27 MARGOT

Having unfettered access to Wi-Fi for twenty-two hours was like falling off an Internet-free wagon I never wanted to board in the first place and then being rudely shoved back on. I suppose technically, it’s Forrest’s truck and not a wagon, and technically, I’m extremely grateful he retrieved it this morning from the start of the ski trail while I had one more facial at the spa. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. For the seventieth time since we started the drive back to North Star, I compulsively open my email app. For the seventieth time, it tells me to check my Internet connection, and I swear I can hear the endless stretch of snowy pine trees laughing at me. My sigh is a growl in sheep’s clothing.

“Phantom Wi-Fi syndrome,” Forrest says somberly as he shifts into first gear at the world’s most pointless stop sign. Which he obviously stopped at. “Pretty serious condition, I hear.”

I smack his shoulder. “This is all your fault. I was basically used to living off the grid. I was like, one connection-error message away from churning butter and knitting my own underwear.”

“Damn,” he murmurs. “Really shot myself in the foot, I guess.”

“Because your celebrity crush is Pioneer Woman?”

He draws a meditative hand over his beard. “Well, yes, but also because the underwear you’d have the patience to knit would be microscopic.”

“I’m patient!” I cry, repressing my laugh.

For once, he spares a quick glance from the road to give a pointed look down at my crotch and back up. I flush. He’s not wrong, though. I’m never patient with that.

“Patience is overrated,” he says, picking up my water bottle and handing it to me like he’s tracking my fluid intake. He probably is. His eyes flick over to me, catching my latest attempt to check my email. “I think you could probably come up with a better use for your phone.”

“Like what?” I mutter darkly. “Projectile?”

He laughs, and there’s a feeling in my stomach like wings beating hard to get liftoff. It hits me anew that he’s coming back to L.A. with me. That we’ll actually have time to see if things ever settle down between us, or if life with him is always going to feel like a film collaboration between the Hallmark Channel and Pornhub. But with my apology letter probably getting digitally crucified by Bookstagram and Trapper as yet unaware that his son will be leaving him, there’s an almost Bonnie and Clyde energy between us. Like we’ll be arrested at any minute for daring to make ourselves happy for once. Because as it turns out, I’m not the only one whose life skills include pushing people away.

Late last night, with our limbs tangled in the dark, I worked up the courage to ask if he’d had to break things off with someone in L.A. I was fully braced for him to admit that he’d broken the heart of his Nobel Prize–winning research partner who also happened to be Amal Clooney’s twin sister. However, to my surprise—and selfishly, to my relief—he admitted he’s been as closed off to committed relationships as I’ve been. We’ve both been avoiding romance for so long, it feels criminal to suddenly be this infatuated with each other. I have to keep reminding myself that the only laws we’re breaking are our own.

I try to ignore the small voice that reminds me I was obsessed with Adam once too. How there was a phase when his hairy-pancake ass seemed charming. Sexy, even. I shudder. I remind the little voice right back that Forrest and I are the quintessential enemies-to-lovers trope. I’ve already spent quality time hating him, and the most annoying thing I could ever dig up on him is how dependable, brilliant, and sickeningly handsome he is. Which, to be fair, is still annoying.

But I’m very aware that we’re both white-knuckling this thing, and any speed bump could potentially send us flying into a what-the-fuck-have-we-done ditch. I press my lips together to keep from stress-sighing again. What I need is something I never thought I’d need: a Savannah monologue reassuring me that Happily Ever Afters, while unlikely, can and do happen. That this might not be too good to be true.

Naturally, I didn’t hear from Savannah before we left the resort, like I was sure I would. Not that I expect her life to grind to a halt every time I post something on social media, but this wasn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill hot-dog-legs vacation post. At the bare minimum, I expected her to re-create my photo out of artfully arranged exclamation marks. But there was nothing. Sprinkle in the fact that she dodged my questions about her and Cooper while we were on the phone, and my mind has basically been a film festival of worst-case scenarios all day. Did Cooper’s unpredictable schedule finally drive a wedge between them? Was my being away the catalyst? Does she blame me? Did she get sick? Is she—

“She’s fine, Margot.”

I blink up from the No Connection message in my email app, which I didn’t realize I’d opened again. Forrest is looking at the road, his expression calm, and a hot, prickly sensation fizzes over my skin. There’s nothing except reassurance in his deep voice, but the words are triggering anyway. “She’s fine” was Adam’s constant, dismissive, frustrated refrain every time he wanted to go out and I felt compelled to stay with Savannah. My stomach feels as slithery as a snake pit. Is this how it starts? How many “she’s fines” will it take before Forrest is fed up with my priorities?

My fingers grip my phone harder. “You don’t know that,” I say tightly. “There’s no way you could know that.”

At my tone, Forrest is silent, which only makes me feel immature and defensive, ready to lash out. To my surprise, he puts on the hazard lights and slows down until we’re stopped on the side of the deserted, snowy road. He angles himself in his seat so he can look at me. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“I’m… right,” I repeat uncertainly.

Forrest holds his open palm over the center console like he’s trying to get a nervous bird to hop into it. As my tentative hand slides into his wide, calloused palm, a breath shudders out of me. When I look up at him, his face is patient.

“Tell me the list,” he says.

“List?”

“Your ‘What Could Be Wrong with Savannah’ list,” he clarifies.

“How do you—”

“I have one for my dad,” he says matter-of-factly, looking down at our slowly intertwining fingers. “It’s very detailed. Lots of subsections and bullet points.”

A soft snort of disbelief leaves my nose as wonder unfolds in my chest. I shake my head. For the last month, I’ve been surrounded by thousands of miles of untamed wilderness and somehow managed to find the one person who sees and accepts my neuroses completely—and not just from a place of kindness but from a place of actual empathy and understanding.

“When I spoke on the phone with her the other day,” I begin, “she was really evasive every time I brought up her boyfriend, who’s supposed to be taking care of her while I’m away.” I pause, superstitious that I’ll bring my fear into being if I say it out loud. “I think they might be breaking up.”

Forrest nods, considering this. “And you’re afraid the emotional toll and stress might activate an autoimmune response.”

“Exactly!” I cry. “It’s happened before!”

He squeezes my hand. “Then it’s not unreasonable to assume it might happen again. But a flare-up of her condition was a possibility I’m sure you discussed with her before coming here. Was her boyfriend the only person aware that she might need care?”

I let out an exhale as a small lump forms in my throat. Not being called crazy or irrational about my sister is spreading a warm balm over wounds that have ached for so long. “No,” I answer him. “My mom is helping out, too, and I looped in the doctors and neighbors before I left.”

He bends his head to catch my gaze, willing my own words to sink into me. “Then you are caring for her,” he says. “Even if you’re not right there. You’d never leave her helpless, Margot.”

After a few seconds, I nod, letting his steadiness soak into me.

“Anything else on the list?” he asks.

I gnaw on my lip. “It’s just, if everything was fine, she definitely would’ve responded to my post yesterday.”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Then again, she might not have seen it yet. Or she has, and she’s been busy hiring a skywriter to spell out OMG MARGOT over the lodge.”

I let out a shaky laugh. “That is absolutely her brand.”

He gives my hand one last squeeze before letting go. “Then we better get back before we miss it, yeah?”

I swallow, hardly knowing how my chest is containing this much love without splitting open. “Yeah,” I whisper, and I think he knows. I think he sees every hidden part of me, and for the first time ever, being known doesn’t feel like a threat. It feels like coming home.

He shifts the gears and gets us back on the road, and with an inner peace matched only by the tranquil landscape around us, I start to believe that I won’t need my sister’s monologue after all.

It’s only after we get back to the lodge that I realize how wrong I am.