Whenever I'm With You Read online

  Advance praise for WHENEVER I’M WITH YOU

  “Poignant and warm. Whenever I’m with You is a compelling road trip into the frozen wilds of Alaska that will melt your heart. Sharp’s deft writing explores grief, loss, and friendship inside a rugged adventure. A hopeful portrayal of the power of family bonds and acceptance in the face of upheaval.” —Jenn Bennett, author of The Anatomical Shape of a Heart

  “A fun, romantic survivalist adventure full of warmth, heart, and hope.” —Dahlia Adler, author of Just Visiting

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  The sun is dying.

  Every day it surrenders another piece of itself to the lengthening nights, and soon these rainy autumn days will freeze over. I’m not exactly eager to experience my first Alaskan winter, but I would think being cold is preferable to being cold and wet. Preference is relative, though. If I had my choice, I wouldn’t be cold at all. I’d be sunbathing on the pool deck at my mother’s mansion—minus her and her current leading man, the reason Dad and I were forced to trade in our very public life in LA for a nearly anonymous one in Anchorage.

  Today is the first rain-free day we’ve had all week, so naturally we’re taking a dunk in a lake. Wouldn’t want to get too dry, or be too smart. The air is thirty-four degrees, cold enough to see my breath, and the water temperature is who-cares-I’m-not-doing-it. Roughly.

  “Your turn, SoCal,” Jase says through chattering teeth. Someone hands him a blanket and he makes a burrito out of himself with it. He wriggles for a second, then his underwear lands at his feet with a soggy slap, and he kicks it away. “Time to show us what you’re really made of.”

  SoCal. I’m so far out of my element here that Kai’s friends nicknamed me after the place I came from. “I’m made of common sense,” I tell him.

  Kai snickers at that. “You don’t have to prove anything, Gabi,” he says to me while looking at Jase, a protective glint in his dark eyes. “I’ll go next.” He’s the only completely dry one left besides me.

  “Wait.” I grab Kai’s hand, and warmth transfers from him to me, loosening my chest. My next breath is a little deeper. “You don’t have to prove anything, either.” Swinging from a rope tied to a tree branch that hangs over a lake is a cheap thrill in summer, but in mid-October in Alaska, it’s a temptation Death might find too hard to resist. So far, Death doesn’t seem to be paying attention to us, but that could change in a blink.

  Kai gives me a smile meant to put me at ease, but all I see in it is a dangerous mischief. His confidence and persistent optimism were what first drew me to him, but sometimes I question his judgment. Like the last time we went hiking and he walked along the edge of a sheer drop as casually as though he were walking along a broad, flat shoreline. Humming a song while doing it, even.

  “I’ll be fine,” he says. “Hold my clothes under your coat so they’re nice and toasty when I put them back on.” He takes off his knit cap, revealing unruly waves of black hair, and hands it to me.

  “Okay.” I won’t tell him not to do it. That’s his choice. The same as it’s my choice not to do it. One thing I learned pretty quickly after I met Kai was that he does respect my opinion—even if he doesn’t always agree with it.

  A few other guys and a couple of girls are huddled together by the trees, back in their dry clothes and coats but still shivering. And they’re looking at me like I’m the crazy one.

  We’ve all got a mild case of cabin fever after the wet weather, so when Kai said he was going out today, I joined him without question. Then I realized the rains had left behind a twelve-degree drop in temperature. But apparently this is a tradition they have every year on the first frosty day of October. Like shaking their fists at the coming winter, saying, “You’re nothing to me. I can handle the cold. Watch this!”

  They all grew up here, though. I moved to Alaska from Southern California only just this past July. I’ve survived earthquakes and wildfires and storms of paparazzi, but none of that has prepared me for the months of arctic misery I’m about to face.

  I fold Kai’s hat, shirt, and pants inside my coat and almost can’t get it zipped back up. He stuffs his socks inside his boots, and then he’s down to nothing but his boxer briefs. Not that I’m not enjoying the view of his lean, muscled body—all those square inches of bare skin in a shade that more closely resembles his Canadian mother than his Tlingit father—but this is not the scenario in which I imagined seeing him next to naked for the first time.

  He’s already shivering and not a drop of water has touched him yet. But everyone else seems okay now, even Jase, whose lips aren’t so blue anymore. They’ve pulled some dry wood from the back of Jase’s truck and are about to light a campfire. They’ll roast hot dogs and marshmallows, and laugh like they didn’t all just give Death the finger. Maybe Jase is right. Maybe I do need to prove I haven’t been spoiled by my rich Californian roots.

  I watch Kai brace the thick rope in his hands, and I try to put myself in his place as he goes through the motions. I took acting classes for years, even had a bit role in one of my mother’s films when I was sixteen, just last year. This is no different from stepping into a new character. Maybe if I think this through, step by step, I’ll find it’s not as bad as I assumed.

  Kai heaves a breath, and I copy him. He backs up a few steps, then launches into a run. I imagine the soles of my feet smacking dirt and stones. My heart rate increases. Kai swings over the lake and goose bumps pop up over my whole body. He plunges into the water with a magnificent splash. I hold my breath, my muscles tightening as they would if I were underwater, the stinging cold pricking like needles on my skin.

  He hasn’t surfaced yet, so I keep holding my breath like I’m right there with him. Is he okay? I wait, numb with cold and anxiety, the voice of reason in the back of my mind now roaring, desperate for control: Kai, get out of there!

  I’ve counted to four-Mississippi when he comes up for air and shouts in triumph. I melt in relief. He swims to the bank easily, water gliding over his back. Jase hands him a blanket, and he wraps it around himself, grinning. Everyone’s looking at me with anticipation, urging me to give it a try.

  But I’m certain now—I can’t do it. My muscles will lock up and I’ll drown. I just wasn’t made for this. Give me sunshine and scrub, baked earth and salty shores. Give me a life that doesn’t require layers to survive.

  I say nothing to them, just shake my head.

  The disappointment among Kai’s friends rolls over me. They wanted a show, and I let them down. One of the other guys gives Jase a couple of bills.

  He bet on me? I understand him thinking I spoiled his fun, but I didn’t think I was so different from everyone here that Jase would put money on what I’d do or not do.

  Not that I consider Jase a real friend, more like an acquaintance by association, but seeing that stung. I turn away from him, muttering where I think he should shove those dollar bills.

  “Don’t let him get to you,” Kai says between chattering teeth. “You’re not doing a
nything wrong by not doing what everyone else does.”

  “I know.” I’ve never been one to be swayed by peer pressure, but that doesn’t mean I like being the odd one out.

  I reach up to tug Kai’s hat down over his reddened ears.

  “My bet?” he says, his tone warmer. “Jase wouldn’t last a day in LA.”

  His words hit their mark, and for one delicious moment, my inability to withstand the cold and my being too cautious in their eyes don’t matter anymore. Jase and his stupid bet don’t matter anymore. Everything melts, and it’s just me and this boy. This boy who always knows what to say, how to say it, and when. This boy who, three months ago, saw me at my worst and didn’t let that scare him. Instead, he stepped into the darkness of my soul and turned the lights back on.

  Everyone is dry now, circled around the crackling campfire, exchanging stories about bear encounters, some of which are obviously exaggerated to be funny but not entirely made up. Black bears rummage through garbage at night like raccoons. I don’t see the humor in it. Facing a hungry bear in the dark sounds like the stuff of nightmares.

  The closer the sun gets to kissing the horizon, the closer I huddle against Kai to stay warm. He drapes an arm across my shoulders and pulls me closer. I imagine what it would have been like if we’d met under different circumstances, if we’d met in SoCal instead of Alaska. Kai would have fit in there better than I do here. His poise, easy smile, and natural charm would have made him the life of every party. Swap his basic tee and jeans for a suit and tie, and have him escort me to a movie premiere, and the cameras would never stop flashing. We’d spend nights on the beach, splashing through frothy waves, lying on a blanket in the warm sand, instead of sitting on a flimsy fold-up chair by the fire, my face roasting and my back freezing.

  “What about you, Gabi?” Jase’s new girlfriend, Mel, says, pulling me out of my reverie. In the three months I’ve known Jase, he’s had a different girl with him practically every other week. Mel pierces another giant marshmallow with her stick and then holds it over the fire. It quickly browns. “You got any fun stories from LA?”

  Stories? Yes. Fun stories? Only if you consider people trying to take your picture for the sole purpose of ruining your life fun. “No,” I say, “not really.”

  “Nothing?” Jase shoots me an incredulous look. “Not even a celebrity sighting?”

  “I’ve seen a few,” I say. Like my mom and her boyfriend, the most talked-about couple in the media right now. But I can’t tell them that. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Maybe not for you, Miss Hollywood.” An unamused grin snakes between Jase’s cheeks. “Us nobodies don’t get to see famous people every day.”

  “So what?” Kai says. “We get to see better things. Things you can’t see anywhere but here.” Going by the light tone of his voice, I don’t think he’s stepping in just to get Jase off my back this time. He turns to me, eyes glittering with pride. He loves this place. “Outside the city, Gabi, it’s a different world. There’s Denali National Park, the mountains and wildlife, there are glaciers everywhere, and the northern lights—”

  “We’ve also got mosquitoes the size of birds in summer,” Jase says.

  I instinctively shudder, remembering my first mosquito plague. I still carry a bottle of insect repellent in my purse, right next to the bear mace I hope I’ll never have to use.

  Jase starts whittling his stick with a pocketknife and tossing curled shavings into the fire. “Seriously, Kai, you sound like one of those wilderness guides we make fun of at my summer job. They’re as bad as the tourists, the way they romanticize this place. And then people die out there, searching for some idealistic life they think Alaska promises but that doesn’t actually exist.”

  Everyone hushes. Even the fire seems to crackle in a whisper. Then something takes hold of Jase’s expression, an unspoken realization that morphs into a dreadful remorse. “Sorry, I didn’t mean …”

  “It’s okay,” Kai says. “Forget it.” He offers a wan smile and scratches the nape of his neck. I have no idea what just passed between them. Between all of them. One of the perks of being the new girl—I have no history here.

  “Who cares about fame, anyway, Jase,” Mel says, breaking the ice that had thickened around us. “Can you imagine being that rich?” She raises a brow at me, as if citing me as an example of what she means.

  I’ve been pegged as the rich Latina from LA, because no one here except Kai knows much more beyond that. They don’t know my mother is a household name, and her latest scandal is the reason I’m wearing a coat over a sweater over a thermal top while my friends in LA are probably lounging poolside tonight, flaunting their half-naked, sun-kissed bodies at one another. Same coastline, different world.

  Mel pulls at the charred outer shell of her marshmallow, leaving a gooey white glob on the end of her stick, and then pops the crunchy part into her mouth. Jase watches her chew, his whittling forgotten until she swallows and asks him, “What would you do with all that money?”

  “Buy a one-way ticket from Alaska to Hawaii,” he says. Laughter rises up, and the conversation turns to lighter topics again. Even Kai smiled at that comment, and although Jase is not my favorite person, I can relate to his desire to ditch the cold.

  “You wanna get outta here for a minute?” Kai whispers to me. “We can see the sunset better over there.”

  “Over where?”

  “Over anywhere but here.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  We excuse ourselves from the group and say our good-byes. Jase reminds us about his Halloween party coming up, and Kai mutters something in response, never slowing his steps.

  “We’ll be there,” I say over my shoulder. We already have our costumes set, and the colder it gets, the less we can do outdoors. Going to a party, even at Jase’s house, is better than doing nothing.

  Kai tugs me along through the woods until the voices behind us are barely audible. We can’t see the sunset at all over here.

  But I do see an animal peeking out from behind a tree trunk up ahead and watching us with curious eyes. It has big pointy ears, a pointy snout, and red fur. It’s about the size of a small dog, but it isn’t a dog, or anything domesticated.

  “Is that a fox?” I say, planting my feet.

  Kai stops at my side and follows my gaze. “Yep. It probably smelled our food.”

  “Will it hurt us?”

  “Not if we don’t hurt it.” He starts to move again, but I don’t, and our arms stretch between us, hands still held tightly together. My eyes are locked on the fox, though, whose movements have become skittish, head snapping one way then the other, foot lifting then dropping, like it can’t decide if it should go or stay.

  Well, it isn’t the only one. “Shouldn’t we wait for it to leave?”

  “Gabi, look at me,” Kai says.

  Slowly, I turn my head to face him. As soon as the fox is out of view, I let out a breath and relax. Kai instills a natural calm in me that I’ve never had around anyone else.

  “I would tell you if it wasn’t safe,” he says. “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes.” I believe he understands this place better than I do, and I believe he wants what’s best for me. Since the day we met, I’ve known those two things without a doubt, the same as I know the sky is blue and grass is green.

  “And if we ever did get into a sticky situation,” Kai goes on, “I trust you have good instincts, and you’d do the right thing.”

  “Except this time,” I say, only half joking. “Just standing here wasn’t the right thing.”

  He smiles at that. “I wouldn’t call this a sticky situation. Either way, you didn’t freak out and scare the thing into thinking it needed to protect itself, like some people do with wildlife—even Alaskans. You kept a level head and asked me what to do. That’s what I mean when I say you have good instincts.”

  He has entirely too much faith in me, but okay. I follow his lead, looking for the fox as we pass the tree it was
hiding behind, but it’s gone now. Even animals have to make the decision to keep moving forward, I suppose.

  After about twenty more feet, we stop. Kai leans his head back and stares straight up through the trees, so I do the same. This part of the park is more secluded, so it’s quieter, but not completely silent. Nocturnal critters let the world know they’re waking up now, and somewhere in the distance, a creek burbles over stones. The stars are just starting to become visible in the darkening bruise of the sky, twinkling between wispy clouds. Crisp air tingles in my throat. Away from the fire, the tip of my nose quickly cools. I lower my gaze and meet Kai’s. He’s got that look in his eye, the one that makes my mouth water and my throat go dry. Like he’s been traveling through the desert for days and finally found an oasis. Me.

  “I feel blasphemous,” he says, “for thinking you’re more beautiful than the sky.”

  “Is that all I am to you?” I tease, thankful for the breeze cooling my heated cheeks. “Just a pretty face?”

  “No.” His smile lights up my insides. “You’re a pretty face and a strong will and a complex, intelligent mind and the best thing that ever happened to me. So there.” He cradles the back of my head and draws me close to him. We breathe each other in and tangle our lips. He tastes like sweet promises and spicy heat, feels like where I belong. Alaska disappears, leaving only us.

  Then he pulls away, gasping, little puffs of mist mingling between us before they dance away on the breeze. “There’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about, away from them.”

  “Okay.” I will my head to stop spinning so I can focus. Of course I’d love to keep kissing, but Kai is the first guy I’ve been with who likes having a conversation with me, doesn’t just want to use me to get close to my mom to further his acting career. Those things don’t matter to Kai, but my opinion does. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen after graduation. Everyone’s talking about college and majors and …” He sighs. “That’s just not for me.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like the idea of being stuck inside a classroom all day, either.” Right now we’re both homeschooled, with flexible schedules and the freedom to set our own pace. But my college tuition is already paid through the first year, and my mom insisted a degree would open more doors, even in the arts. I don’t care what school I go to, though. I just picked USC because it was close to home. Or it was, at the time.