"I'm not a coward," he rumbles.
"Then talk to me."
"I didn't say I wouldn't. I saidnot today."
"And—for those of us with the memory of a goldfish—I saidwhy not,and you gave me a garbage answer about snow putting you in a bad headspace. No offense, dude, but that's the lamest excuse I've ever heard, and I once had a boyfriend tell me he couldn't commit because Mercury was in retrograde."
He looks at me fully now, both eyebrows slightly raised. Is that amusement in his face? Pity? Boiling anger?
It's hard to tell with him. The whole lower half of his face is beard.
"Was it?" he asks.
"Obviously not!" I cry out. "Jaden was just a commitment-phobic mouth breather who listened to too many podcasts." I tuck my legs underneath me. "My point is, I know a deflection when I hear one. And you, sir, are Prince Deflection."
He sets down the screwdriver and starts reassembling the reel. "Compared to the other things you've said about me today, that's almost a compliment."
I huff and extract myself from under Wolf's head, which earns me a scathing look of canine betrayal. "Sorry, pal," I mutter to him. "Mama needs to stress-hydrate."
I limp to the kitchen and start ripping open cabinets. To no one's surprise, I find… beans. One cabinet over? Beans. Beneath that? Rice, then coffee, then beans.
"Do you have tea?" I ask, already knowing the answer.
"No."
"Of course you— aha!" When I open the next cabinet, I see a single box of Lipton on the shelf like a dusty relic from a civilization long since collapsed. I pull it out and hoist it up triumphantly. "Youliar."
He grunts and looks away from me.
Grinning from ear to ear, I fill the kettle from the tap and set it on the stove, cranking the burner. "You know what your problem is?"
"I suspect you're about to tell me."
"Your problem is that you think if you're disagreeable enough, people will stop trying." I lean against the counter and fold my arms. "But I'm not that easy to obstruct."
"The root on the edge of my property would disagree."
My jaw drops. "That's a low blow!"
Afon laughs to himself. "The root hit you even lower."
He finishes the reel, sets it aside, and stands. The chair groans with relief as he vacates it.
"Apologize," I demand as he approaches me, folding my arms across my chest.
"For what? I'm not the one who tripped you. Your beef is with the tree, not me." He steps closer. "Now, move."
I blink. "Excuse me?"
He's crossed the cabin in a few huge strides and is now standing directly in front of me. I accidentally inhale and it feels like my brain goes through a car wash, except the liquid is made out of Afon Scent©, patent pending. Woodsmoke, cold air, soap, clean sweat, pine resin. He's wearing the same black sweater he's worn since I got here, or one of its identical siblings, because I'm now fairly convinced he bought them in bulk from some grim Eastern European catalog that only sells things in black. It stretches nicely across his chest and shoulders. His forearms are bare where he's pushed the sleeves up, ropey with tendon and vein, the skin there darker than the rest of him and marked with old scars.
His throat is right at my eye level. The eight-pointed star tattoo, faded blue-black, shifts when he swallows.
"Move," he repeats, lower this time.
"Huh?"
"I need to get to that shelf," he explains gruffly. "And you're in my way."
