I squeezed my eyes shut.Ignore it. Just ignore it.
Faelan said, “A bird raised in a cage will always flinch when the door opens.”
I forced a laugh. “It’s just work.”
“And yet you carry its weight, even here.”
I reached for my clothes, snatching my phone just as the call went to voicemail. My screen glowed with texts, stacked one after the other in a relentless stream of urgency.
Boss: Sam, are you seeing this?
Boss: We need you to sign off—it can’t wait.
Boss: Please tell me you’re checking your email.
Boss: Call me. Now.
My chest tightened.
“I just have to mute it,” I said, but my fingertips had already tapped open my messages. The pull of obligation was too strong.
In my peripheral vision, Faelan moved.
Not abruptly, or even angrily. He simply rose, dressing as if this were preordained…and I’d sealed something the moment I touched that screen.
I hesitated. “It’s just one quick text.”
Faelan pulled his shirt over his head, his back to me. “No river flows in two directions. You choose the current, or it chooses for you.”
Something inside me twisted. “That’s dramatic.”
“Only to those who don’t see the turning of the tide.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
But he was already stepping into the trees—back into the wild as if he had never belonged to this moment at all.
And as I sat there, naked in the clearing with my stupid phone in hand and my stomach sinking, I had the feeling that I’d just made a powerful choice…and I’d chosen wrong.
5
Sam
I stared at my phone. Its glow cut into the darkness, glaring artificial and sharp against the night. The texts sat there in a perfect little stack. My boss was waiting.
I might as well reply. After all, the damage was already done, wasn’t it? Yep, I’d ruined a perfectly mind-blowing hookup by checking my damn phone during the afterglow.
As I wondered what the hell I’d been thinking, another text popped up.
I’ll just assume you don’t care about this deadline.
It wasn’t simple anger that boiled in my gut—it was fury. My boss could take his deadline and shove it. With cold deliberation, I powered off the phone. It was too little, too late. But I refused to let my job take anything else from me tonight.
I brushed off the leaves that clung to my skin and pulled on my clothes. My body still felt warm, but the night air pressed in and cooled the heat Faelan had left behind. Like the forest itself wanted to erase what had happened here.
Now I was being dramatic.
It was just sex…great sex. Amazing sex, even. But it’s not like I thought we’d end up splitting utilities and shopping for throw pillows. Right?
