Page 88 of Unmanageable

“Cash,” I say, my voice trembling slightly as I look at the dark woods closing in. “We don’t know where the path is?”

He looks back at me, his expression serious, his dark eyes fixed on mine as the first sheets of a mountain storm begin to crash down through the trees.

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re off the grid, Scottie.”

24

Finn O’Connell

Her eyes go wide, her pupils dilating until they’re almost entirely black.

She’s standing there in my giant, ridiculous gray cross-trainers, her hands shoved deep into the pocket of my black sweatshirt, and her jaw is slack.

“Cash,” she says, her voice flat. “Tell me you have a physical map in that backpack.”

“I don’t have a physical map. It’s a designated three-mile community loop. Usually, you have to try really hard to get off it.”

“Well, congratulations to us,” she says, her voice rising an octave. “We are overachievers. We have successfully separated ourselves from civilization in a state we do not live in, during an unseasonal weather event, while I am wearing footwear that makes me look like a cartoon character.”

“It’s just a little front rolling over the crest,” I say, stepping down from the boulder and reaching out to touch her arm. “We just need to find the runoff line. If we follow the water downward, it hits the creek, and the creek runs right past the gravel lot where the van is. It’s basic geography.”

She jerks her shoulder away from my hand. “Do not give me the ‘basic geography’ speech, Cash! You are an athlete! Your entire life is lived in seventy-two-degree indoor arenas with clear red and blue lines painted on the floor so you don’t get confused! You are not a mountain man! You don’t know where the creek is!”

“Hey,” I say, raising my hands. “Take a breath.”

“I can’t take a breath!”

She starts pacing in a tight, three-foot circle on the dirt, her giant sneakers kicking up pine needles. “This is a disaster. I am your agent. My actual, legally binding responsibility is to keep you safe from harm, and instead, I am about to freeze to death next to a bush.”

The rain starts coming down harder now, turning from scattered drops into a steady, freezing sheet that begins to hiss against the pine needles. Scottie’s hair is already starting to plaster itself to her forehead.

“Okay, look,” I say, stepping into her path to stop her from spinning herself into a ditch. “We aren’t going to freeze. We have jackets. We have water. We just need to start heading down the spine of the ridge.”

“We can’t go down the spine of the ridge, Cash! Look at it!” She gestures wildly toward the gray void behind us.

The fog is so thick now I can barely see the keys to the van in my own hand.

“It looks like the opening scene of a movie where everyone dies in the first ten minutes! We are going to get eaten by a mountain lion. Or a bear. Do you know what bears do to people, Cash? They don’t even kill you first. They just start eating your legs while you’re still complaining about the lack of cell service.”

A small, involuntary laugh leaks out of my mouth before I can stop it. The visual of Scottie arguing with a black bear about roaming charges is just too real.

She stops dead.

Her chest is heaving under my sweatshirt, her face bright red, her eyes flashing with a terrifying, manic light.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No,” I say quickly, wiping the smile off my face. “I’m not—”

“You are fucking laughing at me!” She steps right into my chest, her small finger coming out of the sleeve of the sweatshirt to poke me hard in the sternum. “This is your fault! You and your stupid ‘real air in our lungs’ nonsense! I told you I don’t do dirt! I told you I am a creature of indoor lighting!”

“Scottie, calm down—”

“Don’t tell me to calm down! That is the most misogynistic phrase in the English language! I will not calm down! I am going to die in sneakers that don’t fit me, and my obituary is going to say I died while ‘recreating’ with a client! Do you know what the league office will do with that information? They’ll use it as a cautionary tale at the agent seminar next winter!”

She’s practically vibrating with rage, her breath coming in short gasps. Then, just as quickly as the anger came, her face crumbles. Her shoulders drop, her chin starts to tremble, and she covers her face with both hands, letting out a small, pathetic sob that goes straight to my gut.

“Oh my god,” she whispers through her fingers. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. If something happens to your shoulder again because you slip on a rock trying to save me, your career is over, and I’m the one who let it happen. I’m a terrible agent. I’m a terrible person.”