Page 82 of Bad For Me (Rock Canyon, Idaho 5)

“You know, staring at a phone does not make it ring any sooner,” Gemma said. She had no idea how much her words hurt.

After Caroline left that morning, Callie had lay in bed with Ratchet, watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother until Gracie had called to remind her that they were meeting today to finalize the invitations for Gemma’s baby shower. Callie had tried to tell them she didn’t feel well enough to go out, but they had just moved the planning to her house.

“I think I like this one better.” Gracie pointed to an invitation with a large brown owl and a border of fall leaves. “We can print the words inside the leaves, and it would be super-cute.”

“I like it,” Gemma said.

“Yeah, it’s great.” Callie got up to make some more coffee. She heard Gracie whisper something to Gemma but couldn’t make out the words. It didn’t matter, though. As much as she cared about them, she didn’t want to get stuck talking about her personal problems. Gemma knew a little about her addiction, but Callie had never breathed a word to Gracie, just in case she decided to open her big mouth.

Now, it almost didn’t matter. Caroline knew; Everett knew. Most likely Everett had told his brother, who had probably told Valerie. Eventually, the whole town would find out that Callie was a recovering alcoholic, and what if they grew curious? She was actually surprised no one had ever thought to Google her. It was one of the reasons she had kept such a low profile; if she didn’t draw attention, people wouldn’t become curious about her and stumble upon the incident with Tristan.

After filling up the water basin of her Keurig, she replaced the lid and pressed the on button. While she waited for the water to warm up, she stared out the window at the gray sky. The wind rattled her windows, and her walls groaned with the force of it. Storms rolled through pretty steadily in Rock Canyon, especially from August to November.

Callie saw a flash of white coming up the road, and she stopped breathing. As the beat-up truck pulled in next to her Jeep, Callie ran a hand over her messy braid, wondering if she had time to run back to the bathroom and clean up a little.

“Did I hear a car?” Gracie called from the living room.

“Yeah, I think they made a wrong turn.” Callie walked toward the door, grabbing her coat off the hook. “I’m just going to see what’s going on. I’ll be right back.”

“Be careful. You don’t want to end up like those people in that movie Wrong Turn,” Gracie called.

Callie opened the door and found Everett halfway up the stairs.

“Hi.” She shrugged into her jacket and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Hey.” He stopped at the edge of the porch. “Do you have company?”

“Yeah, Gemma and Gracie. I’m helping them plan Gemma’s baby shower.”

“That’s . . . fun.” He shoved his hands into his pockets as the silence stretched between them.

“I’m sorry I ran out on you last night.”

“I can’t expect you to bare your soul to me after only a few weeks. But I need you to believe me when I tell you—I wanted you so bad last night, it killed me to let you walk away.”

“I know. But it was stupid to put you in that position. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I think you’ve been hurt. And I would do anything to know the what and who of that, but I can be patient. Just . . . please, Callie, don’t walk away from me. Don’t shut me out again, okay? Because I just want to be close to you.”

Suddenly, his arms were there, pulling her against his chest. Callie breathed Everett in, wrapping her own arms around him, and all the stress she’d been carrying since the night before melted.

“I’m sorry,” she said, closing her eyes.

“Me too.” He kissed the top of her head, his breath ruffling the strands.

“Aw!”

Callie and Everett pulled apart just enough to find Gracie and Gemma watching them from the doorway, identical grins of mischief on their faces.

Callie glared at her friends but introduced them anyway. “Everett, these are my friends, Gemma Bowers and Gracie McAllister.”

“I think you were freshmen at Rock Canyon High when I was a senior.” Everett broke away from her to shake their hands.

“Oh, so you were in the same grade as Eric Henderson,” Gracie said.

“Yeah, Eric’s a good guy,” he said. Gracie snorted as Gemma and Callie grinned. “Am I missing something?”

“No, it’s just . . . you called Eric Henderson a good guy, and I vomited a little in my mouth.” Gracie covered her mouth and pretended to gag again. “See? It happened again.”