Knock, you idiot. The sooner you get this over with, the faster you can go home.
With a surge of gusto, I slammed my fist against his door three times.
Please don’t be here. Please don’t be here.
The night was quiet enough to hear movement through the door, a pounding of feet heading my way with the thumps growing as loud as my heart rate.
The second the knob twisted, I stepped back.
“—yeah, so then I went to... Oh hey!” Marlow tilted the phone from his ear.
There was a soft and subtle chattering from the other end of his phone, though what the other person was saying, I couldn’t really make out. Whatever it was, Marlow snorted and rolled his eyes, then leaned his body weight against the doorframe.
I thumbed a finger over my shoulder. “I can come back if I’m bugging you.”
He shook his head, tilting the phone back to his mouth. “I’ll call you back later. Got a visitor.”
Marlow was dressed still, though not in the same clothes he’d been wearing all day. He had on a pair of gray sweats and a dark colored t-shirt, both of which showed off his athletic build. No signs of sweat or labored breathing, though his hairwaswet.
Shower, maybe?
“What’s up?” he asked.
“That thing you asked me about earlier...”
His eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah. You find any?”
For a moment, my mouth refused to move. My hand hovered over my pocket, just breezing over the subtle bulge that could be mistaken for a wallet, a cell phone, and not the fist full of condoms I’d shoved in there like a kid stealing candy behind his health nut mom’s back.
“No,” I lied.
What the fuck?
“Bummer.” Weirdly, he didn’t look all that upset about it.
I forced myself not to look past him and into his cabin to check if he was actually alone in there. “How was the fire?”
“Eh, got a little toasty, so I headed back early.”
Alone?
The word was right on the tip of my tongue, burning. “Gotcha.”
Marlow leaned back from the doorway, nodding his head toward the inside. “Want to come in?”
That familiar ‘danger!’warning was screaming at me once again. Not at all working to deter me as one foot was put in front of the other and I was soon crossing the threshold into Marlow’s cabin. He swung the door shut behind me, smelling faintly of campfire and whatever expensive shampoo he’d used, while he stepped around me and headed over to his kitchenette.
“You want a drink?”
“Think I’m good on my water intake for the day.” I’d forgotten how nice these cabins were.
My granddad had put a lot of time, energy, andmoneyinto making them top-notch in quality. He’d never been one to cut corners and do things the cheap and easy way. Sourcing the proper material, finding a good contractor and build team, all took plenty of hours that most business owners would turn their noses up at and scoff at for wasting valuable time.
But my granddad believed in things that were worthwhile taking time. As much as needed, so long as at the end of the day, the final result came out better than expected.
I’d always admired that. It was hard to be patient when the world valued a quick turnover. Money was to be made in the fast-paced environment of stocks and corporate profits; case in point, Marlow’s entire career.
I couldn’t even begin to fathom the kind of money that man made given how nonchalant he’d been about this whole wrong-package ordeal. Barely batting an eye when it came to losing out on a few hundred bucks was eye opening to say the least. I’d taken a peek at his application as soon as I’d gotten back to my office, had gotten one glance at where his residence was, and that had given me all I needed to know.
