Page 43 of Into the Mountains (Blue Grove Mountain #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY

ELIAS

T onight has been filled with emotions heavier than I care to deal with at the moment.

It’s not often I talk about my parents in more detail than me cutting ties at eighteen.

I usually don’t go past that, but something about everything that was shared tonight, I felt like I should at least be honest.

Standing next to the fire with Charlotte staring back at me, I feel a piece of me click back into place, but there’s still more work to do. “I’m sorry.”

She furrows her brow like she’s unsure why I’m apologizing to her. The dirt puffs out from underneath my knees as I kneel down in front of her. I gather her cold hands into mine and kiss her knuckles.

“With everything I talked about tonight, telling our story, my story, I realized I never actually said sorry for what I did. I was a stupid, idiotic, bumbling, freshman in college who was an idiot to listen to his friends. And I don’t regret listening to them, because it brought me back to you all those years ago.

” He softly tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and traces the line of my jaw all the way to my chin, goosebumps cascading on my already chilled skin.

“I’m just sorry I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning. ”

“I’m sorry too.”

It’s my turn to give her a questioning look. “I’m sorry I kept you away.”

“You had every right—”

“Please,” she begs. “I didn’t have to be so cruel to you. You were, too, but getting back at you by never seeing me again even when my parents died wasn’t me. It’s not who I am and while I am glad I pushed you away so you could meet the love of your life and have Ethan, I am sorry.”

“You’re right.”

“Hold on, let me grab my phone,” she jokes.

“I did meet the love of my life and we had an amazing life together for as much time as we were allowed. But I think I’m learning that it’s okay to have two loves.

No matter what you might think, I did love you then.

I didn’t exactly tell you at the best time, but I did.

That summer was everything to me. You were everything. ”

“You were everything to me too.” My gut tells me there’s more that she’s not allowing herself to say, but I don’t dwell on it. She will tell me when she is ready. Whenever it may be.

“So, when we go back tomorrow…” I let the question hang in the air the way Ethan holds Sable’s cat toy, waiting for the claws to strike, pulling it down to its demise.

“We get to work,” she says matter-of-factly. I practically forgot about the expansion during this trip. The whole reason we’re out here.

“And we get along while doing it?”

“While doing work, yes,” she answers, catching my double meaning behind the question and smiles.

“And everything here?”

“Can stay here.” Her smile falters and I wonder if she’s regretting the decision for it all to live and die here. “I don’t want to screw up your life. Ethan, your family. It’s not my place to be.”

“It could be.”

Shaking her head once, twice, “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I just…” The two words get caught, desperate to continue on, but she gives no other explanation. I can visibly see her start to build her shields back up, brick by brick, she constructs a hard shell around herself that would take a chisel to get into.

“We have to focus on the work.”

“Okay,” I agree. There’s no way I’m convincing her of anything tonight. Her mind is made up for now and I’m not going to disrespect her by trying to talk her into being with me. “We’ll focus on work. And I’ll step back completely if that’s what you want, Charlie.”

She closes her eyes at the nickname like they could shield her from whatever she’s feeling. “But I know there’s something more here. More than just an infatuation or sex. At least for me, it’s more. If it’s not for you, then I’ll back off and I won’t bring it up again.”

“It’s not for me,” she says, staring into the fire.

I flinch, stepping back. I don’t know what I expected, but I don’t think it was that.

It wasn’t blatant rejection. My chest stings and the piece that I felt shift into place, comes loose.

It dangles back and forth before finally breaking off and returning to its place back in the darkness, and I don’t think it’ll ever see the light again.

Birds chirp in the trees and the wind bristles through the leaves signaling a happier morning than the one I feel.

Last night with Charlotte didn’t go as I had hoped and waking up after takes more energy than I care to admit.

More than once, I considered going out to her place by the fire and laying beside her.

Doing nothing other than holding her. But she made it clear.

It’s not for me.

I went over the words over and over. They circled around and around in my head like cars on a racetrack. A never-ending loop, lap after lap until a fitful sleep finally took me.

Body stiff, I sit up and try to stretch out my limbs. There’s a cacophony of soft voices outside and shuffling of feet and tents rustling in the wind. I go to the back edge of my tent that’s closest to Hudson and Avery’s and try to listen to their whispers even though I know I shouldn’t.

“Why do you think she slept out here?”

“I don’t know. They sounded pretty content together the other night,” Hudson whispers back. “She’s your best friend, why don’t you just ask her?”

“And he’s your brother, why don’t you just ask him?”

I imagine Hudson tipping his head sideways in surrender. “You’ve got me there, sunshine. It’s just—he’s so closed off sometimes, it’s hard to get a read on him. I want to be there for him, but it has to be on his terms, not mine.”

“Same with Charlotte,” Avery agrees. “They’re basically the same person, I don’t understand why they won’t just let themselves feel for once.”

“Sometimes it’s better to let them realize how idiotic they’re being rather than have their friends and family try to point it out for them,” he pauses. “Here, can you stuff this into the bag over there? I’ll grab the poles.”

Avery makes a joke about grabbing his pole that I really wish I didn’t hear, but it’s my own fault. I made the decision to crouch and eavesdrop like a sneaky child, trying to listen to whatever late night television is on in the living room.

The thought of seeing Charlotte after her rejection last night feels like a knife in my gut all over again.

Taking a deep inhale, I clean my wound and leave the tent.

I don’t want them to see me bleed. I expect to be met with fiery red hair spread over her pillow as she sleeps.

Instead I am met with empty ground. If it weren’t for the disturbed dirt, I wouldn’t have known anyone was sleeping there. Did she even sleep? Did she leave?

I make an attempt to seem like I don’t notice, by starting the task of packing up my tent. I’m busy taking apart my tent poles when I feel Sky’s presence behind me. “Fran and Cordie needed help and she offered.”

“Are they all okay?” Better to ask about all of them rather than let on who I really want to know about, even though I do want to make sure Fran and Cordie are okay too. Sky sees right through me though, but she plays along anyway.

“They’re all fine, but she mentioned driving them back. So it’s just us five in the truck.”

My heart sinks as she walks away to help Jacob throw the rest of their stuff in the bed of the truck. Charlotte left. To help our friends, but deep down, I know getting space from me was the catalyst of her decision.

The car ride back is silent. Not only is the sound silent, but it feels like all my senses have been dulled.

The flowery perfume I smelled throughout the weekend is gone and only a faint part of it remains on my sweatshirt she wore the other night.

If I could inhale it without looking like a psychopath, I would.

But I don’t think there’s any way for me to do that.

Jacob pulls in front of his childhood home and Ethan comes bounding down the stairs, Isabelle and George not far behind.

Ethan has Erebor wrapped around his shoulders and George has Sable snuggled into the crook of his arm.

I do a double take as I see Isabelle feeding a white kitten treats from the palm of her hand as the cat perches on her shoulder like Frank’s parrot.

Ethan stops an inch away from me and I drop to my knees to wrap him in a tight hug. “Whoa, Dad. You were only gone a couple of days.”

“I just missed you is all.” My voice is muffled against his neck.

“Okay, well, you’re going to miss me more if you strangle me to death.” This kid. As much as I wish he would have gotten my sense of humor, I think he tends to tip more to Sky’s side. I can only imagine the sarcasm he’s going to conjure up as a teenager.

“Sorry.” I pull back from him and see his almost nine year old smile. Gums exposed and gaps here and there showing the stages of childhood. I notice one extra empty space right next to the top front teeth that just finished growing in and I dramatically tug on his upper lip.

“Excuse me, sir, someone seems to have stolen your tooth when you weren’t looking,” I yell. He bursts into a fit of laughter.

“Dad,” he draws out except it’s distorted because I still have his lip in between my fingers, pretending to examine him, searching for the long lost tooth.

“He bit into an apple and it was game over,” Isabelle explains.

“Ahhhh, the old apple to loosen the tooth trick.” I get an eye roll for that one. “How did you manage to wiggle it out this time?” I level him with the hardest dad look I can, but we both know it’s futile.

“Well, grandpa told me the oldest trick in the book,” he explains, puffing out his chest.

I glance over at George who has one arm around his wife and the other petting the head of what I am hoping is their new kitten, but I know better. He gives me a shrug as if that is going to be enough to explain whatever method they used to pull out—or probably, yank out in this case—Ethan’s tooth.