Brent
The lodge library was quiet except for the scratch of pens and the occasional rustle of paper. Morning sunlight streamed through the tall windows, catching dust motes in the air and making the space feel almost sacred. Outside, fresh snow blanketed the pines—the first real snowfall of the season, transforming the lodge into something from a postcard.
I'd claimed a corner desk with a good view of the mountains, but my attention kept drifting to the armchair fifteen feet away where Jason sat with his manuscript pages spread across his lap. He was muttering dialogue under his breath—a habit I'd noticed yesterday—and the intensity of his focus was both endearing and distracting.
This was our third morning at Elk Haven Lodge and we'd fallen into an easy routine. Morning coffee in our oom, breakfast in the dining room, then retreating to separate corners to work. Except we always seemed to end up in the same room. Finding each other without discussing it.
I turned my attention back to my laptop, where I'd been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes. The words felt hollow. Forced. Everything I wrote lately felt like trying to trick myself into believing I still knew how to do this.
Jason made a frustrated sound. I looked up to find him running his hand through his hair—the gesture that always made it stick up in ways that shouldn't be attractive but were.
"Stuck?" I asked, keeping my voice low so as not to disturb the other writers scattered around the library.
He looked up, and his expression softened. "Always. You?"
"Perpetually." I closed my laptop. "Want to talk through it?"
"We're in a public space." He echoed my words from yesterday with a small smile. "I don't want to monopolize your time."
"You're not." I gathered my things. "Come on. Let's go back to the room."
***
The suite felt different in daylight—more intimate, somehow. Or maybe I was more aware of what this space was becoming for us. A refuge from the having to be on at the retreat. A place where I didn’t have to be B.L. Cross.
We ended up on my bed instead of our usual separate ones, backs against the headboard, legs stretched out toward the window. The space between us felt casual at first, easy. Then Jason shifted to get comfortable, and his thigh brushed mine. I could feel the warmth of him, could catch that scent of cedar soap and him underneath.
Neither of us moved away.
“So what’s the problem?” Jason asked, drawing one knee up and looping an arm around it. The motion brought him even closer, our sides pressed together from shoulder to hip.
I focused on my laptop screen instead of the heat of him against me. "I keep trying to write action—my protagonist making choices, doing things. But every scene feels hollow."
"Because he doesn't know what he wants yet." Jason leaned in to look at my screen. His breath ghosted across my neck, and I forgot what I was saying. "Sorry—can I?"
He reached for my laptop and I passed it to him. Watched his eyes scan the words I'd written, the small furrow between his brows when he concentrated. His fingers moved across the trackpad with unconscious grace, and I tracked the movement,remembering how those fingers had brushed mine over coffee mugs and manuscript pages.
"See, here?" He turned the laptop so we could both see and the movement brought his face inches from mine. I could count the faint freckles across his nose. "You have him deciding to leave. But you never show him feeling trapped first. Show us what he's running from."
"That's it." My voice came out rougher than I intended. "That's exactly it."
Jason looked up and suddenly we were too close. His eyes dropped to my mouth for just a fraction of a second before snapping back up. Color flooded his cheeks.
"I should—" He started to pull back, but I caught his wrist without thinking.
"Wait." I didn't know what I was asking him to wait for. I wasn't ready for him to move away yet. "Show me what you mean. About the feeling."
His pulse jumped under my fingers. We both looked down at where I was touching him and I realized I should let go. Should put distance between us. Should remember that he was a retreat participant and I was the instructor and there were about a dozen reasons this was a terrible idea.
I let go.
Jason cleared his throat and turned back to the laptop, but his hands weren't quite steady as he typed. "Like this. Instead of 'he left,' try 'the walls pressed in until he couldn't breathe, until leaving was the only option.' Make us feel it."
I took the laptop back, our fingers brushing again, and started typing. The words came easier now, flowing in a way they hadn't in months. Jason went back to his own manuscript, and we fell into that parallel productivity, but I was aware of him beside me. The sound of his breathing. The occasional shiftof his body. The way his knee would brush against mine and neither of us would move away.
When I finally looked up, I'd written almost two thousand words.
"Holy shit," I said.
