The Wingman by A. Poland

Chapter Twelve

Lorcan hadn’t uttered a word to Nathan all morning, which was never a good sign. Lorcan, Nathan had learned over the years, was the kind of guy to bottle down any issues he had, bury them deep until they refused to be ignored and bubbled right back up. Which was why Nathan often tried to intervene once he noticed it happening because he knew dealing with it later would be even worse.

Not that Nathan could find an opportune time to yank Lorcan away from the group and ask him what was wrong.

As a result of Lorcan’s less-than-cheerful demeanor, they tidied up the camp and continued on their less-than-merry way quietly. Lorcan briefly spoke to Jordie and Miles during that time, which confirmed to Nathan that the problem involved him.

A sinking feeling dropped in Nathan’s gut. What if Lorcan figured out what he was doing?

Wait.

What if he thought Nathan was trying to take Miles for himself? Nathan panicked even more.

Once they started hiking—their plan being to circle back around to the car by nightfall—Nathan tried his best to catch up to Lorcan and his ridiculously long legs.

“Hey,” Nathan panted when he finally fell into stride beside him, leaping two steps for every fast and wide stride that Lorcan took. “Where’s the fire?”

Clenching his jaw, Lorcan pointedly looked away from Nathan. Definitely not a good sign.

“Hey, seriously.” Nathan grabbed his arm in an effort to slow him down. “What crawled up your ass and died?”

It might not have been the best approach to take, considering Lorcan quickly rounded on Nathan, taking his arm in hand and pulling him off the makeshift path.

“We’ll catch up!” Nathan called pleasantly over his shoulder to Jordie and Miles. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to overhear their conversation. To Lorcan, Nathan said less than pleasantly, “Dude, seriously, what the fuck?”

“Yeah, what the fuck,” Lorcan fired back, dropping Nathan’s arm once they were out of earshot of the others. “What were you playing at last night?”

Brows furrowed, Nathan looked at Lorcan like he was more than a little dim. Which wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Nathan loved his best friend, but Lorcan definitely had his moments. Like throwing flour on a grease fire in their dorm freshman year. They’d spent two hours out in the rain at 1:00 a.m. while the fire department dealt with the problem. Nathan hadn’t quite forgiven Lorcan for that.

“Last night?” Nathan repeated.

“Yeah, last night.” The tops of Lorcan’s ears tinged red, usually reserved for when he was embarrassed or enraged. Nathan didn’t have to guess which one this was indicative of.

“Okay, I think we’ve established it was last night,” Nathan snapped. He took a breath and marshaled his thoughts. If he got annoyed too, they weren’t going to get anywhere. “What exactly about last night?”

“What not about last night, you mean?”

“Can we please stop saying last night?” Nathan groaned. “So, the part where we had a few drinks and went to bed. That’s what you’re pissy over?”

“Yes!” Lorcan exclaimed, as though the problem had just been laid out plainly. Nathan’s blank expression told him the issue was still very much unclear, causing Lorcan to release a cry of utter frustration. “You were acting ridiculous and didn’t even try with Miles. No, you just passed out drunk on him.”

Nathan couldn’t help but interpret that as Lorcan calling his dancing ridiculous. And, okay, maybe it was. But that didn’t mean Lorcan had to be a dick about it. At least Nathan tried to dance instead of clumsily shuffling his feet at the bar because he was too self-conscious to move any further like some communications major he knew.

“Okay, yeah, maybe I was acting ridiculous.” It took a lot of effort for Nathan not to raise his voice, but there was an edge to it despite himself. “Maybe it was nice to actually get drunk and have fun for a change instead of having to worry about you the entire time.”

Lorcan looked taken aback. “You never have to worry about me when you’re out.”

“Oh, no? So, I don’t have to worry about setting you up with someone, about waiting up in case you have an emergency, about you getting home?” Nathan counted out on his fingers as he went.

“I never asked you to do any of that!” Lorcan protested, affronted.

“You’re literally getting me to do the first one right now.”

Lorcan’s mouth snapped shut, and he quietly fumed, backed into a corner.

“The other ones,” he then said after a few long moments, his once-raised voice now low. “You don’t have to do any of that. That’s on you for worrying.”

“Eh, yeah, I do. Because I want to be a good friend. And caring if you end up facedown in a ditch is kind of what a good friend does.” Nathan narrowed his gaze, chest heaving. So much for not getting worked up.

Nathan took a breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a second, hoping that would help.

“Well, don’t.”

Lorcan’s final words were blunt, and when Nathan opened his eyes again, Lorcan was already storming off toward the path. Nathan didn’t follow because he had some pride, and he didn’t want to skip along behind him like a lost puppy. Nathan could see where they’d walked from; he’d be fine.

So, Nathan trudged in the opposite direction, knowing he needed a moment to compose himself. His left eye twitched a little, and his cheeks were hot. He might as well have been wearing a flashing neon sign saying I’m upset!

Hands shoved in his pockets, a scowl painted over his expression, he kicked some fallen leaves out of the way.

Lorcan could be such a dick.

Sure, Nathan got that he was annoyed that he and Miles didn’t get to share a tent last night, but was he really fine with leaving Nathan alone in a tent for that to be a reality? Yes, Nathan knew he could be a little dramatic. But it wasn’t as if he could turn his fears on and off, ready to go when someone might find them funny.

Fears didn’t operate that way, even to a people pleaser like Nathan.

Lorcan could fall victim to tunnel vision a lot of the time; Nathan was more than aware of that. He could write an entire thesis on the subject.

Like when Lorcan first applied for his basketball scholarship in high school, and all he talked about for a solid month was practice and the application. Granted, Lorcan did make up for forgetting Nathan’s birthday later that month once he got the news he’d been awarded the scholarship. But still, even if Nathan was relatively quick to get over things, it had hurt like a bitch while it was happening.

He was angry because he was upset, and he was upset because he’d made Lorcan angry. It was a vicious cycle Nathan wasn’t sure how to get himself out of.

Lost in his thoughts, it took a moment for Nathan’s attention to be drawn to a rustle in a nearby bush. Before he had the chance to panic about what it could be and how exactly he was going to die, the cause of the noise emerged.

Nathan blinked, and the baby opossum blinked right back.

At least Nathan thought it was a baby opossum, considering he’d only seen them once before and beneath the glare of a flashlight.

But the longer he stared, Nathan was certain the tiny gray thing was an opossum.

“Hey there,” Nathan murmured, keeping his hands where the baby could see them in case it felt threatened. Nathan remembered what Miles had said about opossums being peaceful unless provoked, and he wasn’t prepared to test that theory on a baby opossum. “Hey.” Nathan realized something. “Where’s your mom?”

The baby opossum sniffed the air.

“Shit,” Nathan breathed. Because he wasn’t ready to be a parent. “Are you lost, little guy?”

The opossum started to scuttle back toward the bush.

“Little girl?” Nathan tried, but the opossum kept moving. “Little them?”

The baby opossum disappeared from sight, and while Nathan could have just left it at that—after all, it was a wild creature with a hell of a lot more instinctive knowledge about the wilderness than Nathan would ever have—he wasn’t sure if his conscience would ever forgive him. So he headed after the opossum, ready to help find Mama Opossum.

Nathan understood the error of his ways fifteen minutes later when he lost track of the baby. He couldn’t be blamed, not really. It was just so small, and there was a lot of foliage on the ground—it would be hard not to lose anything in here.

Dejected at his failed rescue attempt, Nathan set back the way he’d come.

Another fifteen minutes passed by, and Nathan was certain he’d never seen that tree before. He couldn’t be 100 percent sure because most of these trees looked the same. They were trees. But he was semiconfident he hadn’t seen this particular tree before. This tree had a lump on it.

“Shit,” Nathan huffed, quickening his pace as he took a left toward a small incline. He was sure they’d walked downhill at first.

Mostly sure. He thought.

“Guys?” Nathan called out, listening for the inevitable call of his name in response. But nothing came, just a light breeze rustling through the trees.

“Lorcan!” Nathan tried again, hands cupped around his mouth. “Jordie! Miles!”

No answer. Zero. Zilch. Nothing.

Nathan’s heart started to pound in his chest as he desperately willed himself to keep a level head. Wasn’t that what the experts said in those survival shows? Panic was the main cause of death in the wild? So he took a few deep breaths and continued to walk, footsteps hurried—just on the brink of running. The thick expanse of trees looked the same in every direction and gave the impression they were closing in on him.

Too busy looking up at the treetops, he caught his foot on an exposed root and tumbled back down the hill.

Which was apparently higher than he first realized because the fall felt never ending.

Nathan eventually ended up on his back, twigs in his hair, and a graze on his cheek. If he hadn’t broken his ass the other day, he certainly had now. Letting out a low grunt in the back of his throat, Nathan pushed himself up and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

His phone had been through a lot of things through the years. One too many dips in the toilet, falling out of his pockets on roller coasters (resulting in a protective phone case twice the size of the actual phone), the stream the other day, and now plummeting down a hill.

Nathan really needed to leave a good review for his phone case because the phone switched on. Not that it was any use to him, considering that no service flashed on-screen, taunting him. Nathan cursed, half tempted to throw it at a tree. But knowing his luck, it would just bounce right back and hit him like a boomerang seeking revenge.

Nathan managed to stand back up, hand braced against a tree for balance, only to find the dull throb in his lower back had come back with a vengeance. And it had brought a friend—a shooting pain in his ankle.

Okay. Nathan took a deep breath. He couldn’t stay here. He needed to move, find a stream or something. Water always flowed to…

Shit. Where did water always flow to?

*

Nathan never found a stream. It was as if they’d all dried up, absorbed right back into the dirt, the moment Nathan decided he needed to find one. In his pursuit, he walked for what felt like miles, but logically, he knew it had only been one at the most. His ankle slowed him down even more, and eventually, Nathan was forced to stop.

Not just because of his ankle, but also because of how dark it had gotten.

Nathan didn’t have to be a genius to know that fumbling around in the dark was a recipe for disaster. If he’d managed to do this much damage in broad daylight, then he was kind of scared of what he’d be capable of in the dark. So he slumped down against a broad tree trunk, legs sprawled out in front of him.

Nathan shivered, the light breeze from earlier now serving as a chilly reminder that Lorcan was carrying his sleeping bag and trusty blanket.

If only Nathan could read the damn stars, then he’d be able to get himself out of here no problem. Hell, he could hijack Miles’s car and leave the three of them in the dust. Nathan wondered if they were looking for him, or if they assumed he’d made his own way home.

Then he reflected on all the other minidisasters that had occurred on this trip and determined they definitely wouldn’t think the latter. Which meant they had to be looking for him.

Someone would find him.

Or something.

Nathan wasn’t sure how long he sat there, eventually drawing his knees to his chest in an attempt to warm himself up a little. He twitched at every little noise he heard, even though he was confident he wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing if something did jump out of the darkness.

When another, louder, rustling made itself known, he scooched back against the tree, squinting ahead to see if he could spot it. The rustling crept closer, and finally, he could just about see what it was.

Or, well, them.

The opossum family had come back.

Nathan conducted a quick head count of the babies on Mama Opossum’s back, breathing out a sigh of relief when he counted eight. They’d been reunited; Baby Opossum had found their way back.

The mother walked out in front of Nathan, keeping a cautious distance as she and the babies eyeballed him right up until they disappeared back into the darkness.

How the fuck did they know where they were going?

A little calmer now and comforted in the knowledge that at least the baby opossum was safe with their family again, Nathan took a relieved breath and relaxed back against the tree.

“Nathan?”

Nathan jolted, and considering he was as close to the tree as humanly possible, all that resulted in was whacking his head against it with a dull thud.

“Fuck.” Nathan winced.

“Nathan, are you okay?”

It was Miles.

Miles was leaning down in front of him, taking Nathan’s face in his hands like he had when he’d checked Nathan over before. But this time, he didn’t seem to be methodically inspecting Nathan’s head; he just looked relieved.

“Shit, you’re freezing,” he murmured, mostly to himself as he shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over Nathan’s shoulders. Then he rubbed his hands up and down Nathan’s arms in an attempt to get some heat back into him.

Hot summer nights, his ass. The forest had sucked all of that out of him.

“How’d you find me?” Nathan asked the moment he didn’t feel too stunned to speak.

“I got lucky,” Miles responded. “We’ve been looking for you all day.”

Well, at least they’d looked. He hadn’t pissed Lorcan off that badly.

“I really hate camping,” Nathan said then, slumping against Miles’s side as he let out a breathless laugh.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair,” Miles conceded, hands still running along his arms. “Okay, let’s get you home.”