“That was before I knew the truth about you, Hailey Harper.”

“Whatever, Mike Madden. If I can deal with the way you constantly drum on everything, you can deal with my aversion to prosciutto.”

His fingers stop drumming on the floorboards of the cabin. “I do not drum on everything.”

“You’re drumming right now!” I argue, pointing to his other hand, and Mike starts laughing. He flexes his fingers.

“It’s a drummer thing. I can’t help it.”

“It’s fine,” I say, and by fine, I mean cute. But cute is forbidden, and fine is . . . fine.

“Danica hates it,” Mike says, and I roll my eyes at the rain.

“Danica hates everything.”

Me, hiking, secondhand clothes, puppies, rainbows—

“At least she likes prosciutto,” Mike jokes, and my spine stiffens.

“Sounds like you’re perfect for each other.”

“Hm,” Mike hums, and I can sense him staring at me, probably wondering why such a harsh tone possessed my voice all of a sudden, but I don’t dare look at him. I try not to question my sudden shift in mood, but I’m pretty sure I’ll find the answer if I turn my head, if I search his eyes, if I let myself really look.

“The rain’s letting up,” I say, pushing to my feet and walking to the doorway. I step out onto the porch, listening to the last of the rain patter against the wooden roof and the dying leaves and the soaked-through earth. The scent of it wraps itself around me and nips all the way through three layers of wet clothes.

“I could live with cheese pizza,” Mike’s voice says from back inside the cabin. I turn to look at him, but I don’t know what I expect to see. He finishes pulling his hoodie on, pushes his hat back onto my head as he walks past me, and leads me back to the pond.

Back to Danica.

Chapter 13

The walk back to real life is quiet, and dark, and wet. Even after the clouds begin to clear, the shadow of them hangs over and inside and around me. Mike helps me traverse the parts of the forest designed to devour five-foot-tall country girls, but we don’t say much. We just walk, and walk, and walk. I had no idea we’d traveled this far, but by the time we get back to the clearing, the blister on my pinky toe is throbbing against my boot.

Rowan takes off running the moment she sees us, her wavy blonde hair even frizzier than mine. “I thought you were dead!” she shouts as she closes the distance between us, catching Mike in a hug, pulling away to inspect him, and then squeezing me to death. “How are you not dead?!”

“We found a cabin,” Mike says, and Rowan pulls away to look at me. Her blue eyes flit up to Mike’s cap on my head, and then they dart back down.

“A cabin?” She turns her chin to question Mike, and he nods.

“What about you?” Mike asks. “How are you so dry?”

“Oh, that blanket I brought is waterproof on the inside. You just fold it inside out and—”

When Mike starts laughing, I can’t help smiling.

“I told you she brought a tent!” Mike says, and I hold in a laugh at Rowan’s confused expression.

“But the real question is, did she bring a space heater?”

“The waterproof side of the blanket is thermal . . .” Rowan says, and Mike chuckles and wraps his arm around her shoulder, leading us back to the platform on the water. It probably isn’t the smartest idea to be standing on a steel structure right after a storm, but the sun is fighting to push the clouds away, and who am I to tell a bunch of rock stars what to do?

Before we get to the pond, I take Mike’s hat off and wordlessly hand it back to him, and he removes his arm from Rowan’s shoulder to take it. His brow furrows, and I look away from it.

Yes, I understand that he is the type of guy to lend his hats to his female friends and wrap his arm around their shoulders, but his girlfriend is my cousin, and while I’ve worn the hats of other male friends, wearing Mike’s hat doesn’t feel as harmless as all that.

Maybe it’s the look Danica would give me if she saw me in it . . .

Then again, maybe it’s something else.

Turns out, it doesn’t even matter. Three sets of boots clang onto the dock and then out onto the platform, but Danica is too busy talking on her phone to even notice.

“Did you two have fun in the woods?” Dee suggests, and I school my expression.

“Maybe if your idea of fun is running for your life through mud and lightning.”

“I had fun,” Mike says from behind me. His hat gets pushed down onto my head a third time, and I squint at him over my shoulder. “Did you know Hailey is a vegetarian?”

“You don’t eat meat?” Joel asks, zipping up his fly after he finishes pissing off the end of the dock. He joins our conversation, and I’m wading through the usual shock and awe over me being a vegetarian, when Danica suddenly bounds up and wraps her arms around Mike. She nearly drags him to his knees.

“Did they tell you the news?!”

“What news?”

“She’s going to be in the music video,” Dee says with a suspicious amount of approval, and Danica beams.

“Shawn likes my idea! I’m going to be the star!”

“The star ghost,” Dee corrects, and Danica smiles wide.

“Right. Right. The star ghost. It’s going to be amazing! I—” Her phone starts ringing, and she checks the screen. Without excusing herself, she answers it. “Katie, you whore! I’ve been trying to call you all day! Guess who’s going to be in the music video. Yes!” My cousin wanders to the edge of the platform, and Mike sighs.