Page 98 of The Confidant
We might have been ignoring them, but they were still very much there.
Carter climbed in the driver’s seat a second later, and after making sure we were all ready to go, he backed out of the ATV garage. We drove down the trail toward our destination, and as we traveled down the tree-shrouded path, I just let myself enjoy this moment. Let myself breathe in the scent of Scarlett’s shampoo and enjoy the weight of her body on mine.
Man, I’d missed this so much. Missed being close to Scarlett. Missed holding her.
“I’m glad the weather is nice enough that we could do this today,” Carter said conversationally over the roar of the engine, looking back at Scarlett, Nash, and me through the rearview mirror. “You’ve been hoping to break in your new rope and harness ever since Christmas, haven’t you, Hunter?”
“Yeah,” I said, pulling my head back from Scarlett’s hair so I wouldn’t be yelling in her ear. “Bash talked about taking me climbing over spring break, so this will be a good maiden voyage for it.”
My brother Bash was the one who got me into outdoor sports since he’d done a lot of climbing with the oldest Hastings’s sibling, Ian, back when they were at the academy together. And it had been perfect when I’d become friends with Nash and Carter freshman year because they had just started climbing with their older brother, too.
“Has that cottage always been there?” Scarlett asked when the path turned and a little cottage appeared in the clearing in the woods. “I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it before.”
Nash looked to where Scarlett was pointing. He turned back to her and said, “It’s been there since before I was born.”
“Really?” Scarlett asked.
“Yeah.” Nash nodded. “It’s where Regina lives with her daughter.” Regina was the head of staff at the Hastings’s estate.
As if on cue, the back door to the cottage opened and the barista I recognized from The Brew—Kiara—walked out onto the back porch.
“Is that Regina’s daughter?” Scarlett pointed at Kiara.
Nash glanced briefly toward Kiara before saying, “Yeah, that’s her.”
“She looks our age,” Scarlett said. “Why doesn’t she go to our school?”
“I think she goes to the public school in town,” Nash said.
“Oh cool.” Scarlett’s hair whipped in front of her face when she turned to look at Kiara once more. “She’s really pretty.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Nash shrugged before looking ahead at the trail.
“Did you bring anything for your hair?” I asked Scarlett when she continued to hold her hair back behind her neck after facing forward again.
“No, I forgot.” She glanced back at me. “Am I going to need one?”
“It’s a good idea,” I said. “Just to keep your hair from getting caught in the rappel device.”
She frowned, like she was imagining hanging from the cliff by her hair.
“I think I actually might have an extra elastic in my bag that you can use,” I said, remembering that I’d put a few hair ties in there after going canyoneering in Southern Utah with Bash and our cousin Arie last fall. Arie’s six-year-old daughter had gotten her hair caught for a minute after she’d lost her hair tie on the hike in. After that, I’d always wanted to be prepared just in case I found myself in that situation again.
I swiveled around to reach for my backpack and was able to slide open the zipper for the small pocket at the top. I felt around the little bottle of Tylenol, my extra Chapstick, and the small first aid kit I had in there, and sure enough, at the bottom were the hair elastics.
I used my fingers to pull one out and brought it to where Scarlett could see. “Ta-da!”
“Oh good.” She sighed, relieved.
“Do you want it in a ponytail or a braid?” I asked.
“Oh, um,” she said, like she hadn’t expected me to help her. “Do you remember how to do a braid?”
“It’s been a while, but I think so.”
The last time I’d done a braid was when she’d taught me how to French braid her hair one Sunday evening last spring when we’d been bored in the common room.
She let go of her hair, and after some of it flew into my face, I separated her strands into three sections and started braiding them together.
