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I should be pissed.

Running off when Bron is still somewhere at large has all the warning bells going off in my head. It fuels my desperation, my gut deep anxiety to press the gas to the floor.

But I’m not driving, and while Van is over every speeding limit, it’s not fast enough.

“What if she’s not there?” I blurt as he bypasses a Honda with an angry woman behind the wheel who flips him off.

“She is,” he says, changing lanes and speeding up to pass a truck. “It’s the only place she has left to go.”

He’s not wrong, I suppose.

“What if she doesn’t want to see me?” I blurt without thinking.

“You don’t believe that,” he counters without taking his eyes off the road.

I do ... and I don’t. I don’t want to believe it, but how can I expect her to still love me after what happened to her? How is she going to look at me without seeing Bron?

“What’s the plan?” I ask, needing a distraction from the spiraling whirlpool of my thoughts.

“We make sure she’s okay and then I strangle her.”

Despite the tightening in my chest, I chuckle. “I mean after. Let’s say it all goes well and she’s happy to see us, what then? Do we leave her there and return to Jefferson?”

Van snorts a derisive laugh. “I am not leaving her. In fact, she is never leaving my sights again. Her ass is getting cuffed to me. I will go fullHuman Centipedeif necessary.”

I peek at him, horrified and disgusted. “Jesus.”

Unperturbed, my friend shrugs. “I warned her. I told her she better be in bed when I woke up. She promised she wouldn’t leave again. She broke that promise and my trust. The consequences are her fault.”

I’m not touching that. That’s a conversation between them, although restraining her to the bed between us, open and accessible to use, does sound tempting.

“I think we need a plan before we have this conversation with her,” I shift in my seat as Van stomps on the brakes, swerves around a transport and changes lanes all without a single signal. “What exactly are we planning to do if she decides she doesn’t want to go back? What are we prepared to do?” I correct.

“I’m moving into her yard,” he states without hesitation. “I have a tent.”

“I’m being serious.” I sigh.

“So am I.” He spares me a fleeting side glance. “I’ll travel to Jefferson for work when I need to. I’ll rent out the house. Lauren knows about me and Everly, so I don’t have to hide anything.”

“Jesus, you really thought this out.” I try not to show my envy, but who am I kidding? I’m jealous as fuck.

“I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to be with her. While I’m pissed about how she went about it, this decision works out great because there’s nothing stopping us from being with her now. We can chase her butt-ass naked through the woods and not a soul will know about it.”

I chuckle. “Red Hollow is still part of Jefferson,” I remind him. “We’d still have to go into Jefferson for—”

“That is a problem for later. Let’s find Everly. We’ll work out the what ifs after I’ve tanned her backside.”

He makes it all sound so simple.

And maybe it is.

Maybe I am overcomplicating things by overthinking it like I always do. Since the carpet was pulled out from under me at sixteen, there isn’t a moment where I’m not second guessing everything I do. No action that isn’t carefully overanalyzed.

Spontaneity never worked out well in my favor.

I can’t pretend that’s changed. I’m still stressed that Everly will tell us to leave. That she deliberately left to avoid us because the last few days hadn’t meant anything to her, exceptsex. That made the most sense given that she left without a word. You can love someone and still not actually want to be with them.