The pine needles cushioned Willa’s footfalls even as she pounded out her steps on the trail. Usually she loved running in the woods around camp, but at the moment, she was too upset to enjoy much of anything. She didn’t even want to call Nate to talk about it, because despite his best efforts, there’d probably be a hint of I told you so.

Which, now that she’d run out some of her fury, she could admit might be fair. Nate had told her to take things slow with Van, and while she’d gotten defensive with him at the time and told him to shut his face because everything was great, she could see now he was trying to protect her. And Van.

If it took Van a couple of minutes to warm up to the idea of a hug, wouldn’t it make sense that it would take her longer than that to come around to the idea of a relationship? It hadn’t been fair of Willa to expect Van to magically read her mind and be on the same track to Girlfriends-ville.

She managed to elbow a tree branch out of the way before it whipped her in the face, but it scratched her forearm and burned a little. Much like the guilty feeling about having told Nate about her and Van. Yes, Van was a jerk for putting Nate’s feelings above Willa’s, but she shouldn’t have told Nate without at least giving Van a heads up that she was planning to.

Van and Nate had a far longer track record than she and Van did, and even if Willa didn’t think Van had anything to worry about, that didn’t give her the right to dismiss Van’s concerns.

Willa dodged a rock on the trail, and when she came to the next fork in the path, took the long way around back to the cabins. Yes, she was calmer, but she wasn’t calm by any stretch of the imagination, because even if she had fucked up, Van had still fucked up too, and didn’t seem to realize it at all. Or if she did, she was more concerned with Willa having told Nate they were seeing each other. Which was not the point.

As much as she could look carefree, Willa had feelings, and Van needed to realize it and not just spew her own shit all over. Or if she wanted to spew, make it clear that it was her shit and not Willa’s. Thus far, she had proved incapable of doing that, and no way could Willa deal with that for the long run. Which was maybe a moot point since it was possible there wasn’t even a present for her and Van, never mind a future.

The idea was painful, more a deep throb of regret than the light sting her own misstep just now had caused her. She could and would apologize to Van for her shit communication skills, but she needed Van to take the first step. But would Van? As Willa felt the tears start to sneak up on her again, she pushed herself harder, trying to outpace the hurt.

* * *

When Willa got back from her run, she stalked through the cabin directly to the bathroom, not saying a word to Van and not even looking at her. Okay, totally deserved. Half an hour later, when she came out all freshly scrubbed and her hair pinned up in a braided bun at the crown of her head, she still didn’t say anything to Van.

While Willa’d been out, Van had formulated a plan, one that would hopefully give her a second chance. So after Willa had plunked herself down on her bed, but before she could pull on her headphones, Van worked up the nerve to approach her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Willa didn’t look up from the screen of her laptop. This was not promising, but Van was out of options. This was a last-ditch effort, and it had to succeed. It had to. Maybe she should start out slow and give a big speech, but she’d never been much good at that. Hopefully her actions would speak louder than her terrible, horrible words had.

Van swallowed hard, hoping that sick gurgly feeling in her stomach—like when she and Nate had downed way too much Pop Rocks and soda to prove your stomach would not in fact explode—would go away. It didn’t, and it probably wouldn’t unless she apologized. Even then, who knew if Willa would forgive her? She’d been a pretty big shithead.

“Wills,” she begged. “Please. I know I fucked up and was completely unfair, and I want more than anything to make it up to you. The usual ways I know to tell someone I care…well, I feel like they wouldn’t work for you. Not that you wouldn’t appreciate the effort, but I want to do something you enjoy. And I think I found something. So pretty please with some ectoplasm on top? You can bash me in the face with your racquet—the crappy one, of course—if I’m lying.”

Willa’s face was pinched and wary, like she was worried Van was going to hurt her. Van hated it. So much. She deserved it, though, because she had hurt Willa. But she wouldn’t do it again, not if she could help it. People screwed up all the time, of course, but she could at least make an offering. That’s what she was trying to do, but she needed Willa to come with her.

“Just a couple of hours is all I’m asking. After that, if you never want to talk to me again, I won’t bother you. Swear.”

“Swear on Holtzmann?”

Ugh, these Carter siblings and their vendetta against her Holtzmann—what was with that? But if that was what it took, she was willing. “Yeah, I swear on Holtzmann.”

“Fine, but this had better be good.”

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, they were climbing out of Van’s car, and whoo boy, did Willa have something to say about where they’d ended up.

“You seriously made me drive forty-five minutes to bring me to a gas station? Look, I don’t know if this is the only place for miles that carries your preferred flavor of Mountain Dew or what, but you need to take me back to camp. I don’t want to be here.”

The air was cooling off from the high heat of the summer, and the breeze was gentle but carried a chill, bringing hints of fall and, well, urine, because they were at a sketchy ass gas station. What the hell? She’d had visions of Van bringing her out to some meadow where they could lie on a blanket in the grass, holding hands and then maybe making out while they were allegedly watching the stars or some sort of astronomical event Van had found out about. If a ratty old gas station was Van’s idea of an apology, she was doing it wrong.

“It’s not the gas station, promise. Come with me, please? Five minutes from here. Just five.”

Willa blew out a breath from her nose, but god she wanted to take that chance, wanted to follow Van. Before yesterday, she would’ve followed Van anywhere and everywhere, but after her tirade about academia and her complete freak-out over Nate, her confidence in the woman she’d had a crush on for more than a dozen years had been shaken.

She considered the hand on offer and eventually took it. Van squeezed, and it nearly forced tears to the surface.

They walked to the back of the gas station, nodding at a grizzly-looking dude behind the counter on their way. Behind the squat cement building, there was a hill, and Van led her up a steep and narrow but well-worn path. True to her word, in about five minutes, they’d circled the hill and were standing so they could barely see the glow of the overhead lights from the gas station and none of the building itself.

That’s when she saw it. A fissure in the side of the hill. It was rocky and narrow, but there. Van tugged her hand, and she followed, hope floating to the top of her well of feelings. Had she—

When they stepped through the tight opening, Willa could tell that, yeah, she had. Van had found her a cave.

“So turns out that, due to the composition of the bedrock around here, there aren’t so many caverns. Too much metamorphic rock-like schist, not enough limestone.” Van was using her professor voice, but she was looking around like a kid at Disney. “I know this isn’t impressive compared to what you’re used to, but I wanted to bring you here because it seemed like the right place to tell you something important.”

“What’s that?”

Van pulled Willa around until she was gripping both of Willa’s hands in hers. “I’m sorry. For a few things, so give me a minute to get it all out. I’m sorry for putting my friendship with Nate above your feelings. Yeah, he’s my best friend and losing that would crush me, but if I wasn’t willing to be honest with him about it, I shouldn’t have started this or let it get as far as it did. Your feelings are important to me too, Wills. If I had it to do over again, I’d tell Nate straight up that I was interested in you from the beginning.

“Also, I let my own feelings about academia color what I said to you, and I shouldn’t have. Your journey isn’t the same as mine, and it would only make sense if we end up in different places. If you want to finish your PhD and apply for tenure-track positions, you absolutely should. Your passion, talent, and dedication would be a real asset to whatever university you ended up at, and I apologize for ever making you doubt that.”

Willa’s eyes watered, and her chin wavered. She was about to say something, but Van shook her head.

“I think I’m going to be leaving my job and looking for a position in the private sector because that’s the right decision for me. I’ve actually been talking to one of the senior people at Aquitaine about going to work for them eventually, although I’m not going to make any decisions yet. What I will do is use any and all resources and connections at my disposal to help you get whatever job you want. If I know someone who knows someone, I will give them anything they want for you to have a chance at your dream.”

“Even Holtzmann?” Willa was kidding, with her pathetic, tear-laden whisper, but it didn’t sound like Van was when she answered.

“Even Holtzmann. I would give her up for you.”

Which was the weirdest compliment Willa had ever gotten, but damn if it didn’t make her feel good.

“I’d never ask you to give up Holtzmann. You love her. I don’t see how giving her up would get me a job anyway, but I love that you offered. And I have my own apology to make. It wasn’t cool of me to tell Nate about us without talking to you first. I got carried away because everything was so awesome that I assumed we both wanted to be together beyond camp. I shouldn’t have made that presumption. But—” Willa bit her lip because she thought she knew the answer that would come, but she didn’t want to make any more conjectures. That had not gone well for her. “But you do, right?”

“Yes, I do. It took me a while to admit it to myself because I can be kind of clueless, but yes. And I…” Van took a deep breath, looking like she’d chugged a whole glass of all the sodas mixed together. “I love you. I haven’t said it, and I might not have done the greatest job of showing you, but I do.”

Before Willa could cry—because she was totally gonna cry—she dropped Van’s hands and reached out for her face, cupping her cheeks and brushing her thumbs over them. So soft. When she leaned in to kiss her, she knew her lips would be soft too. And hungry and warm, and if she could get her to…

Van moaned, and Willa took the opportunity to slide her tongue in between Van’s lips, brush it against hers, and god, there was that spark that Van would probably make some adorkable reference to. Willa wanted to get those references. Not because she suddenly had any strong desire to go to Comic-Con or be a devoted Trekkie, but it was important to Van and Van was important to her, and she could admit Firefly was actually pretty entertaining.

“I love you too, and I want you to be happy. We’ll figure something out, okay? I want to be with you, and you know, they’ll tell jokes about us—how many degrees does it take to change a lightbulb? They’ll be funny, and I won’t mind at all. Because I’ll be with you, and you’re pretty great when you’re not trying to discourage me.” Willa bit her lip, unsure of how much more to say. Did it really matter? Maybe it didn’t matter now, but she knew Van was a big fan of having information. It was one of the things that made the world fit together like puzzle pieces in her perpetually logical way, whereas Willa was far more comfortable picturing the world as a Van Gogh painting in motion. So she gave Van another data point. “The thing is, everyone always treats me like Geologist Barbie because of the way I look and because, honestly, I’m not as smart as a lot of the other people in my program.”

Van opened her mouth to protest, but Willa raised a hand. “No, it’s true, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I don’t have as much raw intelligence as a lot of them. What I do have is the ability to work hard, and part of how I learned to do that was by busting my ass at tennis. So I don’t regret any of it. I’ve gotten used to people underestimating me, but I never thought you’d be one of them.”

Grimace was not a strong enough word for how pained Van’s expression was. “I’m an utter shit, and I’ll apologize as many times as you need me to. You are one of the hardest working people I know, and I’d be willing to wager my entire Wonder Woman collection you could do anything you put your mind to. I don’t even have much in the way of an excuse for my behavior, except in a roundabout and completely wrong way, I was trying to protect you.”

As much as that made her want to roll her eyes, Willa didn’t. Van didn’t like being wrong, and the fact she was apologizing so profusely—she might even call it a grovel—was enough. “You know I’m not a stupid kid anymore, right? You can’t keep treating me like one.”

Van touched a fingertip to Willa’s nose. “You, my love, were never stupid. Nate and I did far more crazy shit than you ever did. As for being a kid, I’ll probably catch some flack for having a younger, hotter girlfriend, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing and able to make.”

At that, Willa did roll her eyes. “You still haven’t said you’ll respect my decisions.”

“I will, I swear. Except when it comes to snack food. You’re going to have to trust my judgment on that, okay? Because I can’t even with this kale chip nonsense. And no one will ever convince me carob is even a distant relative of chocolate.”

“Fine. You can be in charge of the snack cupboard. But I am going to make you eat quinoa.”

Van wrinkled her nose, but then smiled. “Deal. Seal it with a kiss?”

As if there were any other way. Willa tipped her head to capture Van’s mouth with her own, and it wasn’t long before hands wandered and bodies pressed against each other. Then Van had the nerve to pull away. How dare she?

“Y’ever had sex in a cave?”

“What?” Willa smacked Van on the shoulder, which did nothing to dim her mischievous grin. “No. Caves are for working, not for…shenanigans.”

“I thought geologists did it in the dirt?”

Willa groaned, and not with the pleasure Van usually inspired in her. “Oh my god, you and Nate make the worst puns in the whole world.”

“Yeah, but you love us anyway.”

“Yes, I do.” To prove it, Willa kissed Van again, wrapping her arms around Van’s ribcage and holding her so tight there couldn’t be any air between them. With Van’s body against hers, suddenly sex in a cave didn’t sound like the worst idea. “Don’t suppose you brought a blanket?”