Page 56 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

Or worse?

She’d want me to leave with her.

And I can’t.

I don’t belong out there.

I did my time in that world—suits, smiles, staged conversations, the constant pressure to be palatable.

I felt myself disappearing day by day until I couldn’t recognize the man in the mirror.

Out here, I’m real.

Out there, I’m a brand. A headline. A story.

No.

Fuck.

NO.

Best to say goodbye now.

Cleanly.

Before I start building castles on clouds like some romantic idiot.

I stalk into the kitchen, bare feet silent on the worn wood floor.

The cabin smells like last night—smoke and tea and sex and something softer I don’t want to name.

I scrub my hands at the sink like I can rinse off the memory of her mouth.

It doesn’t work.

My eyes keep flicking toward the hallway.

Toward the bedroom door.

Toward the woman sleeping in my bed like she has every right.

Fuck.

I need to deal with her car.

A fucking Tesla.

A snort of laughter escapes me—short, sharp.

Only this woman would think she could tackle a mountain in a thunderstorm with a battery-operated car.

Only Clara Belle.

The thought makes warmth curl in my chest, and I hate it.

Because somewhere in the last sixteen hours I’ve gotten attached.

Not just because she fucks like a poem and looks like a dream—though, yeah, that doesn’t hurt.