“So why are we here?” he asked, and she shrugged, kicking her feet.
“I come here a lot. Figured we were friends so I could share it with ya.”
“Do all your friends know?”Please say no. If she said ‘no’, it would mean he was special to the first person in a long time.
“They know I got a spot here in the woods, but we usually hang out in more ‘conventional’ places.” Her shoulders rose and fell. “Ain’t gonna force ’em to be where they didn’t wanna be.”
Calum nodded, but what could he say? He could say nothing. He didn’t have friends who cared about any of his secrets. Even Kyle didn’t. All the guys cared about was what trouble they’d get into and how to run from the cops. But there was Rett, sharing another secret with him. Instead of speaking, he looked around at the woods surrounding them. A rusted-over truck sat in a distant cluster of trees. Just beyond that was a mobile home.
Even through the distance, the sight screamed of abandonment.
Calum hesitated. Her judgment would be worse than Uncle Charles’s. She was someone he had no connection to. Nothing but their secrets and the moment hidden together so far above the earth. Charles was family. He had to care about Calum. Rett, though… She had no obligation. Yet she cared.
Her brows rose when he pulled the box from his pocket. He’d managed to sneak it through security with him, and he hadn’twanted to touch the last of his stash before that moment. But he felt it was the right time to show Rett who he really was. What his family had to deal with. She watched him closely without saying a word. He listened to the water slipping along rocks, soft splashes from fish. Birds called out in the trees. One hopped along a branch overhead. Rett stayed quiet even as he took the first drag from the joint. He held it out to her with a curl of his lip.
“Wanna try?”
Judge me. Get it over with. Be as disappointed in me as everyone else in my life.
“Was waitin’ for ya to ask.”
He froze when she took it from him, her fingers brushing against his. His voice was challenging when he asked, “Well, why didn’tyou?”
“Don’t you know, Cal,” she began before inhaling the smoke, “it’s rude to help yourself to someone else’s pot?”
She exhaled slowly and drew in another drag. He took the joint back and thought that maybe there was more to Rett Cox than he originally thought. And whatever else she was might be something he could love.
seven
Rett
DANCING WITH CALUM THAT night had filled Rett with something indescribable, something full of heat. Her belly had twisted itself into knots as he placed his hand in hers, tightening when he took his place behind her. His hands burned against her skin, and she could scarcely breathe with each sway of their hips together. She didn’t drink that night, but she felt drunker than ever before as she’d walked him home at four in the morning.
She thought nothing of taking him to her tree a week later. Of sharing a joint as they watched the river below. It felt natural to sit with him on that wide branch, to stare at him while he examined their surroundings. When the joint was gone, he stubbed it out on the bottom of his shoe, dropping the remnants back into the cigarette box. It wasn’t the first time she’dwitnessed someone smoking pot—old man Wilson had a patch of marijuana growing at the back of his field, and everyone knew it. Everyone had harvested enough at some point in their lives.
It wasn’t her first time partaking, but it felt different with Calum.
“You’re staring.”
“Makin’ you uncomfortable?”
He grinned and shook his head, hair catching on the bark. His eyes fluttered shut as he turned his face to the sun overhead. “Nah, too high to be uncomfortable.”
“When’d you start smoking?” she asked, and he cracked open an eye.
“Not too long ago. My friend back home told me I’d like it, and he was right. It calms my mind.”
“Your mama know?”
His face closed off. Rett lowered herself to lie on her back, staring at the canopies overhead. A steady thumping—rubber soles against the tree trunk—echoed in the air. She closed her eyes and focused on the heat of the sun, the birds squawking in the trees. Anything but the way she’d caused him to slam his walls back into place. She hated seeing him like that, as if he was the same boy who’d originally arrived in Oak Creek.
“She knows.”
Rett swallowed and nodded, grimacing when her long hair tangled in the bark. Sitting up, she smiled at him, though there was no humor. “Sorry. I never been homesick before, so I don’t know what makes it worse for you.”
He stared at her with eyes so deep, so richly brown, but he didn’t say anything. After a moment, he pulled a cigarette from its box and lit it with his hot-pink lighter. She shook her head when he offered the cigarette to her. Smoking pot was one thing. Nicotine was another. Rett watched him exhale the smoke, hishead leaning against the trunk, looking beautiful in the sunlight streaming through the leaves over their heads.
After an hour and two more cigarettes, she scooted closer to Calum. He stared at where their knees pressed together, and her heart pounded with the contact. Through the denim, she could feel his body heat—or maybe it was her imagination running wild. She drew in a deep breath, and his gaze cut to her face as if he was waiting for her to speak. Instead, she dropped her glasses to the ground, twisted herself, and flung one of her legs over the branch. She hung in place by her hands for a moment, staring up at him, then let go. He shouted, scrambling for her hands, but she was already plunging into the river below.
