Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
A two-person table and camping chairs are pushed up next to the tarped wall, and the microwave and coffeepot might as well have been teleported from the early nineties.
Oliver is still in his underwear. He’s flipping through a GQ catalog he picked up at the last gas station and rubbing expensive cream on his forehead. “Get dressed,” I tell him. “I’m going to tell your sister we’re hitting the road.”
Phoebe slept in the yurt across from ours. Alone. Hers has a full-sized bed, not two cots, and I offered to crash on the floor so she wouldn’t be by herself, but she acted like I was sacrificing oxygen.
“I’ll tell her.” Oliver hops off the bunk and practically pole vaults into his pants.
Oliver Graves is a fantastic liar, but I know him too well.
And I can count on one hand the number of times he’s rushed his morning routine. He’s three steps from the exit just as I casually slip in front of the yurt’s wooden door. Blocking him.
Oliver zips up his pants, then runs a hand through his hair, trying to brush back the golden-blond strands without a comb. He’s been a blond for half a year, mostly posing as a surfer from sunny California or the beaches of Florida.
He waits for me to move. I don’t. “Why can’t I tell her?” I ask him.
“Because you know Phoebe,” he says. “Grumpy in the morning. Doesn’t become a ball of sunshine until her second or third cup of coffee. Let me save you from her attitude.”
I like her attitude.
But that’s the last thing Oliver needs to know.
I flash a dry smile. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t need saving. Especially not from your grumpy little sister.” I spin around to grab the doorknob, but Oliver puts a hand to my shoulder.
“Wait.” He tries again. “She probably wants to sleep in.” He’s hiding something. It’s becoming more obvious, and concern skates through me like a shotgun blast.
“Too bad for her.” I shake off his grip and tear open the door.
Oliver reaches past my arm and pries me off the door. He’s holding the knob hostage in a tight fist, and I twist my head over my shoulder. He’s physically blocking my exit now. Our eyes meet, and I realize I’m the only irritated one. He’s more…desperate.
“Oliver—”
“I promised I wouldn’t say anything to you.” He folds like a plastic chair. Maybe he realizes I’d yank out the truth from him sooner rather than later, and he’s just defaulting to sooner.
“Say what to me?” I ask.
“Phoebe made me promise. You know, my triplet. Do me a solid and let me keep my promises to my sister.”
Like hell.
He emphasized sister because I have a sister the same age. It’s a commonality between us. He wants me to relate and be sentimental over promises I’ve made to Hailey, so that I’ll back off here.
If I were a better person, maybe I would respect that, but I fully expect people to try and rip secrets out of me. Maybe he should’ve, too.
“Do me a solid and move your hand,” I tell him.
Oliver groans. “Rocky. She’s fine.”
Phoebe might not overshare her life with me like she does Hailey, but I didn’t think she’d actively keep important shit from me. We’ve been wound up in too many jobs, too many situations, to be that closed off to one another.
So I can’t conceptualize what she’s hiding. Other than she’s hurt. Did I do something? Is she pissed at me? I’d rather talk it out. Figure it out. I can’t just stand here. Idle.
“How am I supposed to know she’s okay?” I ask. “I haven’t seen her this morning. Neither have you. But you two are keeping secrets, and I’m supposed to what…sit here and twiddle my thumbs? No thanks.”
He doesn’t let go of the doorknob, but after a short breath, his resolve fractures. “You really want to know?”
“No, I’m just playing mind games,” I retort.
Oliver raises his brows. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“It would be with you,” I tell him.
“Yo también te amo.” He winks, and from my well-endowed Spanish knowledge, I know he said, I love you, too.
I stare deeper into him. “Oliver.”
His fingers loosen on the knob, and he confesses, “She’s with someone.”
My stomach knots. “Come again?”
“The park ranger from yesterday—”
“The guy who didn’t rub in his sunscreen?” I grimace. He had white splotches all over his nose and chin, and he’d been restocking pamphlets at the visitor center when we arrived yesterday evening.
Oliver gives me an intrusive once-over. “Yeah, him. He spent the night in her yurt. She told me not to tell you because she thought you’d freak out, and she’s not wrong. Is she?”
No.
She isn’t wrong.
Oliver sees through me. He sees I care about his sister on a level that shouldn’t be advertised to anyone.