Page 3 of The Ripple Effect

What Ishoulddo is go back to my too-expensive vacation rental, stand in the shower until I feel 50 percent sure I won’t die of cold, then sleep until it’s time to head to the airport for my flight back to Brittle Rock, the far north mining town where I’m the locum doctor.

What I’mgoingto do is see whether I’d like to hook up with a guy named McHuge.

Step one: I ask him to give me something. Not a fleece, no matter how amazing it is. He’s given his clothes to a lot of people today, so a fleece isn’t special. I need something specific. SomethingIchoose.

I catch up to him to walk alongside. “What’s your name, McHuge?”

“You just said it.”

“Not your professional wrestling name. Your real name.”

“I could argue professional wrestling names turn into real names, given enough time.”

“You’re funny.” I keep my tone light. I asked, he refused, done. I’ll give him directions to the rental place.

He looks down at me, brows drawn together. Again, I have the disconcerting feeling he senses what I’m thinking. This might be why people are afraid of gingers, and their forest eyes, and their miles of muscles that would go on and on underneath your fingers.

“It’s Lyle. Lyle McHugh.”

Huh. Didn’t see that coming.“What’s your middle name, Lyle?”

“Planning to steal my identity?” He cocks that crooked brow.

“Yes. It’s because we look so much alike.”

“In that case, it’s Quillen.”

My middle name has made me lightning fast at calculating the humiliating permutations of names and initials. “Your parents named you Lyle Q. McHugh? Were they reading too much Dr. Seuss?”

“I think by the time they got to the fifth kid, they were too tired to think it through.” He doesn’t look embarrassed. I don’t think anything unnerves Lyle Q. McHugh.

“Meh, I’ve heard worse.”

“Oh yeah? What’s yours?”

There it is: step two in my hookup test, the reciprocal ask I’m hoping for. I usually say my middle name is Wilhelmina or Brunhilde. Any unusual name is close enough, in spirit. But for some reason, I give Lyle the truth.

“It’s J. Like the letterJ, full stop. Explaining it at the DMV is a nightmare.”

“Stellar J. Like the bird.” Unlike me, he doesn’t make a joke about what kind of parents would name their kid Stellar J Byrd.

We reach the parking lot, weaving through rows of cars until he points his key fob at a small SUV. Inside, it’s worn but clean. On the underside of the flipped-down sun visor is a photo of Lyle in the center of six Chewbacca-sized gingers—siblings, maybe. It looks like it was taken as everyone lost patience and started tormenting each other. Elbows are being thrown. Ponytails fly. Lyle alone stands still, hands folded, body blocking the brawl.

Nothing about this guy is what I expect.

I’m not in a place where I can let myself like him. But I can sleep with him, if he’s willing.

“Where are you heading?” he asks, once we’ve joined the slow crawl of cars out of the lot.

“How about your place?”

Breath comes out of him in a catch, then a rush. He turns my way, darkness falling in his eyes of midnight moss.

“You don’t owe me anything, Stellar J. I’d never… I’d never offer you a ride because I wanted to ask for that. I don’t want that energy between us.”

“That’s not the energy I’m bringing, Lyle. But if the answer’s no, let me out at the corner of Junction and Currie, and we’ll never mention this again.”

He makes a rumbling sound that shakes me all the way down and all the way back up again, like a natural disaster. I can’t look at his hands on the steering wheel, big and rough like a pair of grizzly paws. I’d like to see those hands—