to order lunch, a sick feeling stirring in the pit of her stomach every time she thought of the unanswered message. She huddled in a corner of the deck, under the eaves to keep out of the crisp wind, waiting for her order number to be called, when Ranger Dick Face came up the steps.
She took a step sideways to escape. Dick Face was thelastperson she wanted to see right now.
But he was already in front of her, smiling. “Hey Rilla. How is everything going?” he asked, with only a wisp of tightness in his jaw.
She pasted a smile on her face. “Great.”
“Yeah? You been staying out of trouble? Catching up on your schoolwork? Can’t have Thea’s baby sister being a dropout.” He laughed and scratched the bridge of his nose, gaze scanning the mostly empty deck around her.
God, did Thea telleveryoneher business? Even the guy she was competing with? Rilla inwardly groaned. “Um. I’m not—”
“You know. Most of your friends from the other night aren’t here anymore.”
A few people from HUFF had been fired after that first night, including the French boy she’d made out with. “I didn’t really—”
“When I have a problem with people in the Valley, it’s usually solved one of two ways.”
Titus called her order from behind the screen.
Rilla lifted her receipt. “My—”
