Page 60 of Wildfire
“Hi. I wanted to check that you were okay.” My eyebrow quirks. “Xander.”
That little gossip.
He’s as bad as Leon.
“I’m okay. It’s no big deal.” He nods, shuffling in place. I can’t imagine Xander reported that I needed checking on, since I wasn’t upset. “Why are you really here, Russ?”
His hand rubs the back of his neck, something I haven’t seen him do in a while.
You, sir, are nervous.
“I don’t know, Rory.” He sighs, and his hand reaches out to move my hair from my face. “I wanted to see you.”
I lean in toward him, the faint smell of sandalwood and vanilla hanging in the air. I watch the flicker of uncertainty cross his face before he takes a step closer to me. My voice lowers. “Are you jealous?”
“Of course I am.” He says it so candidly that it catches me a little off guard. “I sort of want to punch him and I don’t understand why.”
It takes every scrap of self-control not to throw myself at him. I’d love to push this, wind him up, see what he does. But jealousy is only fun when you can do something about it. “You don’t need to be jealous and you don’t need to punch him. Mainly because that’s silly, but also because you need this job, remember?”
“I do need this job.” He nods once, then twice like he’s having a debate in his head I can’t hear, and on the third nod, he takes a step away from the porch. “Do you want to go on a hike tomorrow?”
“I have to work.”
“Xander said he’ll swap with you so we can have the day off together.”
“When you say hike, do you mean hike hike? Or do you mean I complain while walking uphill to our spot and then we hang out in the sun?”
His dimples appear as he smiles, melting me from the inside out. “Our spot.”
“That’d be good, but, like, only if he doesn’t mind.”
“He doesn’t.” He takes another step away and I really, really wish he’d kiss me good night. “Good night, Rory. See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Russ.” He waits until I’m back in my cabin so I don’t have to watch him leave, like he does every time without fail.
Emilia’s drying her hair with a towel when I get back inside. She nods toward the door. “What’d I miss?”
“I think I’m having my main character moment.”
“Freaking finally,” she says, turning on her hair dryer.
Chapter NineteenRUSS
“YOU’VE GONE ROGUE, MY MAN,”JJ says proudly. “I support it.”
I hadn’t intended to start my day on a video call with JJ, but at this point, it can’t make things worse. Right? I didn’t mean to tell him everything, but for once it felt nice to choose to share because I’m excited about something.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, JJ,” I groan. “Faking confidence can only go so far. I’m supposed to be staying out of trouble; I’ve made this massive deal about how much I need this job and now I feel like a hypocrite.”
“This woman likes you, right…”
I massage the tension out of the back of my neck where it accumulates. “I think so. I might be wrong.”
“Nah, that wasn’t a question. This woman likes you and it doesn’t sound like you’re faking anything. You asked her to hang out with you today because you like her, too. Are you faking anything when you hang out alone?”
Thinking about it, the answer is easy. “No. I feel like I can be myself with her.”
“Listen, buddy,” JJ says, clearing his throat. “I know you’ve gotyour whole home life bag going on, or whatever is happening there, and I know you like to keep your head down. But don’t miss an opportunity to have fun and actually be happy because you’re too busy staring at the floor, trying to go unnoticed. You know you can always stay here if you need to avoid family drama until college restarts.”
