if we only kill what we need and eat all of it afterwards. But I’m partial to deer. They have especially beautiful eyes.”
“Fish eyes. How do those register on a scale from no to all right?”
I shrugged, and then grinned when I realized we were swinging our hands back and forth. “I’m not partial to those. A bit buggy, in my opinion.”
“Good. I like to fish.”
Call me a fish then.
“Elliott used to call me Seven. A lucky number, he used to say, just like me. If fish exist, they’ll come to me.”
He said this without a hint of humor, and his serious tone made me laugh. The sound of it in such a vast space seemed to echo. I had always been told that, for a quiet person, I had a loud laugh. I was inclined to agree in that moment.
All of a sudden he grinned.
“What?” I asked, bumping him slightly. “You’re not the type of person to grin for no reason. Tell me.”
He nodded, the grin still in place. “You have no remorse for fish because you eat a lot of fish.”
My mouth opened and closed. How the hell did he know that?
“When it comes to mine,” he said, seeming to read my mind, “—that means you—I know.”
“It seems you do,” I said, my voice as tender as the sigh that came afterwards. “Did you have fun? When you came here with Elliott?”
“Yeah. No matter what we did, we had fun. But we mostly stayed around the cabins. We didn’t venture this far in. Actually. Those glasses you had on when I picked you up from school. Elliott’s? Yeah. I bought them for him, before we came here. I bought myself a pair too. We thought we were cool men, fishing with our Ray-Bans on. You were meant to have them.”
“I love them.” My voice came out in a hushed tone.
We continued forward in silence again. It was easy to do here. My thoughts were on him and just how much time he had spent with Elliott—times that I had missed.
Occasionally, his eyes would find my face. I could feel the warmth of them when they did, but for some reason I didn’t want to meet his stare. I didn’t like when he thought too much about me, or me and him together. His heart seemed committed to whatever this was between us. His mind, not so much. It felt too much like a tug of war.
The silence became so thick that with each step he took, the crunch of leaves, pine needles, and hard dirt seemed to scream out. I opened my mouth to speak once or twice, but I thought better of it. And because the wind kept blowing my hair in my face, I took my hand from his, fiddled in my pocket for a rubber band, and twisted the strands up into a haphazard bun.
“Your hair is wild today,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed. “My mother would have a fit.”
“I like it. When your hair is— ” he motioned around his head in a wide circular motion “—it fits half of your personality.” I went to retort with sarcasm, perhaps a question about the other half of my personality, but he continued on. “You’re afraid to drive.” The comment came rapid fire quick, as did the turn in conversation.
It took a moment for me to catch up. “I’ve never felt the need to.”
“What’s up with you and Charlotte?”
I stumbled over something that may or may not have been hiding under the thick layer of leaves beneath my feet. Brando grabbed my arm to keep me from going down. Balance had never been an issue for me—most people called me gracious, even in the most painful looking circumstances—but his question threw me for a loop.
Charlotte. Ugh. I could hear Violet’s voice in my ear.
My mouth felt dry when I answered. “She belongs to my mom’s side of the family. I don’t. Sometimes I don’t feel like I belong to either side. With the exception of Grandmother Poésy. How well do you know Charlotte?”
“Enough,” he said, keeping his eyes forward. “I don’t agree about her belonging and not you. You and Elliott are polar opposites—in looks, in attitude, in sense of humor—but you and him belong together. Regardless.”
I moved my lips back and forth. “I don’t talk about Charlotte often. There’s nothing to talk about, really. I happened to be the one who excelled in something she tried, as did my mother, and the fact that I