“I heard,” he says, and then he steps back and slams his bedroom door.
When I hear him blasting Ashnikko’s Slumber Party, I know we’ve taken three steps forward … and about a hundred steps back.
“Bridge of the gods,” I murmur, looking at my phone as Lumen guns her pretty pink sportscar and I end up plastered against the front passenger seat. Sounds like the title of a dope ass book, huh? But it’s not: it’s the name of the trailhead we’re looking for.
“Can you slow down, please?” Danyella grinds out from the back, leaning forward to glare at her friend. “I know my car is stuck at thirty miles an hour, but I know for certain that yours isn’t glued to ninety.”
Lumen rolls her eyes, but she slows down thankfully.
“This is our exit,” I say, just before the GPS chimes in. “Apparently, it’s easy to overshoot the parking lot for the trailhead and end up on the bridge.” I lean forward, so eager to see Maxine now that my grounding is over that I could spit. I’ve tried to sneak out a few times in the last four weeks, but to no avail. Tess has been all freaking over me, and Parrish hasn’t been of any help.
He’s been even more pouty, even more annoying than usual. And Chasm? Well, Chasm seems just fine, back to normal, like nothing at all ever happened between us. I can’t decide which one of them I hate more right now—the one who’s acting like a spoiled brat or the one that’s acting like nothing matters. Both are equally infuriating.
“Who drives three hours to hike a trail anyway?” Lumen murmurs, just as we zoom past the parking lot, and I sigh.
“You just passed it,” I say as Danyella lets out an exaggerated sigh from the back seat. The more I get to know the girls, the more obvious it is that their constant back and forth is part of their charm. They love to hate each other, and it shows. Kind of like you and Parrish? I think, but then … he won’t let there be anything else between us.
“We’ll have to turn around then, won’t we?” Lumen quips, dressed head to toe in some fancy Kardashian-brand outfit. Frankly, I can’t tell any of the Jenners or Kardashians apart, nor do I care to. But Lumen loves them. Danyella says they taint popular culture with unrealistic body standards, and are so greedy that the next Christmas Carol remake that comes out should feature a Kardashian-Jenner instead of Ebenezer Scrooge.
“We now have to cross the entire bridge,” Danyella murmurs, sighing as we pull up to the toll booth and Lumen pulls forward enough that it’s Danyella that has to hand her debit card out to pay the toll. Both Lumen and I have super strict parents: we’re supposed to be playing tennis at the country club then spending the night with Danyella. Anyway, she’s the only who can use her debit card without a parent scrutinizing the charge and asking where she’s been.
After we’ve paid our two dollars, we continue on past the booth and start across a metal bridge. On either side of us, Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge stretches as far as the eye can see. I find myself plastered to the window with my mouth hanging open. I’m not an outdoorsy type of person, but I can appreciate a view.
Danyella and Lumen meanwhile grew up in the Pac Northwest so they just sort of accept this as normal.
“Let me pick a song for once,” Danyella complains, trying to reach past Lumen to grab her phone. We’ve spent the last three hours listening to Yung Baby Tate. Mostly, we’ve spent the last three hours listening to the same song on repeat—“Eenie Meenie”—to the point that it feels like my head’s about to explode.
“So we can listen to Italian opera?” Lumen spits out, pretending to gag. “No thank you. I’m driving, so I get to decide on the music.”
“This is hardly music,” Danyella mumbles, sighing as she leans back and gives up the fight. We’ve been over this argument already, about twenty times.
“Thank you both for bringing me here,” I say, turning the volume down carefully and doing my best to break the tension. Lumen whips a sharp U-turn at the end of the bridge, and I swear to god, my life flashes before my eyes.
“You’re welcome,” she says, giving me a cheerful, sparkly smile. It took me through most of last week to realize that she actually is into me, and is actively courting me. I’m flattered and confused, but I’m rolling with it. Chasm refuses to admit he’s into me; Parrish adamantly denies. So fuck both of them anyway. “Anything for you, of course.”
“Mostly, thank you for not asking us to go on the hike with you,” Danyella adds, and I laugh.
“I’m not much of a hiker either, but my sister’s practically frothing at the mouth to get me on a trail with her. She thinks a good hike can cure any ailment: mental, physical, or spiritual.” I shrug my shoulders, but in reality, I’m excited. My stomach hurts with happy nerves at the thought of seeing my sister again. It feels like it’s been forever. With Tess hovering over my shoulder all the time, I’ve barely even been able to talk to her since the stupid talk show. Speaking of … “Did you guys see that one of the Cortez sisters is missing?” I ask, but Lumen gives me a look that says duh, I’m up on all the goss, girl, I know.
“Her grandmother thinks she ran away; she pleaded with her to come home on yesterday’s episode.” Lumen jerks the wheel and sends us flying partially over the curb into the parking lot for the trailhead; I can already see Maxx’s Jeep Gladiator waiting and my heart lurches strangely in my chest.
Gamer Girl crushing on sister’s boyfriend. Not a promising tagline. I shut that thought down quick.
“That’s terrible; I hope nothing’s happened to her,” Danyella muses, but mostly it’s just celebrity gossip that nobody cares about.
“Holy shit, is that really Maxx Wright?” Lumen breathes as we fly into a pair of parking spaces (Lumen couldn’t park in a single space if her life depended on it) and poor Maxx is forced to hop out of the way to avoid being run over. “I mean, he was hot in high school, but now? Damn.”
“Girl, you’re so thirsty you’re about to die from dehydration.” Danyella rolls down her window to wave at Maxx. Sometimes I forget that they know him, that until this year, he went to school with basically everyone I know. “Hey Maxx, how are you?” she asks as Lumen checks her lip gloss in the mirror on the back of her visor.
“I’m great,” he says with a big grin, folding his arms on the edge of the window and leaning in. “Hey Lumen.”
“Hey cutie,” she says, and then flips the visor back up. “Take care of my girlfriend while you’re on the trails today, okay? I don’t want her eaten by a cougar or kidnapped by the Seattle Slayer or anything.”
“Oh, don’t worry. The Slayer only chooses victims from the Seattle metro area.” Maxx says nothing about cougars, standing up and then opening my door for me. Shit. But not shit on the cougars part, shit on how freaking cute he is.
“We’re going to hit Portland while you guys are walking in the heat for no reason whatsoever,” Lumen continues, and I can’t help but laugh. Maxx raises a brow, tucking his hands into the back pockets of his fancy hiking pants. Maxine told me that he bought her a pair, and that they cost almost two hundred freaking dollars. For pants. He might not be ‘rich’ like the other Whitehall Prep students, but the Wrights are loaded when compared to the Banks. “Give us a warning when you’re about an hour out from the lot.”