Havoc:Mayhem Series #4(19)

I'm about to spin around and save this serpentine storm the trouble of  murdering him, when the forest suddenly clears enough for me spot it-a  set of old wooden stairs leading up to an old wooden porch attached to  an old wooden cabin.

"Thank God!" I shout, doing a final mad dash through twisting sheets of  rain. My boots slap one-two-three up the porch stairs, and I throw  myself into the door, twisting the knob and practically tumbling inside.  I double over with my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. And  when I finally do catch it, I find Mike in the same position. Doubled  over, hands on his knees.

Only, he's laughing. His entire body shakes with it, and when he peeks  up at me and sees the indignant expression on my face, he laughs even  harder.

"I should have left you out there," I say through a sternly suppressed  smile, and any last sense of composure leaves him as he laughs  hysterically.

"I never swam with a manatee!" Mike laugh-shouts, making fun of the  frantic things I cried as I ran through the monsoon, watching my life  flash before my eyes. "I never learned to water-ski! I never hugged a  koala!"

The sounds he's making no longer even sound like laughter. He's howling, coughing, crying, and I can't help laughing too.

"Stop making fun of me!"

I playfully chuck his hat at him, and he stands upright to catch it. "I never ate pizza in Italy!" he teases.

"Pizza in New York!" I correct, and Mike grins with streams of rain  trickling down his happy face. He's soaked, from the ends of his hair to  the laces of his boots, and I'm not in better shape.

"We're going to catch pneumonia," I warn, but Mike just shakes his head and chuckles.

"You're going to live to cuddle a koala someday, Hailey, I promise."

He takes off his drenched hoodie and hangs it on a wall hook to dry,  revealing the black T-shirt he has on underneath, and then he sits on  the floor and stretches out his long legs, watching the rain pummel the  forest outside.

The cabin is empty, save for about ten years' worth of dirt and dust. I  swipe my shoe over a filthy spot on the wooden floor, and then I sit  down too. "How long do you think it's going to rain?"                       
       
           



       

Mike pulls his phone out of his pocket like it's going to tell him the answer. "No idea."

"No service?"

"None." He leans back on the palms of his hands, and I crisscross my legs.

"Do you think everybody else is getting soaked too?" I ask, and Mike chuckles.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Rowan had a popup tent and a space heater in that backpack of hers."

If she doesn't, I'd bet good money that Danica is not going to be happy  when we get back, but I keep that little prophecy to myself. I'm sure  Mike is well aware.

"You've really never had New York pizza?" he asks, glancing over at me.  Rain pounds against the roof and batters the dusty windows, but Mike  sits near the open door of the cabin, content to cross one ankle over  the other and talk to me about pizza.

"I've never been to New York at all," I confess. I've been to, like,  three states. Indiana, where I'm from. Virginia, where I am now.  Delaware, where my family vacationed sometimes when I was a kid. And if  you want to count the drive-through states, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and  Maryland, I guess you could call that six, even though they all looked  the same to me-long highways and wooded rest stops.

"You're not missing much," Mike says. "The state is okay, but . . ." He  cups his hand over his mouth and whispers, "Minnesota has better pizza."

"Minnesota?" I laugh, and Mike sits up and begins messing with his phone.

"Look," he says, holding it out for me to see a picture of a slice of  pizza. I take the phone from him, and he says, "This is the best pizza  I've ever had in my entire life. This place has all sorts of toppings,  like, you can even get potato chips, Hailey. On your pizza. But this  prosciutto . . ." He closes his eyes. "This is why I won't do U.S. tours  unless we do a show near Minneapolis."

Laughing, I ask, "Are you serious?"

His brown eyes pop back open, amused at my skepticism. "Dead serious.  I'm pretty sure Shawn even put it in our contract with Mosh Records."

I hand his phone back and say, "I'd have to get the potato chips. I don't eat prosciutto."

"You don't eat prosciutto?" he gasps, like he's offended on its behalf.

"I don't eat meat. I'm a vegetarian."

Mike's brows slam together, his jaw hanging open and his eyes drilled into mine. "You . . ."

"Don't eat meat."

"You don't . . ."

"Eat meat."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not," I assure him, trying not to laugh.

"But you're a farmer!"

"My parents are farmers," I correct, and Mike stares back out the doorway of the cabin, clearly disturbed.

"I've been friends with all kinds of people, but . . ." He looks over at  me with exaggerated disgust on his face. "A vegetarian?"

I laugh, and he has the decency to pretend to be pushed when I bump my  fist into his shoulder. "And here I thought we were BFFs."

"That was before I knew the truth about you, Hailey Harper."

"Whatever, Mike Madden. If I can deal with the way you constantly drum  on everything, you can deal with my aversion to prosciutto."

His fingers stop drumming on the floorboards of the cabin. "I do not drum on everything."

"You're drumming right now!" I argue, pointing to his other hand, and Mike starts laughing. He flexes his fingers.

"It's a drummer thing. I can't help it."

"It's fine," I say, and by fine, I mean cute. But cute is forbidden, and fine is . . . fine.

"Danica hates it," Mike says, and I roll my eyes at the rain.

"Danica hates everything."

Me, hiking, secondhand clothes, puppies, rainbows-

"At least she likes prosciutto," Mike jokes, and my spine stiffens.

"Sounds like you're perfect for each other."

"Hm," Mike hums, and I can sense him staring at me, probably wondering  why such a harsh tone possessed my voice all of a sudden, but I don't  dare look at him. I try not to question my sudden shift in mood, but I'm  pretty sure I'll find the answer if I turn my head, if I search his  eyes, if I let myself really look.                       
       
           



       

"The rain's letting up," I say, pushing to my feet and walking to the  doorway. I step out onto the porch, listening to the last of the rain  patter against the wooden roof and the dying leaves and the  soaked-through earth. The scent of it wraps itself around me and nips  all the way through three layers of wet clothes.

"I could live with cheese pizza," Mike's voice says from back inside the  cabin. I turn to look at him, but I don't know what I expect to see. He  finishes pulling his hoodie on, pushes his hat back onto my head as he  walks past me, and leads me back to the pond.

Back to Danica.





Chapter 13




The walk back to real life is quiet, and dark, and wet. Even after the  clouds begin to clear, the shadow of them hangs over and inside and  around me. Mike helps me traverse the parts of the forest designed to  devour five-foot-tall country girls, but we don't say much. We just  walk, and walk, and walk. I had no idea we'd traveled this far, but by  the time we get back to the clearing, the blister on my pinky toe is  throbbing against my boot.

Rowan takes off running the moment she sees us, her wavy blonde hair  even frizzier than mine. "I thought you were dead!" she shouts as she  closes the distance between us, catching Mike in a hug, pulling away to  inspect him, and then squeezing me to death. "How are you not dead?!"

"We found a cabin," Mike says, and Rowan pulls away to look at me. Her  blue eyes flit up to Mike's cap on my head, and then they dart back  down.

"A cabin?" She turns her chin to question Mike, and he nods.

"What about you?" Mike asks. "How are you so dry?"

"Oh, that blanket I brought is waterproof on the inside. You just fold it inside out and-"

When Mike starts laughing, I can't help smiling.

"I told you she brought a tent!" Mike says, and I hold in a laugh at Rowan's confused expression.

"But the real question is, did she bring a space heater?"

"The waterproof side of the blanket is thermal . . ." Rowan says, and  Mike chuckles and wraps his arm around her shoulder, leading us back to  the platform on the water. It probably isn't the smartest idea to be  standing on a steel structure right after a storm, but the sun is  fighting to push the clouds away, and who am I to tell a bunch of rock  stars what to do?