“You fucked up big time. Big time.”

I swallow down my beer and try and glare at Fox but I don’t have a lot of anger left in me. Whatever I have is already being directed to myself, like a funnel. I don’t need Fox to do it for me.

“You don’t need to remind me.”

“I think I do,” he says, grabbing the car keys to his jeep from the hooks on the wall. “I think you might have to be reminded until you get it in your thick skull. I can’t fucking believe you.”

I exhale loudly and put my head into my hands. “I shouldn’t have said a thing.”

“Right,” he says dryly. “Hurry up and finish your beer or we’ll be late for dinner.”

It’s been a few days since the accident.

The hardest few days of my life, apart from the ones after I lost my mother.

I’ve had a hard time moving on.

Especially because of the things I’d said to Riley.

I just relayed everything that happened in detail to Fox.

I’m still hurt. Still mourning. Still grappling with the guilt over Tim and Jace.

I just keep thinking…if only my head was on straight. If I paid attention to my phone. If I’d just focused on my job for a second instead of Riley. In a sense I chose her over my career. My calling.

My duty.

And then I lost Tim.

I nearly lost Riley too.

And then…I lost her in a different way.

She hasn’t been into work. No one has, really. Neil of all people has been coming in each day in our absence. We know we’ll all pull together if there’s another call but so far there hasn’t been and I think everyone just needs space. Everyone is off on their own, trying to heal.

Tim’s funeral is tomorrow morning. Afterward we’re going to hike up Mount Ferguson and have our own prayers for him there. That’s the most we’ve been in contact with each other, to plan that.

But I haven’t texted Riley. I just can’t. Not after what I said to her.

I knew how I was hurting her, I saw it on her face, her tears, I saw her broken heart and yet I kept talking. I wanted to hurt her. To push her away.

I don’t know why. I want to say it’s because if she hates me, if she stays away, then everyone will be better off for it. We’ll be able to focus on our jobs.

But I don’t think that’s it. That’s what I want it to be, but it’s not the fucking truth.

The fucking truth is…I almost lost her.

I’ve lost a loved one before.

And I almost lost Riley out there.

It scared the fucking shit out of me.

So I did the stupid dumb shit that only immature morons like myself do. I hurt her to push her away because I believed it would save me in the end.

Pure fucking selfishness.

“Look,” Fox says, coming over and nudging my elbow until I look up at him. “I know you’re not used to this relationship thing.”

“We weren’t in a relationship.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re in denial but even if you want to pass it off as friends with benefits or colleagues with benefits, whatever, it was still something. She was something to you. She still is. And you’re not used to that. So I get it. I get why you did the stupid shit that you did. But it’s not a free pass. Now, come the fuck on before I make you.”

Fox is leaner than I am but he’s still packing a lot of muscle. I don’t feel like getting into a fight. It always gets messy. I’m bigger, he’s quicker.

And nastier.

Fucking grump.

With a loaded sigh, I finish my beer and follow him out to the jeep. Because he’s feeling somewhat sorry for me, he lets me take Chewie even though she leaves dog hair all over his seats. Chewie and Shane’s dog, Fletcher, get on like Donkey Kong, so she loves going to the ranch.

This dinner is a small one. Delilah and Jeanine aren’t there and Rachel and Vernalee have made spaghetti instead of a roast.

Everyone wants to talk to me about what happened but no one wants to mention Tim’s name. So nothing is said. My grandpa just starts the dinner by saying grace and a prayer for me and my team and the souls lost on the glacier.

But despite the sorrow in my heart, that deep pain from losing someone I was supposed to lead, I look around the dinner table at my family and realize that it’s okay for me to sit in silence. It’s okay for me to mourn and mope and deal with all this shit. It’s okay to not be the happy-go-lucky guy for once, the man who saves the day. I can be whoever I want and they’ll still love me. They’ll still be there.

Riley was like that too, I tell myself. Maybe she hadn’t said she loved you but she told you she wanted John, she wanted Maverick. She wanted all of you. She wanted that from the start.

Fuck. Sometimes, just thinking about her, the shitty things I said, what I’ve done, I can barely get the air in my lungs.

“I have a bone to pick with you,” my grandpa says after the meal is over. He has a pipe in his hand and is throwing on a plaid shawl over his shoulders. He gestures to the door outside. “Come on.”

It’s cold as hell. We’ve been getting dumped with snow all week, ever since the accident, but even so, I grab my coat and follow him out onto the porch where he sits down on the rocker and starts lighting up his pipe.

“Cold night,” I say, rather feebly.

He fixes his sharp eyes on me, glowing from the light of the pipe. “Why don’t you sit your ass down, big boy.”

I raise my brows but do as he says.

“You should be used to the cold in your line of work,” he goes on. “That’s all you do all day, go out into the cold.”

“In the winter. In the summer we go out into the heat.”

“Summer is never as deadly as the winter,” he notes.

“Tell that to Fox.”

He shrugs. “You boys and your jobs. If only your mother could see you now, see what kind of crazy things you do, the way you stick your neck out for everyone. Shane is the only one with any kind of sense.”

“Shane fights fucking grizzly bears. Or at least that’s how he tells it.”

“She would be proud of you, no doubt,” he goes on. “But she would worry. We all worry about you, John.”

“You shouldn’t,” I say, trying to brush it off.

“What happened to your friend, it could have happened to you.”

“It should have happened to me,” I tell him. “I should have taken that call. I’m the first to respond.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I sigh. Too much guilt and nowhere for it to go.

“Because. I was with Riley.”

My grandpa doesn’t seem the least bit surprised, continues to puff on his pipe. “The heartbreaker?” he asks.

“Yeah. But… I think I broke her heart first.”

He fixes his eyes on me. “Why the hell did you do that?”

I shrug, helpless, hopeless. “I don’t know. I…I was with her. You know. In her room. When we missed the call. So right there, I was already distracted. And so when he died…I blamed us.”

He’s glaring at me, big bushy white brows coming together like dueling caterpillars. “I hope in God’s name that you didn’t tell her that.”

I swallow, look away at the snow and the darkness beyond.

“You weren’t raised to be that dumb,” he says bitterly after a few moments.

“I was angry,” I explain. “And hurt and stupid. And I know it had nothing to do with her, it’s just what happened. I have to live with the guilt of losing Tim.”

“So live with it if you want to, you don’t have to, but certainly leave her the hell out of it.”

“You don’t understand,” I say, even though I’m not even sure I understand at this point. “I…,” God, why is this so hard for me to admit? “I got scared. I almost lost her up there too. She went down the slope, right beside me. And I went down after her. We both almost died. But I saved her. I saved her first. And then we went after Tim and Jace. By then it was too late.”

“You regret saving her?”

“No,” I say quickly, almost horrified at the question. “God, of course not. Of course not. But it made me realize how easy it is to lose someone you love. And I thought I’d already gone through that with mom. I don’t want to go through it again.”

My grandfather sighs and blows smoke rings into the air. They seem to crystalize before our eyes, turning into works of art before they float away.

“You saved her because you were the closest one to her,” he says after a few beats. “You saved her because you could. You saved her because you love her. And there is no shame in saving the ones you love.” He pauses. “There’s only shame in throwing that love away because you’re afraid. Man up and grow a pair, John boy.”

I give him an incredulous look. “Did you just tell me to grow a pair of balls?”

“Well there’s nothing to suggest that you have them at the moment.” He shrugs.

I bite back a laugh. The first laugh I’ve felt in days. I almost feel guilty for it, but I decide to let that guilt pass for once. It’s going to take time for me to deal with all of this but at least now I know, deep down, I will deal with it.

I just wish I had Riley by my side, to help me deal.

“Listen,” he says softly and when I look at him, his eyes are shining. “The one thing we can’t buy, can’t find, can’t…rescue, is time. Take it from me. Time is an unstoppable force, moving us all toward the same end. Sometimes that end happens for some sooner than it happens for others. Sometimes others are left behind. But we, as those who still experience time, we have a duty to those who have gone. We have to use every second we have. Life is too fucking short to feel guilty. We all feel it, and sometimes we deserve it, but acknowledge it and move on. Don’t let it hold you back. Don’t sacrifice the time you have left. It’s a gift that so many don’t have. Believe me. It’s all going to be over before you know it.”

My grandfather has been around the block. He’s experienced love and loss. Birth and death. He’s lived through floods and storms and fires. He’s seen life move on around him. He knows what he’s talking about and every time he gives me advice like this, I have no choice but to take it.

He’s always right.

The next morning is Tim’s funeral.

It’s brutal.

There’s no other way to describe it. There are no good funerals. People cry and grieve and make threats at God. It’s about paying respect, but mostly it’s about giving people a venue for their grief.

So I make use of it, as does everyone else. Tears are shed. The collective sorrow is enough to make the driest eyes give in.

But it’s not until later, when the team has hiked up Mount Ferguson, that we find the peace amongst the sorrow.

We’re all there, except for Jace, who is on leave, and Riley.

Tony said he texted her and she never answered back.

Neil said he did the same.

I want to throttle him for that but for once he’s saying it with such sincerity that I manage to be grateful that he cares.

After all, I didn’t even text her.

Because I’m a motherfucking coward.

But after we pay our respects to Tim on the mountain and start hiking back down, I know that my team is still here and they need a leader and Riley is on that team.

So I text. I call.

No response. No answer.

And so I finally show up at her house, banging on the door in my old math teacher’s backyard.

No answer. No one’s home. Her blinds are up too and I’m peering through her window like a peeping Tom, hoping to get a glimpse of her. But there’s no sign of her anywhere. In fact, her suite looks super clean and bare and I’m starting to fear that maybe she left. Maybe she had enough. Why not? Why the fuck would she stick around after everything that happened? I mean, I pretty much blamed a death on her.

I’m such a fucking asshole.

I don’t want to go home though because I don’t want to deal with Fox. Maybe some cuddle time on the couch with Chewie wouldn’t be a bad thing but she’ll lose interest after a few moments. I can only buy her love with treats.

I don’t want to go to the office either. I’ll likely be alone and it will remind me too much of all we lost.

So I head to the only other place I go.

The Beartrap Pub.