SETH
We eat lunch like that, hands linked across the island, and I can't remember the last time I felt this present. This alive.
The afternoon passes too quickly. She finishes her work, and the whole time I follow her around like a shadow. I help her carry things and find excuses to touch her hand, her shoulder, and her waist.
She doesn't tell me to stop.
When she leaves to clean another of the cabins, promising to return to cook dinner at five, disappointment clenches hard in my gut. I know I shouldn’t, but I reach for my laptop just to check up on a few things.
Hours later Jennifer returns and catches me on the phone, and I feel like a little kid caught doing something wrong. Which is ridiculous. I’m a grown man, probably a good ten years older than she is. Yet, I also feel disappointed in myself when she silently frowns at my phone and goes into the kitchen without a word.
I hang up on my assistant, Bryan, and hurry after her. “I was only returning a few calls. I wasn’t overtaxing myself in any way.” I don’t mention the flutter in my chest as my temper climbed as my assistant droned on about the upcoming meeting that I would be missing.
“It’s none of my business,” Jennifer says smoothly, pulling items from the refrigerator.
That stops me. She’s correct; it isn’t, and there’s no reason for me to feel defensive about what I was doing. Still a pang vibrates through me, a craving for her to make it her business. I want her to care, dammit.
“Right,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair and turning away to go back to my phone, which is currently blowing up with messages from my assistant.
Stomping back to the bedroom, I send Bryan a fast text and then turn off my phone.
Dinner is plated and waiting for me when I return, and Jennifer is finishing washing up the last of the dishes. Mournfully, I look at the single plate and her unsmiling profile.
“Enjoy your dinner,” she says, pulling her keys from her pocket and heading to the door.
I beat her there and grip the doorknob in my hand. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
I'm standing too close again, but I can't help it as I gaze down at her. “Jennifer?”
Wary brown eyes reluctantly meet mine. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For today. For...” I gesture vaguely. “Being here.”
She smiles, soft and genuine. “You're welcome, Seth.”
After she leaves, I stand in the empty cabin and realize something.
It's not the rest that's causing me to feel more alive. It's not the quiet, or the lake, or the forced break from work.
It's her.
Jennifer, with her kind eyes and sweet smile and the way she makes me want to be present instead of always chasing the nextgoal. She makes me want to breathe. To live. To be more than just my company and my bank account.
I want her. Not just physically, though Lord knows I do. But I want her laughter, her conversation, and the way she looks at me like I'm a person, not a dollar sign or a business opportunity.
I eat my dinner of chicken and salad and then pace the cabin for hours, too restless to sit and too wired to sleep. When I finally go to bed at midnight, I lie awake thinking about tomorrow. About seeing her again.
About the fact that I have three and a half more weeks here, and then I'm supposed to go back to my old life.
Except I don't want my old life anymore.
I want whatever this is. This feeling of coming alive after years of just existing.
I want her.
***
