Carson
I had been in tight spots before. Guiding trips where lightning storms swept in without warning. Solo treks where a wrong step could send you sliding into a ravine. Nights in tents with winds so strong the fabric snapped like a living thing.
But none of those ranked anywhere near as disorienting as the tension between Sienna and me now.
You’d think after sharing a sleeping bag, after kissing her like a man who’d forgotten restraint existed, after sleeping with her, that things would get easier.
Clearer. That either she or I would say something direct so we could at least categorize whatever this thing was.
But no.
Instead, we cleaned the Polaris ATV behind the lodge like two people who had committed a crime together and were waiting to see who broke first.
She scrubbed the fender with aggressive determination, hair swinging like a metronome of panic. I rinsed the undercarriageand pretended I wasn’t watching her every third second. The distance between us was maybe six feet, but it felt like a charged wire stretched from her to me.
Every time our eyes met, we both looked away.
Every time our arms brushed when passing tools, we froze like startled animals.
Every time she nervously pushed her hair behind her ear, I felt something inside me tip forward.
We hadn’t talked about the tent or the morning after.
Or the admission that slipped from her sisters’ mouths like gossip confetti.
She was avoiding talking about it.
And I was avoiding pushing her.
It was a perfect mess.
“So,” she said suddenly, voice an octave too bright, “we should check tire tread depth. Safety first.”
“Right,” I agreed, turning off the hose. “Good to know.”
Another awkward silence stretched out.
Another sideways glance.
Another near collision of breath and unspoken things.
I tried to focus on the work, tried to be that calm, competent guide I was hired to be, but my brain kept replaying the moment she fell into the lake, and I’d felt something break loose inside me. Something protective and primal and way too close to everything I’d sworn off.
I had gotten too close.
And now I didn’t know how to step back.
The Polaris was soaking, gleaming, and cleaner than it would ever need to be when the lodge’s back door flew open.
“Carson!” Sienna’s mom stepped out holding a basket of perfectly folded towels like a domestic general. She had that purposeful warmth that made people drop their defenses before they knew what happened.
But the way she smiled at me—bright, welcoming, decisive—made every muscle in my body tighten.
She knew something.
“I’m so glad I caught you,” she said, descending the porch steps.
Sienna froze with the sponge mid-scrub. “Mom…”
