Scorched

But becoming a doctor…well, it had been what they wanted. Not me. Seeing Kyler, my best friend’s boyfriend, change his major last year had given me the courage to do the same. Not that I’d ever tell him that, though. Or really admit that to anyone.

However, one of my latest and greatest idiotic decisions to date, and probably the most painful, was allowing myself to be charmed by Ta

Fucker.

But I was about to make another epic bad decision, because as I stared into Sydney Bell’s bright blue eyes, I couldn’t tell my best friend no.

Well, I could tell her no. I’d told her no a lot, but I couldn’t in this situation, because telling her no meant that I would be stuck here by myself, and nothing drove me more crazy than being…well, alone.

“Please,” she said, clapping her tiny hands together as she hopped, causing her thick black ponytail to bounce. Everything about Syd was small. Standing next to her, I felt like Bigfoot—a redheaded Bigfoot. “Please. It will be so much fun. I promise you. And it’s going to be the last time any of us really have a lot of time to get away. Summer is almost over. Kyler is doing the vet school stuff. My grad school classes are going to suck up all my time.”

And I’d be puttering around, being lame and useless, still taking undergrad classes like the loser I was turning out to be.

Plopping down on the edge of the bed in the apartment she now shared with Kyler, I tried not to think about all the indecent things those two had done on said bed. Or think about the constant reminder that all my friends were either paired off, entering grad school, or starting their careers while I was…unchanged.

Stuck.

Even though I kept changing my mind about, well, everything, I was still stuck.

“But it’s a cabin in the woods of West Virginia,” I said, shaking off troublesome thoughts before they festered into something I couldn’t ignore. “That’s like the start of every horror movie featuring ca

Syd narrowed her eyes. “You had no problem going to the cabin in Snowshoe.”

“That’s because that cabin is in a tourist town, and this cabin sounds like it’s in the middle of the mountains,” I pointed out. “And may I remind you what happened the last time you went to Snowshoe? You got snowed in and some crazy dude attacked you.”

“That was a freak occurrence,” she insisted, waving her hand. It had taken her a long time to be so flippant about the event, but I noted that for this trip she and Kyler had rented a different cabin, rather than going back to the one his family owned. I honestly wasn’t sure if Syd would ever go back to that cabin. “And the house Kyler and I rented is actually near Seneca Rocks, so it’s not that remote. It isn’t like you’re going to run into the chupacabra or a pack of aliens.”

I snorted like a little piglet. “I’m more worried about six-fingered hillbillies.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Andrea…”

Exhaling, I rolled my eyes. “Okay. I know there aren’t six-fingered hillbillies ru

“The cabin is fully loaded and gorgeous. It’s huge. Six bedrooms. Has a hot tub and a pool.” Moving over to the dark cherry dresser, she started arranging the bracelets sprinkled across the top, organizing them by color. What a little freak. “It will be a week in paradise.”

I lifted a brow in doubt. To me, paradise was lounging on an island in the Caribbean with a margarita the size of a toddler in my hand, but hey, what did I know?

“And the house is big enough that you won’t even know Ta

“You had to invite him, didn’t you?” Needing to move, I popped up from the bed and stalked past her, heading into the bathroom—the ridiculously clutter-free bathroom with its deep-blue floor mats and matching toilet seat cover. Ugh. Couples. I leaned against the sink and stared into the mirror. Yikes. My eyeliner was trying to mate with my cheeks. How had Syd failed to mention that?

“I didn’t invite him.” Her voice carried from the bedroom. “Kyler did. And what’s the big deal? I thought you two were getting along now.”

Swiping my fingers under my eyes, I dropped my hands to the cool rim of the porcelain sink with a sigh. “Just because we’re getting along right now doesn’t mean we’ll get along tomorrow or next week or an hour from now. He’s…he’s moody like that.”

There was no answer from the bedroom.

Rising onto the tips of my toes, I peered into the mirror, and then cursed under my breath. Was that a zit forming on my chin? A huge one, too. I puckered my nude lips. At what point would my face outgrow the pimple phase? “And why would Kyler even invite him? Ta

Syd cleared her throat. “Um, Andrea—”

“Actually, let me rephrase that.” Settling flat on my bare feet, I smoothed my hands over my shoulder-length ringlets. My hair was a deep auburn in normal light and much redder out in the sun. Syd thought I looked like old-school Little Orphan A

“Andrea—”

“But plucking any piece of body hair would be less painful. God.” Yep. I was getting riled up, like I always did when I thought about Ta

“Nice.”

I stiffened, eyes widening as I recognized a voice way too deep to belong to Syd, unless she had been keeping a major secret from me. Two pink splotches formed on my cheeks as I turned toward the open bathroom door.

That was definitely Kyler’s voice, and if he was home, there was a good chance he wasn’t alone, which meant…

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Face burning and most likely matching my hair, I briefly considered hiding behind the shower curtain, but that was weak and would be really weird. I walked out of the bathroom and quickly discovered that I’d just inserted foot and my entire leg into my mouth.

Kyler Qui

Sydney and Kyler? Gah, they made me want to puke rainbows of the My Little Pony variety.

Their whole story was a thing of fairytales, what little girls dreamed of—what I still kind of dreamed of in a really pathetically sad sort of way.