Page 32 of The Best Wild Idea (Off-Limits #3)

Grant

One year ago

Jules,

Your parachute must have opened if you’re reading this, thank God. Either that or you’ve somehow survived a harrowing skydiving experience and carried on to collect this letter at your next destination. In which case, good girl.

Either way, bienvenido a Espana!

Let’s hope you took the advice of my last letter to heart and are thoroughly, unabashedly, enjoying yourself by this point.

I hope that the staggering views of Interlaken followed by the stunning seascape of Cádiz has left you utterly spellbound by the world again, and you’re permanently wondering why you don’t live in this intoxicating part of the world year-round.

In other words, I hope this trip is doing exactly what I wanted it to do for you — getting you out of your comfort zone.

Stoking a loud, inescapable yearning to experience life outside the mountain of grief you’ve carried all year, caused by yours truly.

I also pray to God that you are no longer questioning why I sent you on this trip with Silas.

Do you remember when we went on that camping trip through the Adirondacks a few years after graduation? You, Silas, and me, plus Ryeson and Dax?

The five of us had ventured out for just a night or two, mostly because I don’t think any of us could bear to be away from working plumbing any longer than that. You were the only girl to join, and it was on that trip I told Silas I was planning to propose to you.

We’d been backpacking all day to set up camp out by Dorian Lake.

You’d had the worst time, twisting your ankle on that overturned log halfway through, and then you were eaten by the army of mosquitos that bombarded our camp.

We’d all joked that you must have had the sweetest blood among us because you were getting absolutely eaten alive.

You were like a Maglite, drawing every last mosquito to you instead of to the rest of us.

But it was too late to hike back to the cars to give you any relief.

It was getting dark by the time we arrived at the lake.

We’d had no choice but to stay the night and leave first thing in the morning.

You were miserable. I could tell that you were just trying to be a good sport about it because you didn’t want to be the weakest link, or ruin the good time we were all trying to have, even though I knew that any one of us would have been pissing and moaning about it much more than you had.

You’d put on a brave face and coated your entire body and sleeping bag in mosquito repellant before lying down and pulling the sleeping bag up over your face until the smoke from the fire got thick enough to keep the bugs at bay while you slept.

After you finally drifted off to sleep, Ryeson and Dax passed out too.

When Silas and I were alone beside the campfire, crickets and mosquitos being our only company, I told him that I was going to propose when we got back home.

I already had the ring from my grandmother and everything.

I just needed to psych myself up enough to do it, vowing to find the perfect moment to ask you for your hand.

At first, he’d grown quiet. Then he stayed quiet for a long time, which, as we both know, goes completely against Silas’ nature. We both sat there, just him and me and the crackling fire with you snoring quietly beside us — your head sticking out of the top of your bag.

Now, as if you could forget, Silas was the biggest ladies’ man on campus.

He could have had any girl he wanted, and he did.

But when he found out I was going to propose, he just watched you sleeping, only your face visible from the top of your sleeping bag, already covered in red bites from earlier in the day.

Then he finally looked at me and said something I’ve never forgotten.

He said, “I’m glad you chucked that coin in the Charles River. You were right not to back off from that stupid coin toss. You were right to call dibs and fall in love with her. Jules is perfect. Every bit of her is worth fighting for. You were just the one who was smart enough to do it.”

Which brings me to the coin toss.

I’ve never told you about The Coin Toss.

It’s uncharacteristically Neanderthal-ish of us, I know, but basically, after you’d asked us for a pen in World Civ, Silas and I left class that day and flipped a coin to see who got to ask you out.

Silas won the coin toss, between the two of us, fair and square. It was my job to back off and let him ask you out. But I’d angrily chucked the coin in the river and called dibs anyway.

I know, it’s awful, and I’m sorry. Young boys are stupid and archaic, and nothing makes our caveman tendencies surface quite like a beautiful woman sitting in our midst.

But the point is, for the first time in my life, I’d thrown all integrity into the wind and told Silas that you were mine anyway. Coin toss be damned.

So, when he told me that he was glad I’d chucked the coin in the river instead of getting his chance to ask you out, I was offended.

How could he be telling me he was glad he didn’t get his shot with you?

How could that be his response to what I’d just told him?

That I planned to ask you to be my wife and he didn’t think that you were good enough for him?

I thought he was being arrogant and off-putting, but it wasn’t until later that I actually understood what he meant.

“I’m glad it was you,” he’d told me over the sound of the crackling wood. Everything dark around us. “She deserves to be with someone like you.”

I figured he didn’t like that I was cementing his place as our permanent third wheel, so I left it at that.

Soon after, I’d passed out in my sleeping bag, still rolling his words around in my head, not totally sure what he meant by any of it.

But a few hours after I fell asleep, I woke up to see Silas — still awake — still sitting up all alone to stoke the fire.

It was almost daylight by then, and he hadn’t even unrolled his sleeping bag to try to get any sleep at all.

I was totally confused. Was he mad? Why hadn’t he slept?

He didn’t know I’d woken up, and I lay perfectly still in my bag, watching him, wondering what would compel him to not even try sleeping.

But after a few moments of watching, I knew.

Silas added another log to the fire, then looked over at you to make sure the pillars of smoke were still keeping the mosquitos at bay. Fanning them away from you every now and then while making sure the flames never went out. Ensuring you had as much protection as possible.

He’d sat up that whole night making sure enough smoke came off those logs to keep the bugs from attacking you while the rest of us slept soundly, blissfully unaware.

I don’t think he saw me wake up to see him staring down at you early that morning, but I’ll never forget it.

He may have thought that he’d never give you what you deserved, but that was just Silas being Silas.

Never truly believing he was ever enough for anyone, let alone someone like you.

But as I watched him take care of you, seemingly all night long — without recognition, without an audience to see it — just out of the goodness of his own heart when even I couldn’t stay awake long enough to do it — I knew that he would have found a way to deserve you if he’d taken the chance.

I get it. You’re probably wondering why I’m wasting all this time painting this picture for you that doesn’t exactly show me in the best light: me sleeping away while my best mate was caring for you instead.

It’s because I want you to know that no matter how brash he can be — no matter how bizarre, or outrageous, or arrogant Silas comes across, you have always had someone looking out for you who wasn’t me.

And you need to know that even when you feel very much alone in the coming days and I’m not there to be with you, he will always be stoking some type of fire to keep you safe.

That’s just who he is. Who he’s always been.

That night showed me how truly important you are to him — that he’ll always be right there taking care of you, usually when you’re blissfully unaware that he’s doing it at all.

I wish I could have stayed up all night to keep the fire burning for you, but knowing that I didn’t have to and that you were warm and safe from anything that could have hurt you brings me more comfort than most other things can these days.

Because I know that even if I won’t be there to see it, you’re going to be okay.

You’re going to have someone who loves you, who’s always going to be looking out for you, even when I can’t.

So, please don’t hate me for seeing what you might not have ever seen, and for knowing who would be there to take care of you when I never could again.

That’s the reason he’s with you on this journey.

And why I couldn’t have imagined it being anyone other than him.

Now, go live, sweetheart. It’s the only thing left for you to do.

As always, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for letting me love you,

Grant