Page 66 of Resisting Isaac

I’m sober as a choir boy, and I didn’t think Eli was disrespecting Elena.

She was smiling. They were laughing.

I thought he was touching something that belonged to me. But he wasn’t. She doesn’t. And I need to get out of here and get my mind right.

Because every single cell in my body is screaming that even if she’ll never belong to me, I damn sure belong to her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

elena

There’s still more than a week left until filming begins and I’m restless.

After Isaac acted like a lunatic then pulled a disappearing act, I contemplated leaving too. Not going home, but maybe somewhere with a beach. And mojitos.

I didn’t.

I stayed.

I tell myself it’s because I’ll save money this way. And I can take a fancy vacation when filming wraps in a few months. But the truth is—I stay because I don’t want to leave.

So, I’m here. In the Montana mountains, among the flowing rivers and impossibly tall trees. In the quiet. Where nobody expects anything from me.

Except maybe to show up for girls’ night.

“Don’t be a hermit,” Ivy says, pressing a hand to my back. “You’ve already got that mysterious loner vibe going. It’s intimidating.”

I laugh. “I promise I’m the furthest thing from intimidating.”

And that’s how I find myself crammed into a booth at The Stillery, a half-empty pitcher of margaritas in the center of the table and Sutton firing questions at me like she’s studying investigative journalism.

“Have you ever met Taylor Swift?”

“Can’t say I have. Sorry.”

She barely takes a breath. “What’s it like to be inUs Weekly?”

“Mortifying.”

“Are your lashes real?”

“No.”

“Do you get Botox?”

I choke on my water. “I’m twenty-four, Sutton.”

She shrugs. “Never too young for wrinkle prevention treatment.”

Willow puts a hand up in front of her sister. “Okay, Button. Let’s not scare the poor woman off. She’ll never come to girls’ night again.”

“It’s fine,” I say because it’s easier to laugh with them than mope over the fact that Isaac left without saying goodbye.

He didn’t say where he was going. Just vanished. I found out from Ivy, who mentioned in passing that he’d gone to Wild Canyon—to a ranch a few towns over—to “check on some friends.”

Friends.

Sure.