“Sleeping in the same room as a woman I’m not married to,” he says. His voice is a soft, deep rumble. “I might be tempted. People might talk.”
“I don’t think avoiding the bedroom worked to avoid temptation,” I point out, and I can see Gideon’s blush even in the low light. He doesn’t break eye contact, though.
“No,” he says, simply. “Sometimes,” he starts, then stops. Thinks. “Things can get so ingrained in you aswrongthat after a while, you forget to think about why it’s wrong and it justis.”
Something pops in the wood stove. I think a log falls. Gideon adjusts his head on the pillow, his eyes never leaving mine. I don’t move and barely breathe for fear he’ll stop talking if I do.
“And even after you know better, even after you’ve learned, thatwrongfeeling isn’t gone. It fades, but it’s always this—this dread in the back of your mind, and it’ll disappear when you shine a light on it, but the second you look away, it’s back.”
I watch him for a long moment. Gideon’s quiet and lovely in the firelight, and I don’t want to think beyond that. It’s easier, right now, to pretend that there’s nothing complicated about him or about this; that this morning’s family drama is entirely separate from him, gloriously naked and coming in the bathtub with my name on his lips.
It’s dreamlike here, unreal, weightless. It feels like these moments couldn’t possibly have consequences.
“Does this feel wrong?” I ask, voice low, even though I’m not sure I want to know.
Gideon sucks in a long breath.
“Yes,” he says. “No. Not for good reasons.” He pauses. “Feels right, too.”
I don’t know what else to say, on the floor of a cabin, cold outside and warm in here, in these moments that feel like a dream. Everything I think of sounds like an empty platitude, like I’m telling Gideon something he already knows, and it’s not likeknowingis the problem.
In the end, I don’t say anything, but I reach out and push his dark hair behind one ear. He catches my wrist and presses a kiss to my palm, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t break my heart a little.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
GIDEON
“So anyway,”Andi says, shaking the bag of trail mix like she’s looking for something specific. I don’t point out that this behavior is against the rules of trail mix. “That’s why it’s the Sunday crossword’s fault that Lucia broke her knee.”
I hold out my hand for some non-specific trail mix, as God intended, and consider this for a moment.
“Sounds like it was the fault of whoever left the hose out the night before for her to trip over,” I say.
“Yeah, but that’s a boring story and you know Lucia,” she says, and I don’t, at least not very well, but I like her based on how fond Andi is. “Why tell a story where you forgot to put something away when it could be about heroically knowing the name of the lead actress inZorba the Greek?”
“Pretty heroic,” I agree. “I wouldn’t get it if you gave me a hundred guesses.”
“Irene Papas.”
“Nope.” I toss more trail mix into my mouth, discover it’s all raisins, and look down at what’s still in my hand. “You have to give me at leastoneM&M per handful,” I tell Andi. “That’s the rule.”
“Trail mix doesn’t have rules,” she says, but she looks guilty. “Trail mix is anarchy.”
Silently, I hold my hand out to her. After a moment, she makes a face, shakes the bag again, and pokes through it. Eventually, I getoneyellow M&M.
“I think that’s the last one,” she says. “Don’t eat it all in one place.”
“Andi,” I say, as seriously as I can. “Did you eat all the M&Ms out of the trail mix?”
“Obviously not, since you’re about to eat one,” she says.
“Did you eat all theotherM&Ms?”
“I don’t think that’s relevant,” she says, and settles her back firmly against the boulder we’re leaning against. “Anyway, Lucia’s doing very well now, thanks for asking.”
I toss the raisins and one M&Ms into my mouth, chew, and swallow before I get brave enough to ask the next thing. It’s not a good combination, for the record.
“But you stayed?” I ask, and I hope I’m right, I hope she doesn’t sayactually I’m going back to New Yorknext week. For all the time we’ve spent together the past two weeks, we somehow haven’t talked much about our lives back in the world.
