Page 206 of Out of Left Field

I stared in shock before I hurried after him. Was he right? Had I spent the last week doubting myself? Sure, I was critical. And wistful for skills I didn’t possess. And was super angry at myself for not lighting a video of Seth and Annalise correctly.

Shit. I had spent the week tearing myself down. In my head I was doing a self-assessment. A reset. But I went too far. “Ev, slow down! My legs are half as long as yours!” I had to jog to keep up. As usual.

He suddenly came to a stop. So sudden I ran right into him. “Oof! What’s wrong?” I removed myself from his muscular back—that I definitely didn’t find attractive—and stepped to the side to see where Everett was looking.

The road stretched on ahead of us, houses deep back from the road, but nothing else. No sheep blocking the road, no cows loose from their fences, and certainly no cars for as far as the eye could see.

“We’re lost.” He yanked out his phone and groaned. “I still don’t have any signal. Do you?”

My heart sank as I did the same, knowing full well I wouldn’t have better signal than he did. It was what we did—we got lost or stuck at every available opportunity. It was like we were cursed. “Nothing.” How lost could we be? We took two roads to the village. Although…everything kind of looked the same.

“I should have paid better attention.” He examined everything while pulling on his beard.

“There are two of us.” But I’d been so caught up in Everett. In our conversation. Maybe that’s why this kept happening. When we got together we became so consumed in each other we forgot everything else.

No, that couldn’t be it.

“Yeah, well, then both of us should have paid more attention. Better?” He shot me a look.

“Not really.”

A stronger wind whipped down the road causing me to take a step forward. I shivered.

“It’s getting colder.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “We need to find the hotel.”

“Let’s walk a ways. See if anything looks familiar. Maybe we’ll get signal back.” I took a step. Then another. But Everett didn’t let me go. And I didn’t shrug him off. A hum filled my chest. A glow.

“We’ll take it slow. That way we stay warm.”

“You mean you won’t walk faster than my short little legs can run?”

He chuckled, the vibrations moving through me, making me even warmer. “Yeah, something like that. Come on, Tink. Let’s have another of our famous adventures.”

2

EVERETT

We’ll take it slow. That way we stay warm. I would’ve smacked myself on the forehead if it wouldn’t have alerted Willa to my stupidity. Could I be any more obvious? Or cheesy?

Months ago I discovered something terrible. Monumentally bad. Life altering.

I was in love with Willa Cooper.

At first I just thought my dick had noticed her for the first time. She was a gorgeous woman after all. And we were close. We’d always been huggers. We touched. She sat in my lap like I was her personal chair.

If I was being honest, there were more than a handful of times over the years that I felt a pull. I wondered what a future would look like.

And then I always shoved that shit in a drawer where it belonged. Because Willa was one of the most important people in my life. The most important woman. My mom was right up there and would always hold this invisible spot above everything, but it was different. And of course my niece Rosie had my heart. But those relationships were very, very different.

Willa was Willa. My Willa. Even when we were apart. There was no one who knew me better—one of the biggest reasons I avoided her like crazy when I was at my lowest. I didn’t want her to see me like that.

I didn’t want to be seen. Because Willa would most certainly see me for exactly who I was and what I was avoiding.

As far as I was concerned there was no one smarter, kinder, sweeter, or better than Willa Cooper. I would not ruin the best thing that ever happened to me because my dick wanted more.

She deserved so much better than me.

Willa squinted at the sky. “We’re going in the right direction. The sun is on the right side of us.”