Lindsey chose that moment to utterly betray me. "He's in love with her."
My jaw dropped open and I stared at my now former best friend. "LINDSEY! What the hell? You don't know that."
"Oh, please." She rolled her eyes at me. "You know it as well as I do. Or you would if you'd give the guy a fucking chance."
Dad sat down again. "Rune, the truth. Is there any chance that this guy actually does have feelings for you? Like, this wasn't just a one-night stand?"
“It wasn’t a one-night stand," I muttered. "I was in Ketchikan a week before the wedding. I met two of his uncles and a cousin. We spent a good bit of time together, actually."
"And?" Dad said, obviously not about to let me off the hook that easily.
I sighed, covering my face. "Yes, there's a good chance he has feelings of some sort."
"And what about you?" Mom asked. “You don't?"
"Oh, she does," Lindsey said, in yet another betrayal. "She just refuses to admit it even to herself. Duncan is a great guy. And while I wasn’t there for that conversation," and here she glared at me, "I would wager dollars to donuts that our girl Rune here dropped the bomb on him that she was pregnant, told him she didn't want anything from him, and then hung up on him. And probably blocked him."
"We're not friends anymore, Lindsey Snelling,” I hissed. "Done. D-O-N-E. Done."
She just laughed. "You're just mad because you know I'm right, and I've been right from the beginning. My guess is Duncan Badd is pissed all the way off. I wouldn't be totally shocked if he just showed up here."
Ding…Dong.
Lindsey spluttered a laugh. "No! There's no fucking way. If that's him, I should get an award of some kind."
Dad rose to his feet. "I'll get it. We're not expecting anyone or any deliveries, so I don't know who it could be."
Trembling, I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, refusing to look toward the door, even though I could see it from here.
I heard the latch click as Dad pressed it, and then the rattle of the storm door as the air pressure tugged it against the frame.
"Can I help you?" Dad's voice said.
"Uh, yes, sir. Is…is this the Rigby residence?" That voice.
No.
NO!
He's here?
NOW?
I glared at Lindsey, feeling nearly homicidal at this point. "You did this!"
She held up her hands, eyes wide. "I didn't! I swear to god, Rune! I didn't call him, I didn't text him, email him, Snapchat, TikTok, nothing. I didn't contact him in any way, shape, or form, directly or indirectly. I swear to fucking god."
Mom frowned at me. "Well? Go greet him, Rune."
"Hell no." I shot to my feet and quite literally ran out of the house into the backyard, fully aware of how immature and childish I was being.
I went to my secret hideout, the place I've gone my whole life when things got to be too much; it's not much of a hideout, to be honest, but it's my safe place. It's a spot where a six-foot-high retaining wall made of giant boulders near the back of our property meets the living wall made of impenetrable shrubbery, creating a triangular nook shaded by a nearby massive spreading oak tree. A large boulder protruded from the top of the retaining wall to create a little roof so I could hang out under it even in the rain. I even get Wi-Fi out here.
I resumed my knee-hugging huddle, feeling ridiculous, overwhelmed, panicked, scared, angry—at myself, at him, at us, at the world.
I heard feet on the grass overhead. "Go away."
"Rune?" Duncan's voice—it shot straight to my heart, rocking my gut and rattling my already frayed nerves.
