Holly’s Grizzly (Monster Relations Bureau #4)

19

Holly

All the way back to the trailhead, the lump in my gut grows heavier, the gnawing feeling of wrongness, the sinking suspicion I might have just made the biggest mistake of my life.

“You alright?” Vic asks after a few minutes of weighted silence, obviously not oblivious to how miserable I must look.

“Yeah,” I croak, then clear my throat to chase away the thickness there. “Yeah. I’m alright.”

He nods, though the look of concern doesn’t totally leave his eyes as he turns them back to the winding road in front of us.

A pang of guilt lodges itself right alongside that lump in my throat.

It’s not Vic’s fault I’m such a mess. It’s not his fault that Irving and I couldn’t have gotten our shit together and talked about everything before he so helpfully offered to bring me down the mountain.

So I try again. “Have you and Irving been friends for a long time?”

Vic glances over, a smile spreading on his lips. “Yeah. Ever since he moved up here a decade or so ago. He was a bit skeptical at first, and he took some wearing down, but I sold him on me eventually.”

I have to laugh a little at that. “Maybe you’ve lightened him up. He didn’t seem all that hard for me to convince.”

“Well, I can think of a reason or two you might have had an easier time,” Vic says, and a bit of color climbs my cheeks. “But he’s always been a big softie at heart.”

“Yeah,” I murmur as I peer out the window at the passing forest, trying to ignore the stinging at the backs of my eyes.

“Not always the best at communicating though, or making it clear how he’s feeling.”

The comment is too pointed to be entirely innocent, and when I glance over, Vic’s brow is furrowed, the corners of his lips turned down in thought.

“I hope… I hope the two of you can stay in touch. Seems like you might have had a good thing going, even if you only knew him for a couple of days.” He catches me looking, and his smile returns, a little rueful this time. “Sorry. I’m not being a very subtle wingman, am I?”

“No, you’re not,” I say with another laugh, but before I’m able to press him for any more information, we’re rounding one last bend in the road, and the trailhead parking area appears ahead.

It’s empty except for my Outback, and as we pull up, Vic reaches for his door’s handle.

“Let’s make sure everything starts up alright.”

He follows me over, grabbing my pack before I can reach for it, and carrying it for me. The back hatch pops open with a flick of the button on the fob, and when I slide in the driver's side to start it up, the ignition turns over immediately.

Perfect. All in working order.

Vic sets my pack in the back of the car, closes the hatch, and we both spend a couple of minutes clearing away the snow that’s piled up on the roof and windshield over the last few days.

When we’re finished, I slide back into the driver’s seat and Vic stops just beside the car with his hands in his pockets. He hovers there for a moment, hesitating before he leaves.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say softly. “I’m good to take it from here.”

He nods. “Roads should be better the rest of the way down.”

I nod, too, and am just about to reach for my door when he speaks again.

“Drive safe, Holly. And… don’t write the big guy off, alright? I don’t want to pry or insert myself where I shouldn’t, but… just don’t write him off. Even if he did something as monumentally stupid as letting you leave.”

“I won’t,” I whisper.

“Alright,” Vic says, satisfied, like he’s said his piece and done his duty to his friend.

After insisting I take his number in case I run into any trouble on the road, he climbs back into his truck and drives off. It leaves me alone, idling at the trailhead with my heart in my throat and no idea what to do.

I rest my forehead on the steering wheel.

My lungs are too tight, and it’s hard to get a full breath in. Indecision and doubt and that same cloying feeling of wrongness crowd in until I can barely think around them.

I tap my forehead against the wheel once, twice, again, like that might knock some sense into me.

God, what did I just do?

If I was panicking, maybe Irving was, too.

Maybe he didn’t know what to say, how to process all of this. Maybe he freaked the hell out just like I did and froze up.

Maybe leaving was a gigantic mistake.

My hands are moving before I’ve fully registered making a decision. I throw the car into reverse, pulling out of the parking lot and heading for the winding mountain road I just came down with Vic.

Reckless, idiotic, impulsive, are just a few of the words that come to mind as I navigate the narrow, steep route back up into the mountains, but none of them are going to stop me.

I have to know.

Even if the answer is a resounding no , I have to know.

It’s what Irving has been making me feel bold enough to do since the night he brought me to his cabin, isn’t it? Ask for what I want. Let go of any guilt I might feel about accepting what’s offered to me.

For the first time in a long time, I’m going to do just that. And even if I don’t get the answer I’m hoping for, I won’t apologize for being brave enough to make my own wants known.

Now all I can do is hope my kind, wonderful, handsome bear shifter feels the same.