Finished, I stayed against the tile wall panting softly, hoping Cora or my dad hadn’t accidentally heard me. I doubted it, but it was a possibility. What’s wrong with you?
I thought to myself. Are you trying to get caught?
As I began to soap off and wash my hair, part of me wanted to indulge in selfish thoughts about how unfair everything was. It was unfair that my dad married Reid’s mom right after that night at the party. It was unfair that, despite being stepbrother and stepsister, he still wanted me and loved to push my buttons mercilessly. And worst of all, it was unfair that I loved it and wanted him just as badly.
But I couldn’t let myself think like that. The world was unfair in so many other ways, and if my worst problem was that I wanted my stepbrother, well, life could have been harder. I’d figure it out, learn to deal, whatever. I wasn’t going to be one of those whiney girls that kept obsessing about her relationship with some guy. It couldn’t happen, even if it felt too good. I didn’t even know what I wanted or what I could want, and besides, it was Reid. He was an asshole and had probably slept with half the girls in town by now.
Done with the shower, I shut off the water and began to dry off. I walked across the hall wrapped in a towel and got changed into comfortable clothes back in my room. I walked back out into the living room and noticed that dad and Cora had left.
“Hello?” I called out, but there was no answer.
With a frown, I went back upstairs and knocked on Reid’s bedroom door. No answer there, either. I cracked it open and peeked inside, but he wasn’t inside.
I went back downstairs and checked the clock on the kitchen stove. It was seven thirty and the sun had dipped dangerously low in the sky. The clouds were red, refracted through the upper atmosphere, as the earth completed another full spin.
I paced the kitchen for a minute, not sure what to do. I was worried that Reid hadn’t come home yet. It was extremely unusual that he’d be out in the woods after dark, and there was probably only a half hour of sunlight left at best. If he was guiding, something had to have gone wrong, otherwise he would never put his clients in any danger.
Resolved, I jogged upstairs and threw on some hiking gear. I tied my hair back in a tight, wet bun, and went back downstairs. I grabbed my boots and pushed open the back door, sitting down on a chair to tie my boots onto my feet.
My heart was pounding in my chest. Something had happened to Reid. Something really bad had happened to him, otherwise he would have called or shown up or something. Cora had been right earlier, and now I was actually scared. What if it had something to do with the weird stuff Lindsey kept mentioning? Also, Reid definitely was into some dangerous activities, like climbing. What if he had gone climbing without telling anyone and had gotten hurt?
Terror and worry was beginning to overwhelm me. I should have called the police, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. In fact, I was so far in my own head that I didn’t even notice the figure approaching me until he was practically standing in front of me.
“Where are you going, college girl?”
I looked up with a start. “Reid!”
He grinned down at me. “The one and only.”
He was drenched in sweat and was breathing heavy, but he seemed perfectly okay. He was wearing his usual hiking clothes and had his pack strapped to his back, which meant he probably really had been out in the woods somewhere.
“Where have you been?”
“Out guiding.”
“You stayed out this late?”
He shrugged off his pack and sat down across from me. “Yeah. The guys wanted to.”
He began to strip off his boots.
“Your clients wanted to stay out this late? That’s pretty dangerous.”
“I needed the money,” he said, distracted.
“Right, but still. Why would you put up with such a risk?”
“Lots of money.” He pulled off one boot and began on the other.
“Why would they want to stay out this late, though? I mean, what’s there to do?”
“Hunt,” he grunted as he pulled off the other. He leaned back and rubbed his foot, his eyes closed.
“Who were these guys?”
His eyes snapped open. “What’s with the questions?”
“You worried me and your mom, that’s all.”
“I told her that I was out guiding.”
“But you’re never this late.”
For a second, I thought I saw anger flash across his face. Instead, he stood up and sighed, clearly too exhausted to try and fight back. Without saying anything, he walked around me and went inside the house.
I quickly pulled off my boots, not ready to let him get away with it that easily. I found him sitting at the kitchen table eating cold leftover pasta and drinking a beer.