Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
I’m so grateful for the distraction of talking. It makes driving in these conditions more bearable. “Is that all it takes to impress you? Parallel parking?”
“Maybe I’m easy,” he says.
“Ha. Things no one ever said about you.”
Owen just smiles. Like that comment pleases him. I kind of want to linger on how he looks when he’s happy, but mostly I just want to get out of this damn car soon.
“Hey,” Owen begins. “I never once asked if you wanted me to drive. Do you want me to drive?”
I laugh, shake my head. “No way.”
“Because you think I’m a terrible driver?”
“No. Because I’m a terrible passenger,” I say.
“That tracks.”
“And why would I be a terrible passenger?” I toss back at him.
Owen holds up his thumb and forefinger, showing a sliver of space. “You’re just a little controlling. I bet you’d be a back-seat driver the whole time. Shouldn’t you slow down? Shouldn’t you speed up? Let me show you a shortcut. The light’s green, the light’s red, the light’s pink and sparkly. Wait, there’s a duck crossing. Let’s stop and take pictures of ducks,” he says.
“Sparkly pink lights? There are sparkly pink lights in your world of fictional roads?”
“Yes, and you’d point out every single one.”
I shrug lightly. “I probably would. Also, I’d definitely take pictures of ducks,” I say as we roll through the quaint downtown, its stores closing at the end of the day.
“You would.”
The GPS tells me to take a right at the stoplight, and I follow the lead, then let out a long exhale. “Maybe I am tense.”
“Told you that you needed that shower, hot-stone-massage thingy,” he teases.
“Hey! Maybe Declan is going to surprise us with masseurs waiting at the cabin.”
Owen snaps his fingers. “Dammit. You weren’t supposed to guess, River.”
“I better drive faster,” I say, except I won’t and can’t, since we’re chugging up a winding road to the cabin now. The white stuff is flinging itself down from the sky, and the homes on each side of the road boast carpets of snow across their front lawns.
My little car curves around the bend.
Owen peers up at the windshield, taking in the scene. “Snow’s coming faster.”
“Yeah, but I bet it stops soon, and we can still make it to Nisha’s tonight. It’s only five,” I say, staring straight ahead at the white flakes as the sun dips below the horizon.
“I’m not so sure about that,” he says.
But we’ve got to make it to Tahoe. Staying alone in a cabin here is not in the plan. “Nah, it’ll be fine. It looks like it’ll stop very soon,” I say, trying to will it so with the weather. I nearly believe it myself.
The GPS chirps, “In four hundred feet, your destination will be on your left.”
A cough seems to burst from Owen. “River . . .” he says tentatively.
“Yes?”
“It’s supposed to snow for a few hours. The roads are slick. Your car is tiny.”
“What are you saying?” I ask, but it’s a rhetorical question.
He’s saying Declan’s family cabin is our hotel room for the night.
Just the two of us.
All alone.
But if that happens, temptation will spiral to the roof. It’ll pull me into its tantalizing grip. Surely at some point, I’ll tell him I want him, and then shove him against the wall. Slam my body against his, jerk him close, yank his hair, and kiss the breath out of him.
And my heart will go wild. It’ll throw a parade and toss confetti as my lips crash down on his.
It’ll cheer me on and shout more, more, more.
That’s the problem.
Just because Owen and I are going to a cabin doesn’t mean I can do those things to him.
Or that he wants me to.
We made the pact for a reason.
At the time, it was because the end of Ansel hurt too much. I didn’t want to risk that pain again.
But over the years, Owen and I became closer and the pact became a symbol to me. It’s a declaration of who we are to each other.
Important.
Necessary.
Steady.
Plenty of men, straight or queer, sleep with friends, and do just fine. More power to them. But that’s not me. I’m not a just sex guy. Pretty sure Owen isn’t either.
Now, our deal is a statement of how precarious happiness is, how easily life as we know it can capsize when a relationship or even a fling becomes too heavy for it to hold.
Hell, the man just talked me through the last few miles of rough driving like an air-traffic controller chatting with a tired pilot, guiding him home to a safe landing.
But a cabin in the snow isn’t a safe landing.
This is not a parallel-universe cabin.
It’s not a sex cabin.
It exists in the all-too-real world. I want to leave the cabin with our friendship intact.
And this cabin is . . . a holy fuck cabin.