I jump forward and burst, “Wait, we don’t have to—” But she ignores me. Her steps are slow, deliberate, cautious, and my heart hammers as I track her form with the beam of light. If she falls and breaks something, I’m fucked.
No.
I’m beyond fucked.
I’m still locked in a whirlwind of panicky indecision about dropping the phone—I’ll need both hands to catch her, but I’ll also need to see if she falls—when she reaches the top.
“Come on,” she says, face peering out of the door opening.
I still need to take a moment before my heart stops thundering, allowing some of the tension to bleed from my shoulders. I put my phone in my back pocket, and use her light to guide me. The wooden steps are old, but still perfectly sturdy, thank fucking god. Way to give a guy a heart attack.
Just as I crawl through the narrow door and get to my feet, the bright light of a camping lantern fills the room. I dust off my hands and glance around the space, surprised that even after all this time, it looks and feels exactly the same.
Professionally built, the structure isn’t one of those slapped-together shacks perched precariously in the top of a tree. No, this shit is like the McMansion of tree houses. It was big enough for a whole group of us back then, and now, Vandy and I fit comfortably in the space together. An old hammock hangs catty-cornered against the wall, and a bookshelf filled with faded comics slouches under one window. There’s a dartboard, two bean bag chairs, and the old futon that’s seen better days. It smells a little damp, musty, but it’s obviously still watertight.
“This is surreal,” I say, absorbing it all. “Like a fucking time capsule.” There was happiness here. Laughter. Crude jokes. Boyhood mischief. Long stretches of golden summer afternoons. Bright winter evenings spent huddled in sweaters and avoiding homework. Everything had felt so easy and certain, back then.
Now, everything seems grey and anemic, paltry in the face of recollection.
While I’m caught up in my own nostalgia, Vandy is all business. “If you asked me to meet you to try to talk me out of my ultimatum, forget it.” The look in her eye tells me she’s ready to call me on any and all bullshit.
I scoop a baseball from the shelf, testing the weight in my hand. “I’m not trying to talk you out of it, but—” I meet her gaze. “I do have a proposal.”
She stares back, face blank. “A proposal.”
“A plan B, I guess.” I shrug, tossing the ball from hand to hand. “Something that benefits all of us.”
Her eyes narrow, hands settling on her narrow hips. “I don’t think I care if it benefits all of us. I just want to protect my brother.”
Another golden flash from childhood slams into me. Vandy, standing stubbornly in the tree house, same position she’s in now, barking orders at me and her brother. Like the tree house, some things never change.
I thunk the ball back onto the shelf. “Will you just hear me out?”
Her arms move to cross her chest and her hip juts out. The position draws my attention to her chest, then down to her curves below her waist. Okay, maybe some things do change.
I run my hand through my hair and try not to blow the fact she’s obviously giving me the chance to plead my case. “You said you wanted to write a big story about the school, right?”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Yeah?”
I nod, looking away. “What if I told you there’s something big going on at Preston Prep. Something that falls right in line with what you want to expose about the school, like all the way down to the elitist foundations and principles of a place like Preston.”
Some of the apprehensive tension leaves her face. “I’m listening.”
I hedge, “I can’t tell exactly you what it is—”
She huffs, “Are you kidd—”
“But!” I hold up my hands. “I think I can get you access. Like a real, undercover, deep dive into the bowels of the true culture of the school. You’ll just have to give me a chance to get it together.” Her face scrunches up and I tilt my head. “What? I thought you’d be into this?”
“I guess I am,” she explains, “but I think I’m trying to figure out how you’ve been here like eight days and you know more about the school than I do.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I suspect it has more to do with me being a white male football player than anything else.”
She snorts. “God, you’re probably right.”
“So,” I say, trying to get this ball moving. The way her and Emory made it sound before, it doesn’t seem entirely unlikely that people might come looking for her. “Are you interested?”
She agrees, “Yeah, I’m interested,” but that gleam in her eyes is pure suspicion. “But there’s obviously a catch. You said this would benefit all of us.”