My Fiance Kissed My Best Friend on Our Fourth Anniversary novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Wet Trail

I drove back up the mountain the next afternoon with sixty dollars of my father's gas in the tank and a headache.

Dad had called three times.

Each time he said the shop was fine and the notice was nothing, and each time his voice sounded thinner.

I could not sit still in the cabin.

I put on my mother's old hiking boots from the trunk and walked to the Garfield Peak trail, because it climbed above the lake and I wanted a hard thing to do.

The sky was gray when I started.

By the time I reached the first switchback it was raining sideways.

The snow on the path went to slush and then to ice.

I kept going, because stopping meant thinking.

I was two hundred feet above the water when my left foot went out from under me.

I hit the rock hard and slid on my hip toward the edge.

My ankle twisted under me with a sound I felt in my teeth.

I grabbed a root and held on.

The lake lay far below me, black and silver in the rain.

"Don't move," a voice said above me.

A flashlight beam hit my face.

Eli Hautala came down the slope in a yellow rain shell, one boot after another, sure as a goat.

He crouched next to me and put his hand flat on the rock beside my head.

"Where does it hurt?"

"My ankle. I'm fine."

"You're soaked and you're gray in the face. That's not fine."

He pulled my boot off before I could object.

His hands were big and rough and warm, and he held my bare ankle between them.

He pressed along the bone with his thumb.

← Chapter 5 · All chapters · Chapter 7 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend