Chapter 194

Chapter 194
Stella:

I woke to the sound of rain drumming against the cabin roof.

For a moment, I lay there disoriented, staring at the unfamiliar wooden beams above me. Then it all came rushing back. The camping trip. Zoe's suspicion. Noah in my cabin last night, his hands in my wet hair, the way we'd almost been caught.

The way Zoe had looked at me in that rearview mirror during the drive to dinner.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to push away the memory of her sharp, assessing gaze. She knew something was off. She just didn't know what yet.

My phone showed it was barely past seven, but I could already hear movement outside. Voices. The clatter of pots and pans from the communal kitchen area.

By the time I forced myself out of bed and pulled on jeans and a sweater, the rain had tapered off to a damp hush. I stepped outside to find the storm had already moved on, leaving only dripping branches behind. The sky had cleared to a pale gray, and weak sunlight filtered through the redwoods.

I tried to arrange my face into something that looked normal.

Whatever normal was supposed to look like anymore.

---

The covered communal kitchen was already bustling with activity when I arrived.

Across the weathered picnic tables, I spotted Emily hunched over a mug of black coffee like it was the only thing keeping her upright. Her sunglasses were still on despite the shade from the roof overhead, and she kept wincing every time someone opened a cabinet too loudly.

Last night's margaritas had clearly taken their toll.

"I'm never drinking with you again," she muttered in Zoe's direction, though Zoe looked equally worse for wear despite her protestations.

"I'm fine," Zoe said, refilling her water bottle for the third time. "Just dehydrated."

I exchanged a glance with Noah across the picnic table.

We were the only two who looked remotely functional, and I knew exactly why. Last night at that restaurant, while Zoe and Emily had thrown back tequila like it was going out of style, Noah and I had nursed our drinks with deliberate slowness.

We'd both been too afraid of losing control, too aware of the scrutiny we were under to risk saying or doing anything that might give us away.

Now, watching Zoe press her fingers to her temples and Emily groan into her coffee, I felt a strange mixture of relief and guilt. Relief that our caution had paid off. Guilt that our reasons for staying sober had nothing to do with responsible decision-making and everything to do with maintaining our carefully constructed lies.

Noah was already at the camp stove, sleeves rolled up as he worked on breakfast.

The morning light caught the planes of his face as he concentrated on the cast-iron skillet, and I had to force myself to look away before anyone noticed where my attention had landed.

He'd taken over cooking duties without being asked, the way he always did, moving through the small kitchen space with an efficiency that suggested he'd done this a thousand times before. His dad used to bring him tide-pooling along this coast when he was younger—I remembered him mentioning it once, back when we could still talk freely.

Scrambled eggs. Bacon that was just starting to crisp at the edges. Thick slices of sourdough toast arranged on a plate.

My stomach twisted with something that had nothing to do with hunger.

"You're a lifesaver, Noah," Emily said weakly, watching him plate the food. "Seriously. I might die without carbs right now."

"Dramatic much?" Zoe tried to sound dismissive, but I saw her reach for the Advil bottle with shaking hands.

I sat at the picnic table with my phone in my hands, pretending to check emails while my peripheral vision tracked Noah's every movement.

The way he flipped the eggs with practiced ease. The slight furrow of concentration between his brows. The unconscious grace in the tilt of his head as he reached for the pepper grinder.

I was staring. I knew I was staring.

But I couldn't seem to stop.

When he finally brought the plates over, our eyes met for a fraction of a second. Just long enough for heat to bloom in my chest. Just long enough for my breath to catch.

Then I looked down at my phone again, scrolling through nothing, my heart hammering against my ribs.

I felt Zoe's gaze on me even before I looked up. When I did, she was watching me with that expression I'd come to dread—the same sharp assessment from the car last night. Not accusatory yet. Just... observant. Taking mental notes. Building her case.

I picked up my fork and focused very hard on the eggs in front of me.

---

After breakfast, Emily suggested cards to pass the time.

She'd bought a deck of Uno from the camp store, and we gathered around the wooden table with our coffee mugs and the lingering fog of our respective hangovers. Well, their hangovers. Noah and I were just pretending to be tired, using the excuse to avoid eye contact and keep our interactions to a minimum.

The game started off innocently enough.

Emily played with the cutthroat determination of someone trying to distract herself from her pounding headache. Zoe trash-talked with slightly less energy than usual. Noah stayed quiet, his expression neutral as he drew and discarded cards with methodical precision.

I won. Of course I won. I always won at games like this, the ones that required strategy and a cool head.

But what I noticed, what made my pulse quicken in a way that had nothing to do with victory, was the way Noah played.

He didn't help me, exactly. That would have been too obvious. But he didn't attack me either. When he drew a Wild card that could have forced me to draw four, he used it on Emily instead. When he had the chance to reverse the direction and put Zoe in my path, he passed.

Small things. Subtle things.

Things I caught in the slight pause before he made each play, the way his eyes would flick to me and then away.

By the third game, I noticed Zoe shuffling the cards more slowly than necessary, her gaze moving between Noah and me with uncomfortable frequency.

By the time we finished, it was past noon and the sun had burned off the morning fog.

Noah stretched, rolling his shoulders, and suggested we check out the tide pools down by the coast.

"Low tide's in about an hour," he said, glancing at his phone. "Perfect timing."