An ugly, hot spike of feeling drives straight into my gut. I picture Riley—blonde, bubbly, incredibly nice, and exactly the kind of person everyone expects a guy like Louis Tremblay to be taking on romantic weekend getaways.
“Oh. Right. I didn’t know you guys were close,” I say. My voice is sharper than I planned.
Louis turns his head, studying my profile. The silence stretches long enough to make my skin itch.
“You jealous, Sinclair?”
“What?” I scoff, keeping my eyes locked on the road. “No. I’m just making conversation.”
“You’re a terrible liar. You twitch when you lie. Did you know that?”
“I do not twitch.”
“Your left eye. Just a little tic.” His voice drops an octave, losing the teasing edge. “Riles is a buddy. She’s great, but we’re just friends.”
The leaves my chest in a whoosh as I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
“Okay,” Louis echoes. He doesn’t push it. He doesn’t dunk on me for being insecure. He lets the fact sit there:I’m here with you, not her.
A mile later, the GPS guides us down a narrow gravel drive, the tires crunching as we wind through a cathedral of massive trees. Sitka spruce and cedar trees tower overhead, their branches interlocking to form a sort of roof that, amazingly, blocks out most of the rain. It’s like entering a different world.
The Seastack Lodgeappears at the end of the drive like something grown from the earth rather than built. It’s perched right on the edge of the cliff, facing the fury of the Pacific Ocean head-on.
The building is somehow both modern and traditional at once. Weathered cedar, gray stone, and glass frame huge windows that spill amber light into the dark, rainy afternoon, making it seem cozy and inviting. It’s stunning.
I put the car in park and kill the engine, and the muffled roar of the wind and surf outside fills the cabin. Behind the reception desk is a large great room furnished with soft, comfy-looking chairs and sofas clustered in different seating arrangements. But the massive stone fireplace, flanked by two-story-high windows that face directly out to the ocean, draws my attention, and I wander over to it while Louis checks in and gets our keys.
“Amazing, right?” he says, appearing beside me a couple of moments later.
“No kidding.” I can’t hide the awe in my voice. Obviously, I’ve seen the ocean before—hell, I lived in Florida for a couple of years. But I’ve never seen the ocean quite likethis. “For a working-class kid who grew up in the Midwest, this view is something else.” I shake my head.
Lou chuckles. “Agreed. I grew up close to lots of lakes in Ontario, but after living on the coast for the last few years, I think the ocean has me hooked.”
“Yeah, I can understand why,” I murmur. We stand shoulder to shoulder, enraptured by the view for a few moments, before he holds up our key cards. “Wanna go check out our home for the next few days?”
“Hell, yeah.”
A few minutes later, I pull the car up to Cabin 4, The Osprey.
Inside, the cabin takes my breath away even more than the drive. It smells of cedar and sea salt. The entire front wall is glass, with floor-to-ceiling windows framing the churning ocean. There’s a smaller version of the stone fireplace from the main building, surrounded by a plush sectional that looks like it could swallow you whole. It’s incredible. The sense of being all alone here is palpable, and as crazy as it sounds, it’s almost like a piece of the tension I’ve been carrying for months drains away with each breath I exhale. It’s fucking perfect.
“Wow,” Louis murmurs, standing in the center of the room. “This is—yeah—this is exactly what I was hoping for.”
“You should sit down,” I command gently, nodding at the couch. “I’ll grab the bags.”
“I can get the lighter stuff—”
“Nope, you’re not grabbing anything. I’m not about to let you fuck up your stitches on a vacation. Try explainingthatto Coach and Carson.”
He rolls his eyes but drops onto the sectional with a sigh of relief.
I head back out to the car, grabbing our duffels and the two bags of groceries we picked up in Aberdeen. Once I’m back inside, I lock the door behind me, shutting out wind and rain.
I carry the groceries to the small but luxurious kitchen and unpack systematically. A place for everything and everything in its place. Stupid, maybe, but having everything organized always makes me feel more calm.
I grab both our bags and take them into the bedroom. After unpacking my own stuff, I unzip Louis’s bag and start putting his things into the drawers without thinking about it. I line his toiletries up in the bathroom next to mine and get everything neat and tidy before heading back out to the living room. I know enough about psychology to understand that being slightly obsessed with neatness and order is a coping mechanism for my anxiety—it’s my subconscious trying to control the environment. But the truth is that if my physical space is chaotic, my head gets chaotic. And right now, I don’t want to start overthinking anything. Like how I’m here in this amazing place with a man I’m feeling some kind of way about—even though those feelings are not going to make my life easy. Especially since we haven’t discussed what this is between us or what will happen when Louis is healed and ready to play again.
