Page 7 of Into the Mountains (Blue Grove Mountain #3)

CHAPTER SIX

CHARLOTTE

“ I ’m sorry, YOU WHAT?” Fully awake now, her shriek echoes on her side and I hear Hudson’s voice.

“Sunshine, if you wanted to shriek like that, there are other ways to do it. More fun ways. Otherwise, please, let us sleep.” I’m assuming he’s referring to the dog I can partially see curled up next to him glaring at Avery for disturbing their peace.

“Sorry, honey.” She turns to plant a kiss on his cheek and tries to pull away, but he catches her waist before she can, pulling her back in and deepens the kiss. She lets out a soft moan that I really didn’t need to hear her make.

“Seriously? Get a room.”

“We are currently in our room,” Hudson says, not moving his lips from Avery’s and grabbing her ass for good measure. “And you’re currently in it. I’d hang up on you, but I actually want to hear the story behind you and Elias dating.”

Avery breaks away from him. “And you call me a snoop! I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was until about five minutes ago and then I heard that last bit of conversation and I definitely wasn’t going back to sleep after that.”

I put my head in my hands, mortified that now two people know the secret I’ve kept for so long because I felt like the story was way too embarrassing to share. And now I get to share it with not one person, but two.

Time to rip off the Band-Aid I guess. Or tear off the wax strip is more like it in this case.

“It was after my freshman year of college. I came home for the summer to be with my parents and meet up with old friends. My mom asked about dating and was so adamant on me getting out in that world because I didn’t do much of it in high school.”

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Summer

As I turn onto the gravel drive, the yellow siding comes into view, bright and blinding in the sun.

The field of overgrown grass and wildflowers is just visible when I pull up to the side of the house.

I hear a shriek from the open kitchen window and can’t help but smile.

I missed my mom, but I don’t think it even compares to how much she must have missed me during my first year away at college.

In high school, my group of friends would constantly complain about their moms. What they did, how they acted, and how they treated them.

My mom and I had our moments, but I never talked during those conversations either—not that the situation was much different than any others.

I was very much one of the quiet ones during school.

I stuck to my books, worried way too much about my grades, and got involved in any extracurricular I could.

Any that didn’t include sports, that is.

I only had a few friends who were also introverts and I didn’t date.

Sure, I liked people, I had crushes, but I never cared or was ever really brave enough to act on them, so I just didn’t.

Mom’s shrieks continue as she makes her way through the screen door, onto the porch, and down the few white, wooden steps as she jogs to my car before I even have a chance to think about opening it myself.

“There’s my little red sea star!”

I smile and simultaneously roll my eyes.

Leave it to Anne to keep a childhood game alive and well far into my teenage years.

I’m almost twenty and I just finished my freshman year of college, yet sometimes I think she still sees me as that little seven year old girl, holed up in her room with endless books on sea creatures, searching for all the red ones, hoping to find the ones that matched her hair.

When she figured out what I was doing, she took it upon herself to research them with me and ever since then, each time she sees me, she calls me by a different red sea creature.

Once I get my seatbelt unbuckled, she yanks me out of the car and pulls me into a mama bear hug until I practically feel my ribs cracking together.

I’ll take it though. I’ve missed her more than I care to admit.

There’s such a stigma when it comes to leaving for college.

Kids are excited to leave home and finally get away from their parents, and have the freedom they didn’t get at home.

That wasn’t me. I was terrified. I missed my family and while I did love school, I was—and still am—always excited to come home.

“It’s good to see you too, Mom.”

Neither of us break from the hug right away and I am grateful for it.

“There she is,” comes a deep voice with just as much excitement from behind the screen door.

Dad is wearing the typical uniform of khaki cargo shorts, tennis shoes, and a T-shirt I gifted him for Father’s Day a few years ago.

The words “Yoda best dad in the world” are scrawled around Yoda in the typical Star Wars font with Yoda peeking out from above them.

It’s well-loved, as shown by the small crinkles and cracks on the design.

Breaking away from Mom, I round the car only to be wrapped in another pair of arms. Strong arms that hugged me when I lost the spelling bee in third grade, arms that drew me close when he realized mine weren’t going to be used in any athletic capacity and instead encouraged my academics from then on. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hey, peanut.”

Another term of endearment I missed hearing more than I care to admit. One time I was convinced I was allergic to peanuts, because I sat next to a kid at school who was deathly allergic and I thought I could catch it like some sort of virus. Dad explained why I couldn’t and laughed the whole time.

“I’ve got all your favorites waiting for you inside.”

And with that, arms wrapped around each other, I’m reunited with two of the most important people in my life and I don’t feel as lost anymore.

Once we are inside we settle around the breakfast nook, plates full of home cooked snacks, bread, and my favorite soup—potato leek.

Don’t ask why, but as a kid I loved all things green and that love transcended to soups.

The first time Mom made the potato leek with homemade bread, it quickly became my favorite meal.

“Soup in summer,” Dad says. “Only you, kiddo.”

We’ve had this argument so many times before, but I humor him anyway. “There’s literally no rule saying you can’t have soup when it’s hot.”

“Soup is made for cold weather though.”

“Says who?” I say, a laugh escaping my lips.

“Everyone.”

“Well, then everyone is wrong and depriving themselves of the simple joy of having soup in summer.”

Our laughter mixes together and dances in the air before it settles, a comfortable peace washing over me. Until it shatters.

“So, are you seeing anyone?”

With all the ways my mom is amazing, the one thing she can be a little—okay, a lot—annoying about is dating.

I never have and I really didn’t have any plans to date any time soon.

I want to focus on school and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Now, if I meet the right person, I don’t mind, but I’m not going to actively search for someone.

“Anne, leave her be,” Dad says, throwing a wink in my direction, his way of showing me that he has my back.

“Oh, I just want to see her get out there.”

A sad smile crosses Dad’s face, but it disappears before I have a chance to study it.

“I know, I just…haven’t,” I shrug as I pick at the piece of bread in my hands. Dipping it into my soup, I savor the taste as I fish for what to say to get out of the conversation.

“It’s not like I haven’t thought about it, I just haven’t done anything to try to date.” At the light behind Mom’s eyes, I have a feeling I have said the exact wrong thing. Or the exact right thing in her eyes.

“We could sign you up for a dating website!” She claps her hands together like she’s been dying to get those words out since I put my car in park.

“Annie, let the girl breathe,” Dad says as he gets up from the table. “You want some coffee, peanut?”

“I have a feeling I’m going to need a cup.”

“Oh, you’ll probably need three,” he jokes, smiling at Mom.

She ignores him with a wave of her hand and scoots closer to me on the bench.

It’s not like her to be so pushy. She’s a woman that respects boundaries, encourages them even.

She’s the one who taught me how to be more vocal about them even if it took me longer than it should have to figure out how to put those in place.

“You’re acting weird,” I finally say.

“Ah.” She nudges her shoulder against mine, a smile on her lips and a look behind her eyes that I can’t quite place.

It’s the one Dad had in his moments before.

They’re hiding something. Something bad they don’t want to tell me just yet.

Immediately my mind jumps to the worst places, but I reel it back in before it catches anything.

I don’t have all of the information. I need all of the information before I can come to any conclusions on whether or not to freak out.

But I will respect their decision to not tell me yet.

I’m also not going back to school until I know what exactly they’re keeping from me.

Before my mom has a chance to say anything else, I’ve made up my mind. Only because this seems important to her. “Fine,” I relent.

She whips her head back toward me and away from the cuticle she was pretending to pick at. “Really?”

“Sure, why not?”

Giddy, she pulls out her laptop she must have stashed on the other side of her and after waiting for it to turn on and load, she opens a website—

“Oh my god, did you just go to eHarmony? Did you have that bookmarked?”

I’d have thought my mom had no shame, but her cheeks redden slightly even though her body language tells me she stands behind her actions. “I wanted to be prepared in case you said yes.”

“You mean in case you bullied me into this. Isn’t eHarmony for old people?” I joke, which earns me a gentle nudge against my shoulder

“It’s for people of all ages. There’s lots of interesting characters here.”

“Interesting characters, she says.”

Mom just rolls her eyes and continues typing. “And, I didn’t bully. I just…pushed.”