11. Neavh

"So am I allowed to ask the question?"

Clover glances at me and then back at the road. We're about ten minutes outside River's Bend, and neither of us has spoken until now.

"What question?"

"Why a yurt?"

She steals another glance at me and asks, "Why a Spongebob Squarepants golf cart?"

I chuckle. "Touché."

I join her in staring out the windshield. The highway is lined with soaring fir trees, and the last traces of morning mist are still lurking deep in the woods. The side of the road is dotted with bright green ferns.

"Okay," I say when she doesn't show signs of saying anything else. "I'll go first if you promise to go second."

She hums for a second like she's pondering the offer.

"How about you go first, and then we'll see?"

I let out a surprised laugh and look back over at her. "Damn, Clover. When did you get so sly?"

She shrugs and keeps her face blank, but I can see the slight twitch of her mouth as she fights back a smile.

"I've always been sly."

I should stop staring at her, but my eyes keep tracing the familiar shape of her face as she steers us up the road. We're only a few days into June, and she's already got a tan from working out in the campground every day. The sun-kissed tint of her skin brings out the gold flecks in her eyes.

My gaze travels down to her shoulders. She's wearing a thin windbreaker that has slipped down enough for me to see a strip of bare skin between the sleeve and the strap of her tank top.

I wonder if she's got any tan lines yet. My face heats up at the thought, and I force myself to look away.

"So, yeah, the golf cart." My voice comes out hoarse. I pause to clear my throat as my cheeks flame even hotter. "David got it for me since he needs the truck available for the bar most days, and I needed a way to get into town."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Clover rest one hand in her lap and begin to steer the truck with just one arm.

My throat goes dry all over again.

I never knew I had a thing for girls driving pickup trucks until I met Clover Rivers.

"That doesn't explain why it looks like Spongebob."

I huff a laugh. I was hoping she wouldn't remember the details of my bizarre vehicle, but it's an impossible sight to forget.

"I don't think anything explains why it looks like Spongebob. David got it off some old dude who painted it like that for his grandkids, but it's giving horror film way more than beloved children's cartoon."

Clover laughs. "Yeah, I thought I was hallucinating when you drove up to Riverview in that thing."

The mood shifts at the mention of that morning. Clover puts both hands back on the wheel, her grip tightening. I look down at my lap and bunch my hands up in the sleeves of my flannel.

"That was an accident, by the way," I tell her, my voice low. "I didn't mean to drive to Riverview. I was just taking it for a test drive and got a bit carried away, and then I needed to pull in somewhere to turn around, and you just happened to be…"

I trail off when I realize I still have no explanation for why she was standing there covered in mud.

"Wallowing in a puddle?" she suggests.

"Is that what you were doing?"

"I was walking out to talk to Trish," she explains, "and I slipped and fell."

I nod. "Oh. I see."

A couple minutes pass in silence. I don't know if it's better to talk or not. I don't know if I should be here in this car at all. I was so convinced she'd tell me to get lost back at the bar that I didn't process what was happening until I was buckling my seatbelt and it was too late to think twice about going with her.

She made it clear what she wants this summer, and it doesn't involve us having casual chats or riding around in trucks together, but here we are.

"So, did you give yourself motion sickness or something?" she asks, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I didn't think golf carts went fast enough for that."

I blink at her. "Huh?"

"You threw up. Remember?"

I turn to stare out the passenger side window as my face heats up again, this time with shame. If I could pick any detail to wipe from her memory of that morning, it would be the fact that I puked—not just because it was disgusting, but because of why it happened.

I haven't had that kind of episode in years, and the last place I want to think about the sound of screams and crunching metal is here in a car speeding up a twisty highway.

"Oh, yeah," I say, still turned away from her. "I think it was the jet lag and, uh, not eating breakfast or something."

She's quiet for a moment before she says, "Ah. Makes sense."

I squeeze my eyes shut and put all my focus into banishing the visions of cars flipping over and smashing each other to bits. I clench my fists so tight my nails dig into my palms even through the thick flannel.

I have to keep it together. There's no way in hell I'm asking her to pull over, not when I'm already imposing on her life just by being in this truck.

I twist back around to face the windshield and muster up the most casual tone I can manage.

"So, about the yurt?"

She squints at the road like she's figuring out her answer.

"The yurt is my…summer project. I'm going to build it and then rent it out."

I'd be doing a spit take if I happened to be sipping water. I figured she must be picking the delivery up as an errand for the campground. The Clover I knew was way more likely to spend her free time catching up on National Geographic or studying bird calls than starting up a side hustle.

"How…ambitious?" I say.

"Everyone needs a hobby."

"And you picked…yurt?"

My voice cracks on the last word, and she lets out a heavy exhale to keep from laughing.

"There were no animals that needed rescuing or species that needed studying in River's Bend this summer?" I ask.

She shrugs again. "I wanted to try something different."

Something about her tone gets my guard back up. She sounds frustrated, but not necessarily at me.

"Oh," I say. "You're still studying environmental science, right?"

Maybe I've got this all wrong. Maybe she's changed way more than I thought.

She nods. "Yep."

I still can't tell if she's pissed at me or not, but I'm worried if I just sit here saying nothing, I'll risk annoying her even more.

"Have you, uh, finished your undergrad now?" I ask.

"Mhmm. I graduated in April."

I can't read her tone. I keep mine neutral as I answer, "Wow. Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"So you're, um, going to do a Master's now?"

She nods. "That's the plan. I got accepted to the graduate program in Victoria."

"Amazing!"

My voice sounds way too bright, like a cartoon character congratulating a toddler. I cough and glance out the window again.

"So do you do, like, a thesis for that?" I ask. "Do you still want to specialize in avian migration patterns? That is what it's called, right? I—"

"We don't have to do this."

I stutter to a stop. She keeps driving in silence. When I work up the courage to look at her, I see she's gripping the wheel so tight her knuckles have gone white.

"We don't have to pretend we're old friends catching up. We're not."

The ice in her voice feels like it's piercing my skin.

"Right," I murmur. "Sorry."

Guilt twists in my stomach as the next few minutes tick by. The atmosphere in the car grows so suffocating my hands twitch with the urge to roll the windows down.

We pass by a few ramshackle houses with their roofs all covered in moss. They've faded out of sight in the rear-view mirror by the time Clover sighs.

"I'm sorry," she says, her shoulders slumping. "It's just…it's weird to be talking after so long. I don't really know how to do it."

I nod. "Yeah, I feel the same."

Our eyes meet. My heart thumps against my ribs.

She looks away.

"Look," she says. "Let's just, uh, not talk about…us."

We both flinch at the word, at the way it hangs between us like a keg of kerosene waiting for a match to go off.

"I mean, like, our lives and what we've been doing and stuff," she rushes to add. "Let's just talk about other stuff. That will probably feel less weird."

I bob my head, the word us still echoing in my mind.

"For sure. That's a good idea."

Another minute goes by.

"So…" she says.

"So…" I echo before blurting the first piece of relevant news that comes to mind. "I hear Trish has a girlfriend?"

Clover leaps on the change of subject with frantic enthusiasm.

"Yeah! Plot twist of the century, right? It's been months, and people are still arguing about whether Trish broke Scooter's heart or he broke hers."

I laugh too. "Sounds about right for River's Bend, but David told me they realized they would only ever work as friends?"

"Yeah, that's the real story," she answers. "They finally went on a couple dates, but I think they realized they just felt pressured into the whole thing by everyone saying they'd be perfect for each other for so long."

Some of her newfound cheerfulness slips, and she grimaces.

"I feel pretty bad about that," she says. "I mean, I'm Trish's sister, and it didn't even occur to me that she might be queer too. I guess I assumed that since Emily and I have been out for so long and everyone has always been supportive, Trish would have felt okay to come out too."

I can hear the regret in her voice, and it tugs at my chest.

"It makes sense that you thought that," I tell her. "I think sometimes people just have to go at their own pace. I only realized I'm a lesbian and not bi a couple years ago."

She glances at me. "Oh?"

I can't read her expression, and the neck of my t-shirt starts feeling too tight as I wonder if I said the wrong thing yet again.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry." I glance down at my lap. "I know we're not supposed to be talking about ourselves."

"Don't be sorry."

The warmth in her voice makes me look back up.

"I'm, uh, happy for you," she says, a soft smile on her face. "I'm sure it feels good to embrace that about yourself. Congrats."

I slump in my seat and realize just how tense I'd gotten waiting for her reaction. Plenty of people have had shit to say about whether or not I ‘deserve' to call myself a lesbian after so many years of thinking there was a chance I was into men.

"Thanks," I say.

She grins at me for a moment before a bend in the road forces hers to focus on the highway again.

"So who is this girl Trish fell for?" I ask, since the romantic drama of River's Bend seems to be a safe subject for us.

"Ha," Clover says, like I'm in for an earful. "So, she's Emily's girlfriend's best friend."

I replay that sentence a few times before I nod.

"Okay, I think I follow."

Clover chuckles. "That's everyone's reaction. Kim, Emily's girlfriend, came through town doing the whole van life thing last spring and ended up getting hired to do some odd jobs at Three Rivers because Emily literally fell in love with her at first sight. She tries to act like she was more responsible and level-headed about it, but she is such a sucker for Kim."

We both laugh at the description. I remember Emily being something of a drill sergeant masquerading as an outdoorsy Barbie doll.

"I can't picture Emily being a sucker for anyone, but I'll take your word for it."

"Kim moved out here permanently from Toronto. She lives over in Nanaimo for her job, but she stays at Emily's place all the time," Clover explains. "Her best friend, Kennedy, is this hotshot real estate agent in Toronto. She came to visit Kim, and one thing led to another, and now she's with Trish. She's looking into moving to Victoria, actually."

"Wow. This sounds like quite the saga."

"Oh, it has been." Clover nods and goes back to driving with one hand.

I concentrate very hard on not staring at her.

She really shouldn't be able to make something so simple look so sexy, and I really shouldn't be noticing how sexy she is at all.

Two and a half hours later, we're turning off the highway onto the dirt road that leads into Three Rivers. The bed of the truck is loaded with a mountain of bulky packages wrapped in white shrink wrap. My skin is covered in a layer of dried sweat streaked with dirt, and fresh sweat is breaking out on the back of my neck as we get closer to the campground.

I forgot about this part.

Judging by the way she's gone silent, so has Clover. Any chatter between us fades as we each face the reality of me being back at Three Rivers for the first time in four years.

An eighties pop song playing on the radio fills the quiet of the truck's cab. The rhythm is way too upbeat for such an ominous moment. I hold my breath as Clover slows the truck to a crawl. She waves to the staff member sitting in the tiny hut of a welcome office as we drive under the arm of the mechanical gate he's just lifted up for us.

We're so quiet I can hear a few twigs snap under the tires as Three Rivers itself finally comes into view. Soaring fir trees so high I can't see the tops through the windshield dot the entire property. Pillars of smoke rise from a few mid-afternoon campfires. Tents in every shade of green, blue, and brown sit like strange mushrooms popping up from the underbrush. A maze of dirt roads wind around the wooden outbuildings housing shower facilities and storage sheds. Campground guests wander the grounds in hiking boots and flip-flops. Kids chase each other with sticks, kicking up sprays of small rocks as they race along the well-worn trails.

In the distance, I spot the familiar pointed shape of Emily's A-frame, and I know just beyond it sits the main house.

For a moment, I forget how to breathe.

This is where it all happened.

This is where so much of our story took place.

I sneak a glance at Clover and flinch when I see the grim set of her jaw, her narrowed eyes glued to the road.

This is where our story happened, but that story is over. I'm the one who ripped out the last few chapters and slammed the cover shut.

Instead of driving us up to the house, Clover weaves through a series of twists and turns that takes us so deep into the grounds I know there's no way I'd get back out on my own. We pull up to a small clearing housing a storage shed that's seen better days. A patch of flat earth sits in front of the shed, a tangled nest of weeds and old fir needles covering the dirt.

"This is where I'm building the yurt," Clover says after shutting the truck off.

Her voice sounds extra loud after so many minutes of silence. I wait for her to move first. She keeps staring out the windshield for a few seconds before she unclips her seatbelt and hops out of the truck.

She's backed into the space to make things easier for us. I watch her pull the tailgate down and then hop up into the bed to start unhooking the straps holding the packages down. It's the last thing I should be thinking, but I can't help admiring how damn good she looks, all flyaway hair and golden, suntanned legs that stretch out for miles under her cargo shorts.

Clover Rivers might be the only person in the world who can make cargo shorts look hot.

Before she can catch me staring, I hop up after her, and we finish on the straps before she points out where she'd like us to start piling all the stuff. Then we get to work.

We're dripping with sweat and coated in even more dirt after all the massive packs of wood and canvas have finally been removed from the truck. I prop one of my elbows on the tailgate and wipe some of the sweat from my forehead while I pant and survey the results of our labor. The huge, shrink-wrapped bundles are now arranged in a somewhat tidy pile beside the shed. Clover disappears into the truck's cab for a moment before coming back with two metal water bottles.

"Here," she says, offering one to me.

"Thank you," I mumble, ripping my gaze away before I can start staring at the way she wraps her lips around the rim of her own bottle.

We spend a few seconds gulping down the water before she reaches into the pocket of her shorts and pulls out a fifty dollar bill.

"That's for you," she says, pinching the money between two fingers as she holds it out to me.

For a moment, I wonder why the hell she's offering me money.

Then I remember the whole reason I'm here: the advertisement.

This is a job.

Still, I shake my head instead of taking the fifty.

"Clover, you don't have to pay me."

She narrows her eyes.

"I'm, uh, happy to help," I add.

I thought refusing payment would make this interaction less awkward, but she keeps squinting at me with the bill held out between us, and I start to wish I could take the words back and just pocket the cash.

"I know you need the money," she says. "You told me David can't give you any good shifts. You answered my ad for a reason, so take it. You earned it."

She shakes the money at me, but still, I don't move.

Somehow, being paid to be here makes everything about today feel cheap.

Maybe it was to her. Maybe none of it mattered.

The thoughts slither out of some dark corner of my mind to remind me that this wouldn't be the first time something meant more to me than it did to Clover.

"Come on, Neavh. Don't make me stick this in your pocket."

The slight growl in her voice pulls me back to the present. I don't have time to react before she lunges for me.

I shriek, water spraying out of my bottle in an arc of shimmering droplets as she clutches the edge of my flannel.

"You're not leaving here without this money," she says, a glint in her eyes as she cackles and tries to stuff the bill into the front pocket of the shirt.

I shriek again and twist away at the last second, my heart pounding and an exhilarated laugh of my own bursting out of my mouth. We struggle with each other for a few more seconds, wriggling against the edge of the tailgate as we continue to laugh.

"Don't be stubborn," Clover taunts, her fingers just inches from my pocket.

"Don't make me pour this on your head," I shoot back, lifting my water bottle over her.

She grins. "You're bluffing."

She tugs me closer by the hem of my shirt and manages to get the edge of the fifty into my pocket just as I tip the bottle and let a few drops splash onto her hair.

She screams but doesn't pull away. A splatter of water plops onto her nose just as she manages to tuck the bill all the way in.

"Yes!" she shouts, prancing away with a smug smile on her face.

I'm panting from the effort of fending her off—and from the way I can still feel the ghost of her hand clasping my shirt. My chest feels hot, like there are burning coals lodged between my ribs, and I know my face must be turning red.

"I win!" Clover crows, planting her hands on her hips and doing a swiveling victory dance that looks like she's spinning an invisible hula hoop.

I can't keep my eyes off the twisting of her body and the way her t-shirt rides up just enough for me to get a glimpse of the pale skin of her stomach.

She looks even better than she did back then. We were both leaving the tail end of teenage awkwardness behind that summer. I loved her gangly limbs and the way her legs seemed a bit too long for her to manage, but now she looks like she's grown into her body, like she owns it.

Like she could own me.

I force my eyes to glance up at the trees as I push the insane thought aside.

I've got to get my shit together. Before today, she wasn't even interested in being in the same room as me. I'm going to make things ten times weirder than they already are if she catches me drooling over how gorgeous she is.

"So much for a gracious victory," I say, gripping the edges of my sleeves hard as I fight to keep my voice even.

"You could have just taken the money," she drawls. "You didn't have to make it weird."

I place a hand on my chest. "I made it weird? You're the one who attacked me."

She shrugs and glances down at the ground for a moment as she tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, still grinning.

She's too cute. She has no right to be that cute while we're alone in the middle of the forest and I'm supposed to act like this is nothing more than a business transaction.

She looks up, those hazel eyes locking on mine.

"Hey. So. Here's the thing."

I didn't think my heart could beat any faster, but it does.

"I will kill you if you admit I said this to anyone, but…I clearly can't do this all by myself." She sweeps her arm out to indicate the yurt materials. "This whole idea was crazy. I don't know what I was thinking believing I could single-handedly build a yurt, but…I think I could manage it as a two-person job."

I try not to gulp.

"I don't want to ask anyone around here for help," she continues. "I know it sounds stupid, but…I just want this to be my thing. This summer has felt, uh, kind of weird for me, and I really need an outlet that doesn't involve my family or the campground."

A flash of pain crosses her face. She stares down at the ground again for a moment, and I fight the urge to reach out and clasp her arm.

"My dad fronted me the money for the yurt," she says when she looks back up. "I'm paying him back with the money I get from renting it out. I borrowed enough for some extra expenses, so I can afford to pay someone to help me build for a few hours here and there."

I notice a flush of pink begin to creep up her neck. I concentrate on keeping myself numb as I bunch my hands up inside my sleeves. I don't want to get caught up thinking she's insinuating something she's not.

"I mean, it won't be amazing money or anything," she says, "and it would be a pretty unpredictable schedule since I have to fit things in around my job at the campground, but if you still need extra cash, and you want to help…"

Her voice seems to run out of steam, trailing off into silence as she looks down at the tips of my sneakers.

"Clover," I say, "are you offering me a job?"

"I know it's weird." Her tone takes on a frantic edge. "I know I said we should do our own thing, but I'm going to feel like an idiot if I bought this yurt just to have to admit I can't build it, and maybe I was na?ve thinking we could just avoid each other in a place as small as River's Bend. I'm just… I'm sick of feeling anxious all the time wondering if I'm about to run into you, and today made me feel like…like maybe we could just try to be, I don't know, normal?"

She's breathing hard by the time she's done, her eyes wide with desperation. The urge to reach out for her gets even stronger.

There's nothing normal about accepting a job to build a yurt with a woman you used to be in love with, but maybe this is the closest to normal we're going to get. Maybe she's right. Maybe we could trade nervous glances over our shoulders every minute we're in town for an agreement to be in each other's lives within the boundaries of this job.

Maybe she needs this.

Maybe I need it too.

Maybe we're just idiots making a huge mistake, but that doesn't stop me from saying yes.

"Just tell me when you need me," I answer, "and I'll be here."