by LJ Evans
“You’re all awful,” I said and moved as fast as I could towards Daddy’s truck in my ridiculous heels. But, at the last minute, my stupid manners kicked in and made me turn back to look at Derek, “Thanks for inviting me. See you at eight.”
And then I dove into the truck before I had to see his face or hear a response.
WHERE WE LAND
Caving
“Do I love you? Do I hate you? I can’t make up my mind.”
-Ed Sheeran
LIKE I SAID, ME and mornings aren’t really friends. And the morning after the fundraiser, I was especially groggy. It was close to midnight when we’d gotten home and on top of that, I’d spent several more hours researching spelunking. Caving, shmaving, I liked the word spelunking, thank you very much.
What I’d found online had been both interesting and terrifying. I’d never been in small spaces like they showed. Some people didn’t do well in them, so I was hoping that I wouldn’t freak out and embarrass myself. Leave it to Mia to do something like that. Like crying over the worm and trying to bury it.
Plus, I had nothing to wear because all the gear they’d shown seemed specially designed. It had said it would be cool and you should be comfortable, so I figured I’d do best with layers. That morning, I put on workout gear with a t-shirt and windbreaker over it along with a pair of Doc Martens that I’d dug out of my closet from when they were the thing to wear with dresses. When I looked in the mirror, I knew I looked absurd. But it was all I had.
I pulled my long hair into a low pony tail assuming we’d have some ugly helmet to wear and hoped that I didn’t look completely like the loser I felt like.
I slipped quietly onto the porch with a mug of coffee and a power bar. Mama and Daddy hadn’t emerged from their room. Thankfully that meant no more embarrassing moments with them acting like I hadn’t had a good time in years.
Maybe they weren’t that far off.
Even my relationship with Hayden had been more serious, painful drama than good times. I’d found Hayden in my first business class my freshman year at UTK. He was one of the dynamic people that I’d been around my whole life, and I couldn’t help but be pulled into his orbit.
He’d smiled at me and I thought it meant something. I thought that maybe he was smiling at me the way Jake used to smile at Cam long before he realized that she was the only one for him. So, I tagged after Hayden, doing everything he wanted in hopes that he’d see how much he needed me like Jake and Cam had needed each other.
For a while, I thought we’d be together forever. We’d even shared a few tangled, drunken college kisses. Then Marcie invaded our friendship. Beauty Queen Marcie who was her own dystopian universe come to wreck mine.
But, even after he’d chosen Marcie, I stood by him. My only role model had been Cam standing by Jake through his swarm of high school girlfriends. I listened to Hayden gripe about Marcie, feeling like I understood him better than she did. I would say all the right words, hoping someday he’d finally believe that we were destined to be together.
And for one night, when he’d broken up with Marcie for the millionth time, we’d been as close as two people can get. But then the next week, he’d gone back to Marcie again, and I broke for half a second and told him I loved him. He responded by telling me that he loved me too. But, that he also loved Marcie and that he needed Marcie. That her world fit into his world better. Which really just meant her powerful, wealthy family fit with his powerful, wealthy family. It didn’t really mean she knew him.
I told him that too. But he said I was good at imagining things. That it was one of the things he loved most about me, my innocent, colorful way of looking at the world. But, he still went back to Marcie. And I still had a broken heart. Embarrassingly, I hadn’t walked away. Instead, I’d wrote love letters that he’d responded to with an apology note that only made me feel like he’d wake up some day and realize that I was the one that fit his life and not Marcie.
My brain was there, on Hayden and Marcie as it hadn’t been much of yesterday, when a dark SUV pulled into the driveway. Instead of being late, like I really expected an overly-confident musician to be, he was ten minutes early.
It gave me another piece of the Derek puzzle that I was collecting. As if he was a mass of cardboard waiting to be put together into a complete picture of an eagle with a guitar slung from its wings.
I kicked myself. Hayden was right, I had an overactive imagination. It was a side effect of reading so much. But the world wasn’t always the way I pictured it. I definitely needed to keep that in mind today with this tempting male body in my view.
Derek emerged from the SUV with a jauntiness that all confident men seem to have. Jake had had it. Hayden had it. Why couldn’t I find some mousy guy who wouldn’t break my heart? Because looking at this BB in his on-going series of tight jeans, tight t-shirts and hiking boots was enough to break my heart right there before I even let him near the shreds of mine that remained.
“Hey,” he said with that carefree smile that made me long to feel as happy as he appeared.
“Morning.” I looked down at my clothes, self-conscious. “Is this going to be okay?”
Stupid. I realized my mistake as soon as he began slowly taking in every inch of me in my work out gear. Work out gear that showed my curves in a way I wasn’t comfortable showing outside the gym.
“You look really good,” he said in that sexy as hell voice that caught my breath. “Do you have some waterproof gear in that bag?”
He referred to the backpack at my feet that I’d scrounged from our supply closet. It looked like it had once been pink, but was now a motley gray, and someone, probably Cam, had duct taped every inch of it. But I didn’t have anything else that would bear the brunt of hiking in a cave without being ruined.
“I have a change of clothes, a flashlight, and a couple protein bars,” I offered with a shrug.
“Don’t worry. I think we can manage to scrape some things together for you between me and the boys.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He frowned. “Why would you be sorry? I kinda figured you wouldn’t have much. The boys and I don’t mind.”
He came up to the steps and grabbed the dirty backpack.
“This thing looks like it’s been through the ringer.”
“That would be Cam, not me. I’m more of a read-it-in-a-book versus do-it kind of girl,” I said and then flushed as he raised his eyebrows at my words. What I wanted to do was thunk my head against the porch pillar. God, I was such a bumbling idiot around him.
“But doing it is much more fun,” he whispered to me with a glimmer in his eyes.
Warning bells went off all over my body. If Mama had come out on the porch at that moment and forbade me from going, I would have scurried inside like the fifteen-year-old I suddenly felt like.
He grabbed my hand loosely, almost like Blake had Cam’s last night, and my heart zinged while my body reacted like it had every time he touched me.
Focus Mia, I told myself. Get your head out of the clouds.
He opened the front passenger door for me and I looked inside. Three large men were scrunched into the backseat of the SUV like raccoons in a garbage can.
I backed up. “I can take the back seat. I’m used to being in the middle. I’m pretty small.”
Once again, my words came out all wrong, and I turned pink again. I was like a high schooler who’d just learned how to use a double entendre. He chuckled behind me, but let go of my hand only enough to help me into the raised SUV.
“No way. I wouldn’t trust them anywhere near you,” he said.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that statement. Was he being Blake-like-protective or was he saying he didn’t want them near me because he wanted me? Like last night, I wasn’t used to being treated this way, and I wasn’t quite sure I could trust my own instincts.
Derek hopped into the driver’s seat and turned to me with happy eyes. “Guys, this is Mia, Mia that’s Lonnie, Owen,
and Mitch. Rob, our drummer, couldn’t make it today.”
And of course, there wouldn’t have been room for him in the SUV even if he wanted to come, which made me feel bad all over again. “Is that because of me?”
“Oh no, he got in trouble with the missus and is spending the day groveling on the phone and sending flowers,” the red-haired lumberjack in the back guffawed. He leaned towards me with a grin almost as infectious as Derek’s. “I’m Lonnie, by the way.”
“He’s married?” I couldn’t help the surprise that jumped out before I could use my manners to hold it back.
“Stupid ass,” said the tattooed man in the middle with a shaved head and skin so dark and rich that it made me think of mama’s chocolate crinkles. He was a little smaller than the other two, but not by much which probably accounted for him being unhappily in the middle.
“Owen’s just jealous that Rob bagged Trista before he could, so don’t listen to anything he says,” chimed in the third man, Mitch. He was built like a professional wrestler and looked the most ridiculous of all of them shoved by the window. His hair was spiked and blue which somehow made the wrestler image even more probable.
Derek backed out of the drive and started down the road.
“So, Mia, Derek says your brother owned that beauty of a car he bought last night. What the hell would make a guy give up a car like that?” Lonnie asked, and my heart snagged on a branch at his words.
“Dude,” Derek said with a warning glance in the rear-view mirror.
“It’s okay,” I said. “He used to own it. But he died.”
Silence. Followed by scuffling in the back seat, and I could see the other two men hitting Lonnie on the shoulder and the back of the head like a group of teenage boys fighting over the last MoonPie.
I couldn’t help but smile, and when I looked back towards the front, Derek caught my eye with his and my breath hitched at the concern that seemed to reside there. Egads, I was in trouble with this man. Where was Ginny Weasley’s wand and an obliviate spell when I needed one?
“Shit. Sorry,” Lonnie said, but it was muffled in his attempt to ward off the others’ pummeling fists.
“I can’t take you boys anywhere. Maybe I should drop you back off at the hotel, and Mia and I will hit the caverns on our own.”
Sudden stillness in the backseat. “You’d like that wouldn’t you? Mia all on your own in the caves. No way, man, you got yourself into this. We all get to help her now, and she’ll see that you may be the front man for this traveling circus, but you’re in no way the best of the troupe,” Owen teased.
It had been a long time since I’d been surrounded by boys. When I hung out with Cam in high school, it had been Cam, Wynn, and I and a whole boat full of them. Cam attracted boys the way roadkill attracts maggots. Not the most attractive image, but true. The guys were always all over her. Not that she cared. She only had eyes for Jake, but I think that just made it even more of a challenge for the boys. Not that she realized that either.
I kinda missed the relaxed atmosphere that normally surrounded a group of boys. My first best friend had been a boy, Harry, and I missed him. We’d become fast friends in elementary school when we’d both reached for the last Laura Numeroff book on the shelf, and we’d remained that way till his family moved to California after eighth grade. We stayed in touch though. In fact, I was going to see him in a few weeks for his wedding. Maybe. If I could get up the courage to attend by myself even though I’d RSVP’d as Mia plus one because I was still a hopeful idiot.
Anyway, the truth was, that boys were easier to get along with. They didn’t judge you as much. They just said what they thought most of the time, and if you accidentally burped or farted, they thought it was funny instead of embarrassing.
As we turned down the highway to McMinnville, I listened happily as this boy scout troop joshed and slammed each other and my heart lightened again ever so slightly. Guilt and heartache stepping aside enough to let me breathe for just a few minutes.
My lighter heart gave way to nervousness when we pulled into the lot at the caverns. The place itself was rather unassuming, just a little ranch house in the middle of some trees. But I knew I’d be underground before long. Really far below ground, and that was enough to make my caffeinated stomach flip uncomfortably.
The guys unwrapped themselves from the backseat and pulled out equipment from the back. Backpacks, helmets with funky lights, and gear that seemed more appropriate to fishermen on Deadliest Catch than a dark cavern.
Mitch took off to the office to let them know we were there.
“I think they’ll have a helmet you can use, but let’s piece together some other gear,” Derek said as he searched through everyone else’s packs. No one seemed to mind his invasion.
Before I knew it, I had on a vinyl jacket and some wader-like pants. Everything was so large that it needed to be rolled and tucked with these wide rubber bands that had magically appeared from somewhere. Finally, Derek slung a flashlight around my neck.
Once, when I was little, the firefighters had come to our school and I’d been selected to put on the fireman’s gear. I felt like that all over again, and I knew I looked even more ludicrous than I had when Derek had shown up at the house.
Derek took a step back, and the corners of his mouth quirked ever so slightly. “I’m ridiculous,” I said with a sigh.
“No,” he said, but he was trying not to laugh.
“Is this some sort of spelunking hazing or something? Are you guys really going to wear this stuff too?” I asked.
“Caving. And we don’t do hazing,” he said.
Lonnie came around the SUV, and sure enough, he had on similar gear. “Aww. Don’t you look adorable.”
“Oh my God,” I sat down on the bumper, “I can’t do this.”
Derek hit Lonnie on the shoulder. A shoulder that must have been getting sore after all the hits it had taken on the drive over. “Don’t listen to this stupid shit.”
Mitch came back with a helmet and a bunch of papers. Apparently, you had to sign your life away and say that you wouldn’t hold the caverns responsible if you died or passed out or were in any other way injured on the journey. My nervousness increased to an entirely new level because, let’s face it, me dying in a cave was not an option Daddy had considered when he’d pushed me into this.
I watched as Derek drew on his own waders over his jeans. That action stopped my nervous brain cold because he was so unforgivably sexy even in a stupid fisherman outfit.
Once everyone had on these absurd outfits, they loaded the backpacks onto their shoulders and Derek held out a hand. “Phillips, you gonna do this?”
Somehow, he had finally figured out that I was legitimately freaked out about this. I shrugged, grabbed the dirty pink backpack and the helmet Mitch had given me, but ignored his hand.
“I’m here. Might as well.”
He smiled encouragingly in response, those stormy eyes taking me in as if I was a horse about ready to bolt. Which wasn’t that far from the truth.
We met our guide and he debriefed us on the do’s and don’ts of spelunking. It seemed like we were going to be doing some crawling and ladder climbing. There was also a good chance we’d hit some mud after the summer storm that had blown through last week, so it was a good thing we were layered up. But the guide promised it would all be worth it. I was going to reserve my opinion until the end.
Then we went in.
And I didn’t have a chance to be nervous any longer. Because I was immediately challenged by the space and the darkness. I didn’t even have one panic attack. Instead I found it an interesting conundrum. How could I wedge myself through the tight darkness to the other side where I could hear Derek’s voice cheering me on? “You’re almost there, Phillips. You got this.”
And every time I got to the other side, the guys would always high five me and act like I’d just solved world hunger or something equally as important. It perked my spirit up in a way that it hadn’t been in
forever. Since before Jake.
“Come on, Phillips, couple more tunnels before the big show.” Derek pulled at me.
I’m not sure why I went from Mia to Phillips in the cave. Maybe it was so the guys would treat me as one of the guys. Or maybe, like Cam and Jake’s coaches, it was a way of getting me to focus. I could see that Derek was coaching me through it. Making sure I didn’t freak out. And it did help.
After an hour or so in, we stepped out of a dark tunnel into this huge cavern with gypsum crystals, stalactites, stalagmites, and rock formations that I’d vaguely known existed but never really thought about seeing in real life. It was like being flown to another country.
There was even a waterfall inside the rocks. It was breathtaking—cool and peaceful, like I wished my life could be instead of the mess I thought it was. I held my breath at the same time as I felt my heart expand, or maybe that was just my world.
I kind of felt like this whole cave was me. Like on the outside, I looked just like a regular old hillside, but on the inside, I was a series of stunning waterfalls and gorgeous formations that hadn’t been seen by the majority of the world. I felt like most people would just drive by not knowing what really lay underneath.
“Crazy, huh?” Derek said and for once my echolocation hadn’t worked because I hadn’t known he’d come up next to me.
I just nodded.
“It’s always a good reminder to me that there’s way more under the surface of everything. People. Nature. Even music. Its layer upon layer that gets put together into something whole that people judge for the whole but may be way more if you take it apart and examine all the pieces.” He spoke quietly and seriously, almost as if he was in a church.
It was like he’d mirrored my own thoughts. I looked up at him. It was lighter in this part of the caverns and while the shadows played on his face, I could still see those stormy eyes looking down on me like I was the music he wanted to see the layers of, and it both scared me and excited me. This gorgeous BB looking at me like that. Like maybe I could be my own fairytale.