Page 46 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies (Men of Medford #4)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Riley

I thought locking the door would help.

I thought curling up beneath Beckett’s blanket, pressing my face into the flannel pillow that still smelled of pine and smoke and him, would block it all out.

But the walls weren’t thick enough to drown out the sound of everything coming undone.

Muffled voices turned sharp. Snapping. Then louder.

Then the unmistakable sound of something hitting something else, maybe furniture, maybe flesh, and the thud that followed made my stomach knot so tight I couldn’t breathe.

I pressed my palms to my ears.

I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t not.

All I could think was, this is my fault.

All of it.

I hadn’t meant to ruin things. I’d come up here to disappear, to hide, to heal . Instead, I’d burned their whole world down with me.

A nearby vibration pulled me out of the spiral. My phone, still facedown on the nightstand, blinked with notifications I didn’t want to see.

I stared at it as if it might explode.

Then, slowly, I reached for it.

I shouldn’t have looked. But I did.

The lock screen was chaos. Twitter mentions, Instagram tags, a storm of messages with emojis that twisted my stomach. Fire. Vomit. Snake.

And Ava’s name trending again.

I opened the app with trembling fingers.

There she was, perfect lighting, perfect makeup, perfect poison smile.

“Hey, babes, it’s Ava. So… guess who finally decided to make her little mountain girl fantasy public ?

Riley Brooks, everyone’s favorite viral train wreck, is back, and now she’s pregnant by one of the three Wolfe Logging Company brothers?

Beckett, Garrett, and Asher Wolfe. You can’t make this shit up.

I mean, props for creativity, but let’s call it what it is: a desperate grab for attention.

Girl’s been out of the game too long, and now she’s dragging innocent guys into her mess to get back in the spotlight. ”

I stopped the video. I couldn’t watch anymore.

Couldn’t breathe.

I stared at my reflection in the black screen, pale, hollow, nothing like the Riley the world used to know.

And the worst part? It wasn’t just me in the blast zone this time.

Beckett. Garrett. Asher.

She’d named them. Their business.

My vision blurred.

This wasn’t just drama anymore. This was real.

This could ruin them.

I curled in tighter, heart thudding so loud it drowned out everything else. All I could see was the image Ava had used in the thumbnail, the photo from the parade. Back when everything felt wonderful .

It felt like a dagger.

They were collateral damage in my war with the Internet. And worse? I’d dragged Lucy into it, too.

I wiped at my face with the sleeve of Beckett’s flannel, but the tears kept coming. Hot and silent. Useless.

I had no idea how long I sat there. Could’ve been minutes. Could’ve been hours. Grief bends time that way.

At some point, I picked up my phone again, not to doomscroll, not to watch Ava gloat or see the wolves circle in the comments, but to finally do the thing I’d been avoiding.

I went to Lucy’s contact and stared at her name like it might bite me.

I pressed “call.”

One ring. Two.

Straight to voicemail.

Her voice came through, cheerful and familiar in a way that cracked me open all over again: “Hey, it’s Lucy. You know what to do. I may or may not listen to the message and call you back. Don’t hate me if I don’t.”

My laugh broke on a sob.

The beep came too fast.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

Then I started talking.

“Hey, Lucy,” I said, voice hoarse and small. “I know you probably don’t want to hear from me right now. I wouldn’t blame you if you never did again.”

I swallowed hard. Tried to breathe.

“I messed up. Not by falling in love with your brothers, I need you to know that wasn’t some stunt or some sick fantasy.

I didn’t plan any of it. It just happened.

They were there when everything else fell apart.

They saw me. They see me. I didn’t think that was something I could ever have again, not after what happened in LA. ”

A pause.

A shudder.

I closed my eyes. The words were pouring out now, raw and unfiltered.

“But I should’ve told you. I should’ve said something the minute I realized it was real. You were always more than a best friend, Lucy. You were home . And now I don’t know if I broke that forever.”

I curled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. The silence on the other end felt like a scream.

“Ava’s video is everywhere. I guess you saw it.

Maybe you think I deserve it. I don’t even know anymore.

All I know is, this isn’t what I wanted.

I didn’t want the spotlight back. I didn’t want the clicks or the gossip or the chaos.

I wanted a quiet life. I wanted peace . But I forgot how loud the Internet gets when it decides you’re worth tearing down. ”

I laughed bitterly.

“Damn, why did I ever want this? Why did I spend so many years chasing the approval of people who don’t even know me? Who would eat me alive the second I stopped being shiny enough for them to care?”

My throat burned.

“I’m tired, Lucy. I’m so tired of pretending to be okay. Of being branded: the hot mess, the comeback girl, the scandal. That’s not who I am anymore. Maybe I never was.”

I looked at the window. Snow still drifted past like ash.

“I miss you. Not because I need you, but because you’re you . Because you’re the one person who saw me before all of this. The real me. Please call me back. Or text. Or scream at me. Just don’t shut me out forever.”

The voicemail cut off, cutting me off with it.

I stared at the phone, wondering if she’d listen.

Wondering if she’d care.

The fame, the followers, the brand deals, they all felt like a sick joke now. A glittering trap I’d run toward willingly, only to learn too late that the glow was just the fuse burning down.

And now everything was seconds from detonation.

The silence outside the door was almost worse than the shouting. No more thuds. No more voices. Nothing.

Not even footsteps.

I sat there for a while, waiting. Hoping for someone, Beckett, Garrett, even Asher, to knock, to open the door, to say something . But no one came.

And maybe that was fair.

I pulled myself out of the bed like I was peeling off another version of myself, one too tired to keep crying, too hollow to keep sitting still.

The blanket slipped off my shoulders, and I stood, legs aching with that post-adrenaline heaviness, as if I’d just run a marathon even though I hadn’t moved in hours.

Outside the window, snow still fell in soft spirals, the world dusted in quiet white.

I needed air.

I needed out.

I threw Garret’s coat over me, shoved my feet into boots I found by the door, and stepped outside without thinking too hard about where I was going.

The cold slapped me in the face. Sharp. Real.

The air was so quiet it buzzed, like the world itself was holding its breath.

I didn’t know where I was walking. Just that I needed to move. To get away from the screen, from the cabin, from the guilt and noise still ringing in my head.

The snow crunched underfoot as I moved down the path that led toward the trees, the same ones I’d admired on quieter days when the world hadn’t cracked open beneath me.

Back when I thought maybe I could stay here forever.

The chill cut through my clothes, but I didn’t care. I welcomed it.

I needed it.

Because out here, there was no trending topic, no screaming match behind closed doors, no Ava dripping venom into a camera.

There was only the hush of snow, the whisper of wind in the trees, and the sound of my own heartbeat trying to steady itself.

I remembered the first time I posted a video.

I’d been seventeen. Sitting on my bedroom floor with a cheap ring-light glow and dreams too big for my chest. I remembered refreshing the view count over and over, watching the numbers rise like they meant something.

Like I meant something.

That first rush of likes had felt like love, but it wasn’t.

It was approval. Temporary. Conditional. Addictive.

And I’d chased it for years.

I tripped over a root hidden under the snow and caught myself on a nearby tree, heart lurching. I stayed there, palm pressed to the bark, breath fogging the air.

Why did I ever want that life?

Why did I ever think it would be enough?

The truth settled like frost over my skin: I hadn’t just been running to something in LA. I’d been running from something, too.

From being small. From being invisible. From the kind of silence I was standing in now.

But maybe this kind of silence wasn’t a punishment.

Maybe it was the only place the noise couldn’t follow.

I closed my eyes. Let the wind press cold kisses to my cheeks. Let the trees listen without judgment.

I didn’t know how to fix what I’d broken.

Didn’t know if Lucy would ever forgive me. Or if Beckett, Garrett, and Asher would still want anything to do with me after all this.

But I knew one thing.

I couldn’t go back.

Not to the internet. Not to the brand. Not to being what everyone else wanted me to be.

I had to figure out who I was when no one was watching.

Even if that person was standing alone in the snow.