Page 31 of The Ripple Effect

I set down my book to grab my sleep shorts and shirt. Much more of him is covered than if he were chopping wood in his overalls or skinny-dipping in the river, so it’s not wrong for me to face his side of the tent while I change.

He’s on his side, his curls caught in an elastic at his nape, tense shoulders golden where they’ve caught the sun, then suddenly pale where they haven’t.

His gear is a touch messy in a way that’s untamed and endearing rather than sloppy, because he’s clearly trying to get it together. He’s left his backpack unzipped, his things peeking out the top: a red-and-black checked overshirt, a beaten-up pair ofLevi’s, a black beanie, and a couple of those small drawstring sacks outdoor stores sell as backpack organizers. A carabiner clipped to an axe loop holds his bone necklace. The pendant is a salmon vertebra, I’d guess. A peace sign is clumsily etched inside its round, concave body, like someone used a woodburning tool.

The largest backpack pocket, also unzipped, bares the edge of a battered hardcover notebook and a pair of black-framed glasses that look adorably nerdy. I immediately want to see who he is when he’s wearing these.

I turn away instead. “You want the lamp on?”

“No. I’ll probably go to sleep after we talk.”

He sounds tired. Lucky him. I’ll probably lie awake, every nerve ending angry from whatever he’s about to say.It’s not going to be like the hospital, I tell myself. We signed the paperwork; I have the right to purchase my percentage, and no one can take that away. I’m sure of it.

But I was sure about other things, too. My clinic. My mom.

I flip the light off and climb into my sleeping bag by feel. “Let’s get the fight over with, then.” The client tents are a reasonable distance away, but we’re both keeping our voices down.

In the dark, his sigh is so close. “Not everything has to be adversarial, Stellar. I’m not upset about today. Tipping is simply a sign that we need to do better.”

“I know my whitewater technique is a little rusty, but—”

“It’s not our technique!” He so rarely breaks through his calm persona that his passionate whisper hits like a shout. “It’s that I can’t read you. I can’t predict what you’re going to do, so I do the exact wrong thing.”

His words serve me an unexpected burst of loneliness.

Liz and I could read each other when we used to do overnight trips. I loved knowing what she was thinking when she glanced at a hazard. I loved that she always knew what steeringstroke I wanted her to do without me asking. I miss the deep happiness of being out here with someone who knows me.

“I’m sorry I tipped us. That was my fault, and you paid for it. I won’t make a move like that again. But tomorrow we’re paddling solo, anyway.”

“Yes, and as much as we planned for me to do all the instruction and debriefing, I’m occasionally going to need your help. We can’t discover we have major philosophical differences in the middle of running a rapid. We need to build trustnow. I need you to open up,” he says firmly. “Stop hiding behind that unbreakable shell.”

“Oh,I’mhiding? Interesting, because which one of us does the Summer of Love act with the clients and then drops it the second we’re together? Why am I the only person who gets pushback from you, McHuge? Do you even believe any of that positive affirmation, universal love, higher consciousness shtick?”

“If you’re asking whether I was born this way, the answer is no,” he says. His flat calm makes me regret being forceful the way a return of hostilities never could. I’ve poked something important to him. Maybe even something sore.

“And yes, Ichooseto do this, but that doesn’t mean it’s fake. Being different is a gift I give people, Stellar. I make a space for them to be as weird as they want to be in a world where it’s safer to be ordinary.”

An unpleasant jangle of fear vibrates down my spine. It’s safer to be a lot of things. Safer to be at home working a job I don’t care about instead of in this tent trying to launch something I’m afraid I could love. Do I have to offer upeverythingfor this company? My history, my heart, the safety of being angry instead of the vulnerability of terror or grief?

He releases a long breath. “And I push back against you because I’ve seen you fight fair even when you’re angry. If Ioffered you a silver platter with an engraved invitation to take advantage of me, you’d put something of yours on the platter and shove it back in my face. So if you want to lie there under your thundercloud—”

“I do not have athundercloud!”

“—that’s fine. As long as you’re kind to the guests, you don’t have to perform niceness to me. But you and I need a connection. Our business depends on it. Safety and lives depend on it. Give me something I can work with. Tell me about Stellar J Byrd. If possible…” He hesitates. “Trust me with something you regret. One true thing you and I can build on. And I’ll give you the same.”

There’s nothing I hate more than people who give me something I didn’t ask for, then turn around and claim I owe them something in return, like my dad reeling in a mark.

But McHuge isn’t doing that. This is a deal, negotiated up front. We both know the terms.

I swallow hard, finding myself wanting to be honest with him the way he’s honest with me—with everyone, really; I’m not special to him. He’s such a good person, while there’s nothing about me that’s simultaneously honest and good.

I’m the kind of person you turn into when your dad’s a third-rate con artist who spent most of your teen years in prison, then screwed up your life even worse when he got out. Suspicious. Guarded. Not very nice. I don’t trust most people enough to be their friend, let alone their girlfriend.

Although McHuge doesn’t want honest and good, does he? He wants honest andbad. That, I might be able to do.

“Something, Stellar,” McHuge says into the lengthening silence. “Anything.”

“I’m thinking.” It comes out testier than I mean it to. Fury is so ingrained in me, sometimes it’s hard to turn it off.

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