“There are no people here.”
“That might be my favorite thing you’ve said.”
I turned down the sheet. Sunny climbed into bed with one last quick smile, then tucked the blanket aside and watched me take the other side. I left space between us until she looked at it, then at me.
“Flint.”
“What is it?”
“I didn’t stay for a respectful six-inch gap.”
I laughed and pulled her to me.
She came willingly, warm and soft in my arms, her back against my chest, one leg sliding between mine under the sheet. I fit my hand over her hip and felt her settle there. No argument. No camera. Just Sunny breathing in my cabin with the window open and the creek running below us.
“You okay?” I asked.
She covered my hand with hers. “I’m good.”
A minute passed.
Then, softer, she said, “You?”
I pressed my mouth to her hair. “Yeah.”
Her foot slid against mine under the sheet, and I stayed awake long after she drifted off, my hand open on her hip and the creek running in the dark below us.
Chapter Five
SUNNY
I woke to Flint’s cabin breathing around me.
It wasn’t literally breathing, because I was a culinary professional with a functioning understanding of architecture. The rough pine walls didn’t have lungs. The old roof beams didn’t sigh.
But morning moved through that small ridge cabin in slow, golden bands, and every quiet sound felt too intimate. Wind brushed the screens. A jay scolded something outside. Somewhere below the porch, water ran over creek stones, bright and steady, like last night had left an echo in the mountain and the mountain had decided to play it back for me before breakfast.
I lay still in Flint’s bed with his gray T-shirt riding high on my thighs and my hair loose across his pillow.
A sane woman would have sat up, checked the time, found her clothes, and remembered she had a final round to prep for.
I pressed my face into Flint’s pillow instead.
The cotton held yesterday’s smoke and the warm, clean trace he’d left in it.
That wasn’t a brand note. That wasn’t a recipe note. That was a very serious problem wearing yesterday’s beard burn on the inside of my thigh.
My cheeks heated. I squeezed my eyes shut, which did nothing except make the pictures sharper. I saw Flint on his knees by the creek, his rough hands gentle on my hips, asking, “Tell me what you want,” like my answer mattered more than his own hunger.
And then Flint proving, with almost unfair dedication, that my answer mattered very much.
A floorboard creaked below the sleeping loft.
I opened one eye.
Flint stood at the bottom of the ladder in worn jeans and a dark T-shirt, barefoot, holding two mugs like he hadn’t personally rearranged my understanding of campfire safety, marshmallow physics, and adult decision-making.
“Good morning,” he said.
