“Bullshit. That girl had sex hair if I’ve ever seen it.”
“We may have fooled around a bit.” My mouth quirked up. And that’s all I was going to say about that. Tyler and I were close, but I was pretty certain she wanted to hear about the details of my sex life about as much as I wanted to know about her and Brock’s.
I went into the explanation of how G had shown up in my cabin and all that had transpired between the two of us over the past few days. Thankfully, since this was my sister I was talking with, the flow of conversation didn’t slow down one bit though I could only sign shorthand with my left hand. After about ten minutes of explanation, I felt that my hand was sufficiently iced and I removed the bag, tossing it into the sink.
“When I told you to get out and meet people, I didn’t mean for you to shack up with the very first person that fell into your lap.” She frowned. “Tanner, you know nothing about this girl!” She raked her fingers through her wavy hair, tugging on it. “She breaks into your cabin, won’t tell you a thing about her past, and you fall right into bed with her. You can’t friggin’ fall for someone that you just met. It’s exactly like what Elsa said to Anna about Hans.”
I gave her a what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about look.
“You know, like in Disney’s Frozen.”
Ah, yeah. That jogged my memory and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Actually, Elsa says that Anna can’t marry someone she just met. So, you got it wrong.” Yeah, I was losing some masculinity points by knowing that, but Alex loved Disney movies and I loved proving my sister wrong.
She gave me the middle finger.
“I’m not in love with the girl. I’m not getting engaged for christ’s sake. We had a few good dates over the past few days and then fooled around a bit. Seems pretty normal if you ask me.” But I was kidding myself. For some stupid reason I really cared about this girl. More than I probably should so quickly. Yeah, I wasn’t in love, but I did feel things for G that were making me all fucked up inside.
“She could be a criminal. All that cash you found? What’s up with that?”
I shook my head. “No, I thought that too, at first, but she’s too skittish. And she’s got…” I stopped.
“Got what?”
“I noticed when we were fooling around, she’s got lots of scars. I think she was abused, Tyler.”My best guess at this juncture was a shitty foster home growing up. It made sense after the little she’d told me.
“Where is she even from? Where is she heading?” My sister cut off my thoughts.
“She’s from Canada.” My hand was painful as I signed, but the ice had helped some. I was damn lucky I didn’t break it and pissed as hell at myself for nearly wrecking my main means of communication. I should have known better.
Tyler’s head tossed back in a fit of laughter.
“What?” I shot her a glare. I didn’t understand what was so funny about that.
“No, she isn’t.” My sister shook her head.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know a Brooklyn accent when I hear one.”
Well, fuck. I rubbed the back of my neck. Yeah. I’d have no way of knowing that tidbit of information. I stood from the stool and stomped over to the sofa, slumping down into it, feeling like a fool.
“Maybe she just moved there.” But even I didn’t believe that. None of this came as a shock to me. I’d suspected that G wasn’t who she said she was. And yeah, maybe my sister was right that I shouldn’t be getting so close to a woman that I’d known for just a few days, but I couldn’t explain to her how it had felt like longer.
Time sometimes seemed to stand still on these mountains. Typically, that was my curse, but with G it had felt like a blessing.
Tyler came over and sat down on the sofa. “Listen. I’m happy that you were finally able to open yourself up again. That’s a huge step. I just want you to be careful.” Her eyes darted to the cushion. I followed her gaze and sitting there was G’s phone in the pale, pink case. Shit.
Before I could reach out and grab it for safekeeping, my sister beat me to the punch.
“Tyler, stop. You shouldn’t go snooping.” I went to reach for it, and Tyler jumped off the sofa, pulling the phone closer to her chest while I winced at the sting in my hand from the quick maneuver.
“What, so it’s fine for her to go snooping through your stuff, but you can’t look into her?”
That was exactly the point. It wasn’t fine that G went snooping through my home. Which was exactly why we shouldn’t be digging through G’s. But I was in too much pain and too exhausted to try and fight Tyler on it. After a few minutes of her digging through the phone, my sister turned and set it down on the table behind the sofa.
“Interesting,” she said, looking straight at me.
“What?”
“It’s a burner. One of those cheap prepaid smartphones. She doesn’t have a single contact on the phone, other than you. No texts, other than to you. No personal apps. No email. No photos.” Tyler gave me an I-told-you-so expression.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter, because I’ve scared her off for good, I’m sure.” I crossed my arms over my chest, sulking. I didn’t mean to terrify her; I just didn’t want her to see me break down. Whomever she was running from, I knew he had to be bad. “She probably thinks I’m a monster.” I shook my head.
My sister’s lips tightened, and she surveyed me for a long moment. “You have got to stop being so hard on yourself. You aren’t a threat to anyone but yourself. Not once have you ever hurt someone else other than…” she stopped herself from finishing when she saw my face fall.
Other than the time in school when I raged out on those boys who cornered me. The one kid I knocked out wound up in the hospital. He lost an eye. Over me. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I didn’t want to think about it.
Plenty of therapy later, they’d tried to convince me that it wasn’t my fault. That I did what anyone else would have done in that situation. I was getting beaten. I just defended myself. But still, twenty years later, I couldn’t shake what I’d done to him.
Not to mention my sister was also forgetting the biggie.
“What about Alex?” I asked, my jaw clenching to try and keep my shit together. “What about…” I couldn’t finish the rest of that sentence.
“That was not your fault. You had every right to be furious with Alex.”
I couldn’t talk about it anymore.
Needing to escape, I collected the broom and dustpan. As I began to clean up the mess in my bathroom, I thought about my sister’s words. She was wrong. It was all my fault. It may have not been by my hand, but I was still the triggering force. We’d been fighting so badly during the building of the house and the renovations of the other cabins. I was…obsessed. I neglected her needs.
So much so that she’d been having coffee twice a week with the town’s favorite cop, Deputy Miller, just for some companionship. She gutted me when she fessed up, and I told her to get out.
Like I’d done to G.
And it was the biggest mistake I’d ever made in my life.