Prologue

Mariam

A girls’ trip to a remote cabin surrounded by nature was exactly what I needed in my life right now. Thank you, Bar Harbor. You’re a real beaut.

I stood in the cozy living area, facing the large windows and doing my best to be present in the moment. Tall, towering old oaks surrounded our little sanctuary on three sides, the leaves on their branches so dense that the world outside was shady and cool. 

In front of our place, the surface of the lake glittered. The barest whisper of a breeze rippled the water in patches of rough amid the smooth. I inhaled deeply, trying to absorb the peace of our weekend getaway, but that was really hard to do considering the conversation Laurel and Gemma were having outside.

“A creepy cannibal?” Gemma called, sounding puzzled.

Aaaaand moment shattered.

“Jeez, woman.” She let out a burst of laughter. “What on earth have you been writing? I didn’t know you were venturing into horror. No stews being made here, though. Don’t worry.”

Laurel giggled, and even though she hadn’t even made it into the cabin yet, I knew she’d be shaking her head while looking around the place where we would be spending the weekend.

“I wasn’t trying to venture into horror, but three girls out here all alone?” She scoffed. “You don’t need a very active imagination to start thinking about the potential plotlines that could come out of it.”

Shit. I spun around, racing to the front door before they could fall further down this rabbit hole. “Laurel! Stop scaring her or you’re going to have to tuck her in tonight. Nothing is going to happen to us here. Obviously, I did my research before I made the booking. There have been no mysterious or suspicious incidents around here in decades and the host said there is a panic button in case of fire, flood, or some other kind of emergency.”

She released Gemma and grinned at me. “I love that you always do research when you’re planning our trips. It’s comforting.”

I chuckled and stepped aside so they could come in. Gemma helped Laurel with her bags and I made my way to our little kitchenette. My gaze skimmed across the living and dining areas, both bathed in mottled sunshine filtering in from outside.

Yeah, this place will definitely do.

My only complaint was that despite it being a cool October and all the shade, bits of my hair were stuck to my neck. A sticky layer of sweat coated my body after carrying all our stuff down the incline from the car to the cabin and then unpacking.

Well, I’d unpacked.

Gemma had been in the moment.

Unlike me, she hadn’t rushed to get everything in its proper place, choosing instead to drink in the natural beauty of the area while I’d stowed away our groceries and headed upstairs to do the same with my clothes. Laurel didn’t seem to be in any rush to unpack either, walking into the cabin and disappearing into her head almost immediately.

God, I’m jealous of them for that.

I’d always envied both of them the ability to put everything else aside and simply be. Even if it was just for a moment.

That might even have been what had drawn me to them back in elementary school. We had been friends for so long that I had no memory of the exact moment I’d realized that these two girls were my soulmates. It had been our similarities, sure, but also our few but vast differences that had kept me glued to their sides for all these years.

Reaching up to gather my hair into a ponytail, I tied it with an elastic that had been on my wrist—I liked to be prepared—and waited for them to come down from the loft after taking Laurel’s things upstairs.

As I watched them descend the ladder-style staircase from above, my heartbeat slammed against my ribs. What on God’s green earth am I going to do in Idaho without them? This is crazy. Stupid. Irresponsibile.

“Tea or margaritas?” I asked as I gazed up at them, needing something to distract myself from the sense of impending doom. I grinned at Laurel, shoving down my uncertainties about the future and once again trying to just be in the darn moment. “I figure we should drink the margaritas, since you have to spill the tea.”

“About what?” She batted her lashes innocently, but her face turned bright red. “Can we please leave the reunion in the past, where it belongs?”

I shook my head, but Gemma made absolutely sure she knew we expected her to tell us everything. “Nope. I’ll make the margaritas. Mimi will get the ice and you, my friend, are going to tell us exactly what happened between you and everyone’s favorite sexy boy next door at the reunion. We’ve been waiting since May to hear about it and the suspense has been killing me. I can’t take it anymore.”

Gotta love it when you don’t even have to say anything but your thoughts are voiced anyway. A brief pause before my thoughts started spiraling again. Which again begs the question, why am I leaving?

I almost groaned out loud, but instead, I spun around and raced to the freezer, hoping that keeping busy with the ice would keep me out of my freakin’ head. Laurel seemed to be considering what Gemma had said and, in the process, had gotten lost in her own thoughts.

Thoughts that, by the looks of things, were focused on how incredibly attractive her former lover had become in the decade it’d been since we’d left high school behind. Her lips had parted, cheeks now streaked with rosy pink, and I was pretty sure her pupils were larger than usual. I smirked, happy to have someone else to focus on.

“Details, woman,” I demanded playfully. “What happened?”

As her eyes met mine, I could tell she was thinking about her private reunion with her childhood friend and high school sweetheart, and I was genuinely excited for her. Leif McIntosh had been a good friend to us all growing up, but once we’d reached puberty and realized that boys’ cooties were an imaginary germ, he and Laurel had gotten together pretty quickly.

Life had been cruel to the both of them in the end though, and their relationship, however bulletproof it might’ve seemed, had cracked under the crushing weight of their loss. If anyone deserved a second bite at the apple, it was them, and as I waited for her to admit it, I silently rooted for them to get their happily ever after.

Every year, the girls and I did a trip like this. Just the three of us for a whole weekend of bonding, board games, nature, books, and this year, the list.

If Gemma had even brought it.

I secretly hoped she hadn’t, but I guessed I’d find out.

In the meantime, although I was vaguely listening to my friends, I succumbed to my own irrationally overthinking brain again. We do this every year, but will I even be able to join them next year? Will I get to see Leif and Laurel becoming LeifandLaurel again? Oh, my god, Mariam. You don’t have a terminal illness. You’re just moving.

“You had a one-night stand with Leif McIntosh,” I said as I shut my annoying brain down and dragged Laurel to the couch. “You can’t just tell us that and not give us any details. Was it good? Was it great? Is his penis as big as we thought it would be?”

Gemma’s nose wrinkled as she laughed. “I don’t think anybody calls it a penis in this context. Have you not read any of those books I’ve given you?”

“You mean the trashy ones?” I felt my cheeks flush and I averted my gaze as I shrugged, but jeez, those books Gemma had given me were, well, not what I usually read. “I started one, but I, uh, might’ve been a bit too embarrassed to keep reading. Do you even know how many times the word ‘cock’ was used in the first few chapters?”

I whispered the word, my eyes huge as I finally glanced back at my friends.

Laurel looked like she understood, but Gemma rolled her eyes before giving me a pointed look. “If you’re going to get through your portion of the list, you’re going to have to be able to read a couple of books at least. You’ll never complete your items if reading scares you.”

“The list is something we made up in the ninth grade,” I argued. “How trashy can it really be?”

Laurel arched an eyebrow at me. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but we made the list because if we weren’t married with kids by our reunion, then being goodie-goodies hadn’t worked out so well for us and we wanted to challenge ourselves to mix things up.”

“Exactly,” Gemma said. “I don’t remember everything we put on it, but I do remember a lot of giggling while we were tossing out ideas and writing down the most outlandish things we could come up with at the time.”

“Didn’t we even call it the naughty list?” Laurel asked, her brow puckering in thought. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be trashy.”

“But,” Gemma said loudly. “The whole point of it was to push us out of our comfort zones so we would be forced to do things we wouldn’t normally do.”

“To explore the other side of life,” Laurel added with a wicked smile spreading her lips. “So that we’d be able to decide who we wanted to be going forward. The good girl, the bad girl, or something in between.”

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, my head shaking. “Do we even still have the list? I know we talked about it at the reunion, but that doesn’t mean the thing still exists.”

“Of course, it still exists.” Gemma pressed her hand to her chest, feigning offense. “I swung by my parents’ place before our flight. It was still safely tucked into my old desk drawer. I have it right here.”

Bending over, she grabbed her purse and pulled out a small, plastic baggie, a folded piece of paper visible inside the see-through, protective packet. 

Laurel laughed. “I can’t believe we thought pink, glittery ink would warn people against reading it.”

Gemma winked. “It worked, didn’t it? It’s still in pristine condition. No one has touched it since we put it in here for safekeeping.”

I sighed, the sound unhappy even to my own ears. “If we’re really going to do this, I need to eat. Should we go into town and get some lobster?”

“Let’s divvy it up first.” Gemma took another big sip of her drink. “That is what we said we would do, right? We came up with twelve items and each of us would take four?”

“Right.” Laurel nodded. “Four dares to our future selves that would help us to be someone else for a season. Once it was done, we’d reconvene, talk about our experiences, and decide who we wanted to be. Those were the rules as I remember them.”

“I’m already selling my half of our company to Gemma,” I protested then, unable to hold back anymore. “Doesn’t that count as one of my items? I’m leaving my normal life to travel and chase adventure while living as a nomad and doing seasonal work. I think that’s about as far out of my comfort zone as I can get.”

“Nah,” Gemma said immediately. “I’m really proud of you for doing all that, but moving to Sun Valley, Idaho for the ski season hardly makes you naughty.”

Laurel blinked hard, her eyes widening all the way. “You’re what? How did I miss this?”

I wasn’t surprised by her reaction. Frankly, no one was more surprised than I was that I had actually pulled the trigger on this. The mere thought of it threatened to make me break out in hives.

Gemma, Laurel, and I were all from Austin and so far Laurel was the only one who’d left. After college, Gemma and I had started an event planning company together and we were doing really well. Only an irresponsible nut would throw all that away, but I had.

Out of nowhere, the Queen of the Good Girls had shaken things up. I wasn’t even old enough to call it a midlife crisis. What the hell was I thinking?

Gemma tossed an arm around my shoulders and gently pulled me in for a sideways hug. “We only did the deal recently, but yep. The Events Co is all mine now.”

Laurel gaped. “Wow. That’s crazy, but awesome. I’m so proud of both of you. Congratulations?”

“Thanks,” I muttered, feeling my entire face turn blisteringly hot. I inhaled deeply and held out my hand. “Okay. Just hit me with it. Give me my part of the list. Then we can buy some boxes to keep them in when we go into town. Let’s just get it over with and then we’ll catch Laurel up on everything else.”

Gemma shot us both a nervous, excited smile and opened the plastic baggie. “I’m going to tear it into pieces, each of us will take four, and then when we get back home, we’ll do a video call and we’ll all draw our first dare?”

Laurel and I both agreed, but she looked much more excited about it than I felt. The way I saw it, my entire life was already changing.

I’d had enough of being the perpetual good girl and I was ready for adventure. Ready to follow my lifelong dream of traveling and opening myself up to new experiences, but heavens above. Did everything really have to happen at exactly the same time?

Give me a break, universe! I beg of you.

Yet as Gemma pressed pieces of paper into my palm, I felt a flutter of something in my belly. Something not even my rule-loving little heart could deny because technically completing this list was a rule. I had to do it, but at the same time, for once in my life, I had absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into—and I was getting a very real thrill because of it. 

Chapter One

Mariam

On a chilly Saturday morning, I was feeling all the fall vibes as I packed the last of my things into boxes and bags. Outside my bedroom window, leaves were rustling in the breeze. Yellow, red, orange, and brown swept down the street as they fell to make way for new growth in the spring.

I took a deep breath in and out, memorizing the view from inside the apartment that was no longer mine.

That’s right. I, Mariam Walker, am officially without a permanent home address.

My heart gave an uncomfortable thud.

From now on, all my mail would be going to my parents’ place, and when I was back here in Austin, I would be staying in my old room at the house I’d once shared with Gemma. But I’d be there as a guest.

My lungs tried to stop working. What have I done?

My last business trip with Gemma had come and gone, the ink on the contract of sale for my half of the company was dry, and all around me, indents in the carpets and taped-up boxes were proof that I wasn’t hallucinating. I’d actually done it.

I’d given it all up in favor of moving—temporarily—to Sun Valley, Idaho. My parents had taken a trip there for their anniversary when I’d been a kid, and upon their arrival back home, the pictures they’d shown me had made it the first place I’d added to my very own Bucket List.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my half-brother, Brian, had also fallen in love with the place. Since he was older than me though, the ass had beat me to it. In spectacular fashion, actually.

I still can’t believe it.

Brian had gone to Sun Valley, but instead of moving on as I planned to do, he’d decided to plant himself right there. He’d gone and bought a house in the location of my first Bucket List destination and now he was even starting a business there.

Along with his mysterious business partner, he was opening a new ski resort, and as soon as he’d heard I was considering the nomad life, he’d asked me to come help them out. They would be opening right before Christmas, the busy season for tourists in Sun Valley, and he’d promised it would be the perfect start to my travel adventures.

I groaned, hanging my head as I tried to steady my breathing. This was not me. I wanted it to be, but it just wasn’t.

Gemma was the free spirit of our group, a good girl herself, but with a carefree nature that had always allowed her to follow her heart without reassessing everything seventeen times. Laurel was the creative, the hometown sweetheart who never put a foot wrong and wrote romance novels for a living. She owned a cute little bookstore in Franklin, Tennessee, and spent her nights writing with her Golden Retriever, Doodle, by her side.

Me?

Spreadsheets were my one true love, closely followed by lists and beautifully written, clearly defined rules. Throwing caution to the wind was an alien concept to me.

Or it had been before I’d thrown all the caution ever into that crisp fall breeze outside and watched it scatter my carefully laid plans for the future like those leaves. On the cusp of hyperventilating, I forced my chin to lift and my shoulders to square, my spine to straighten and oxygen to shoot to my lungs.

This wasn’t me, but that was the whole damn point.

A bit of fear was natural under the circumstances. I wouldn’t have been human if I wasn’t feeling a healthy dose of trepidation right about now, but I wasn’t going to spend the next chapter of my life second-guessing myself.

First and foremost, I had always been a scholar. Learning was my jam, and this? This journey was going to be a learning curve unlike any I’d ever experienced.

Grabbing the tape off the floor, I sealed up the last few boxes with refreshed vigor and determination, then carried them to the door. A moving company would be coming to take these last few things to my storage unit later today and they would turn the keys over to Gemma when they were done.

As I straightened up, a banging knock fell against my door and I grinned, nervous as all hell but looking forward to becoming a badass rather than a timid, homebound little mouse. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, okay?

Gemma shot me an excited smile as I opened the door. “Are you ready? We’ve got twenty-five hours in the car ahead of us. Please tell me you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.” I picked up the backpack I’d left by the door earlier and grabbed the handle of my wheeled suitcase. “Let’s do this.”

She winked before she reached past me to grab the duffel bag remaining on the floor. “Do you need a minute to say goodbye, or—”

“I’m good.” I smiled my thanks at her, both for the offer and for carrying my other bag, and then I stepped out of the apartment, shutting the door with a decisive click behind me. “I’ve already had the obligatory mental meltdown this morning. The only thing left is turning in my keys and grabbing some coffee on our way out of town.”

“Let’s do it.” She followed me to the elevator, singing under her breath all the way down the hall.

The sound brought a grin to my lips. It was a sure taste of home I would certainly miss, Gemma’s constant singing and humming. For a little while before our last work trip to New York together, she’d stopped doing it.

Silence around her had been creepy and a definite sign that something was up, but then she’d completed her first Naughty List item—which she’d renamed to her New Me list—and suddenly, the music was back.

I suppose making out with a national megastar who’s hotter than the sun would do that to a girl.

After the elevator dropped us off in the lobby, I strode over to slide my keys into my super’s mailbox as we’d agreed, and it felt like I was dropping a large weight that had been holding me back. I breathed a sigh of relief when it was gone, the keys falling with a metallic clang to the bottom of the box.

One step closer.

Gemma opened the main doors, holding them for me to join her, and we made our way to my car. Once we were outside, I, for one, enjoyed the balmy fall air around here one last time, knowing that Sun Valley was going to be freezing freaking cold already.

Brian had been sending me some pics and dear lord, it was already snowy over there. Mid-November in Austin was like a tropical island in comparison to the wintery scenes in my brother’s photographs.

But I was even looking forward to that, in a way. I would be there to help him out until the end of January, and that meant I would get to experience actual seasons.

Honestly, my biggest worry was that my outerwear wouldn’t hold up to the cold. My teeth sank into my lips as I wondered if we should stop to get a new jacket.

“Snap out of it,” Gemma commanded laughingly after we’d stashed all my things in the trunk. “Come on, girl. Look alive. Get excited. You’re about to go on a road trip with your bestie to kick off the greatest adventure of your life. Stop looking like we’re part of a funeral procession.”

“It’s not not a funeral procession,” I started, but then I sighed and collapsed into my car, drawing in a full, slow breath and exhaling it before I reached for my seatbelt and buckled up. “I’ve had a whole life here that I’m saying goodbye to, but that being said, I meant what I said upstairs. I am ready. I am excited. I’m just also about to pee myself because of the nerves.”

She laughed, buckling up. “Should we buy you some adult diapers before we leave town?”

“No, but be prepared to make a lot of stops.” I checked for oncoming traffic and eased onto the road, focusing on getting us safely to where we were going rather than thinking about what I was leaving behind.

Thankfully, Gemma was coming with me for now. We’d decided to make a fun trip of the drive, and once we got there, she’d help me move into my condo before she’d be on the first flight back here. I was grateful to have her by my side, especially since I still felt guilty about leaving her with all our work.

“Are you sure—”

She didn’t even let me ask the question, shutting me down with a fierce eye roll—and Gemma could do that fiercely—before she changed the topic. “Have you made any progress on the first item of your list?”

“Having a one-night stand?” I laughed. “Sure, between flying to New York with you, packing up my entire life, making arrangements to start over, but only temporarily in Idaho, and tying up all the loose ends, I had a quick hookup.”

She sighed. “Orgasms are good for the soul, Mimi. Seriously. A proper shagging would’ve been good for all this stress you’re carrying around.”

“A proper shagging?” I glanced at her. “Have you been watching British TV shows again?”

She shrugged. “What? Sometimes, I like my dirty talk classy.”

“Only sometimes?” I chuckled, shaking my head but quickly forgetting all about how nervous I had been earlier.

Gemma succeeded in keeping me out of my head, and we had a blast as we put mile after mile between us and our hometown. I always had a good time with her. Everyone did.

We talked and laughed, reminiscing about the ninth-grade sleepover when we’d created the list and I teased her about completing her first item not an hour after she’d found out what it was. Kissing a stranger in an airplane bathroom might’ve given others some trouble, but not her.

By a happy twist of fate, Gemma had ended up in first class on our flight to New York, seated right next to Noah Parks, heartthrob of the famous boyband, City Lights. Only she would chuck champagne all over a guy—an ultra famous one at that—and still manage to make him want to kiss her while he was cleaning up.

In my case, it’d been half a month and I hadn’t even thought about the list, let alone finding someone to have a one-night stand with. I figured it would be easier once I got to Sun Valley, though. I didn’t know anyone there other than my brother and I wouldn’t be getting attached to a perfect stranger, so I’d catch up to her once I was settled there.

Laurel didn’t have any points on the board yet either, considering that she would only be seeing the old flame she wanted to kiss for her task once we were all back in Texas for Thanksgiving. Gemma and I spoke about her and Leif for a little while before she finally turned the conversation back to me.

“Are you feeling better about the list yet?” she asked. “There’s no rush, you know. You can wait until you’re ready before you start.”

“I’m calling mine The Bucket List,” I declared as I tightened my fingers on the steering wheel. “The way I see it, we’re taking the first step to completing my first task right now. I’m on my way to the place where I’ll make it happen, and for now, that’s enough for me.”

I meant it. I would get a proper shagging eventually—and hopefully get the kind of orgasm that was good for my soul out of it—but for now, she was right. There was no rush.

This was a journey. An adventure. And I’d waited so long to take it that I would savor every last step along the way.