“You like that?” he asks me. “Mountain men?”
“I like you,” I say.
He sets Hijinx down and heads to the kitchen to fill up a bowl of water for him. Looking around, I see the floor plan is open. There is a hall down to the left with a few doors, the bathroom and bedrooms, I assume. And then there's a big open living room, dining room, and kitchen. There's a loft above, and looking up, there’s a big light fixture full of antlers.
All the furniture is covered with plaid, red and forest green. I smile, thinking how wonderful this cabin would be at the holidays.
Bartlett comes toward me a moment later, asking if I'm thirsty or hungry.
“No, I don't think I could eat another thing after that meal at your mom's house.”
“Me too,” he says. “Well, then, I can show you the bedrooms. I don't know if you want to shower.”
I swallow, thinking of what I really want. Him, him, him.
I follow Bartlett down the hall, and he pushes open one bedroom door, then another. They're nice. One is set up as an office. And another one is a guest room. The third room is his. It has a big bed and a nice, masculine dresser.
Everything is just so put together and orderly. Nice. Clean. My eyes flit around the surfaces, taking it all in.
“Where are you?” he asks. “I feel like I lost you somewhere from the car to the house.”
“I just am trying to put you together. I’m wondering, how are you single?” I ask. “You seem so perfect.”
He groans. “You know, I’ve heard that my whole life. Bartlett, you know, it's a kind of pear. So people always said, you're gonna find a girl one day and you're going to make the perfect pair. It’s a lot of pressure.”
“Pressure to look for your perfect pair?” I ask him.
“More like pressure to find the perfect girl.”
“That makes sense. I mean, with a family like you have, I can see how there would be pressure to live up to their expectations.”
“Well, it's not just that I want my family to approve. I put high expectations on myself.”
I nod slowly, running my hand over the top of his walnut dresser. “So you're looking for a certain kind of woman, and until you meet her, you'll be alone in this perfect house, this perfect cabin, with the perfect job and nearly the perfect life?”
“When you say it like that, I kind of sound like a dick, don't I?”
“I don't think so. Like I said, you're pretty lucky.”
“What about you, Abby? Why are you single?”
“Me?” I let out a sigh. “I'm single because I could not imagine spending a life with the guy my parents picked for me. He was the kind of man who made you feel small when you just wanted to be yourself. The kind of man who made me feel weak, even when I felt strong. I couldn't be with a man like that. And my parents wouldn't listen to me when I told them. But that is a story for another day.” I shrug. “So, what is your idea of perfection, Bartlett?”
“What is perfect to me? Well, I read a book on the laws of attraction. You know about it?”
“Tell me,” I say.
“Well, one of the laws of attraction is believing that the present is perfect.”
“The present is perfect?” I twist my lips. “That seems like a pretty hard law to practice.”
“What if it wasn't?” he presses. “What if we just chose to believe it all the time? Right now?”
I smile. “Well, this present seems pretty near perfect.”
“It does, doesn't it? This whole day has, actually – minus the knifing.”
I laugh, closing my eyes and shaking my head as Bartlett steps closer to me. “The moment I saw you, I felt like it was perfect. Your smile. Your eyes. The way you looked at me with such anger thinking I had stolen your dog. Like I was a dognapper.” Bartlett grins. “Sure, maybe I wasn’t thinking straight because it was cold as balls outside. That January freeze was setting in. But I don't think it was the frost in the air. I think... I think something else was sweeping through town. I think that was you.”
I shake my head. “Stop it,” I say, pressing my hand to his chest.
But he sets his hands on my waist. “No, I won't stop. I'm thinking maybe you haven’t heard just how good you are. Maybe you spent your life hearing other kinds of things, other stories about yourself, and maybe it's time you heard something new.”
I take in a slow breath. Then I let it out. I listen.
“Because Abby, you make me really happy. Today at my parents' house, I felt really good. And it wasn't because the meatloaf was amazing, which it was. And it wasn't because Plum was cute as hell, which she is. And it wasn’t because I like listening to my siblings argue, which can be entertaining. It was because you were there next to me. There's a groundedness you’ve got that I am drawn to. I can't get enough of it.”
“You mean all that? After one afternoon with me, a girl you just met who came into town on a train?”
“I think you're a girl who reads Jack Kerouac. And I'm a guy who does too. And I think that means we might both be onto something here.”
“The present is perfect,” I tell him.
And then he kisses me and kisses me and kisses me.
My lips part, and God, I hope this man kisses me forever.
5
Bartlett
Her lips are soft, willing. Smooth. And damn, I don’t want this kiss to end. Her eyes flutter open, and her fingers run through my hair. She smiles in my arms and I know I’m holding her tight.
I don’t wanna let her go. She’s someone I’ve just met and I’m probably breaking 1000 rules.
It’s reckless and it’s ridiculous. It’s also fucking happening. This woman and me, tonight? It’s fucking on. There’s a hunger in her eyes, and there’s a need in my cock, and there’s more than that. There was a connection in the car that whole drive up to my cabin.
“What are you thinking?” she asks me.
“I’m thinking I want you in that bed. Now.”
“I’ve never done this,” she says, her eyes exploring mine.
“Never ever?”
“Never ever. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to,” she says softly. She licks her lips. Her tongue is pink.
Her innocence may not be on the surface, but I can see it now; it’s a hidden layer she wasn’t showing right away, but now that it’s come out, I understand. She is tough on the outside. Soft in the center. And fuck, she’s a virgin.
“I don’t want to press you to do anything you’re not ready to do. We just met. We don’t need to have sex the first night.”
Her hands press to my chest, fingering the buttons of my flannel shirt. She’s licking her lips again. My cock is hard as a rock.
I want her in ways she doesn’t even understand. “What if we just start something and see where it takes us?” she asks, her voice lifting at the end, trying to see where I might go with this.
She has no fucking clue that I will go wherever she wants to take me. Including to the ends of the goddamn earth, because I like her. I like her one hell of a lot. Abby is the kind of girl you fall for. Hard.