Chapter Twenty-Two
chapter twenty-two
MAY
I rub my eyes as I sit up in bed. Why the hell did I agree to this? I am not a morning person on the best of days, but five a.m.? I’m surprised I’m even awake enough to form coherent thoughts.
I pick up my phone and see shot slingers messages from late last night.
Marina
Have fun fishing tomorrow morning. I hope you catch something big ;)
Isla
As long as it’s not chlamydia.
Marina
Give the guy some credit, he’s not that dirty. I mean, not in that way, anyway.
Isla
May can catch us up on in all the other ways once she’s back.
Oh my god.
Me
The only thing I’ll be catching is fish. If that. Don’t get any ideas.
Marina responds back within seconds.
Marina
Too late.
By the way, the cottage will be ready for you to move back in by the time you’re back, so you better make the most of your last night with your roomie x
I roll my eyes and groan as I drag my legs out from under my comforter. Ever since I told Marina and Isla about that night with Rafael, they haven’t been able to shut up about it. They’re in my ear every time I see them, wondering if anything else has happened, and every time I tell them no. It’s as if that night never happened between us, and that’s exactly how it should be. It was a lapse in judgment, nothing more. Even though I think my lungs stopped working when he stood behind me last night. Like I said, my body forgets how to function in his proximity. My pulse was like I'd run a marathon when he held me so softly, wrapping my hand in the bandage that is still around my hand.
I pull air in through my teeth as my toes hit the cold floor. You’d think I was putting my feet on a block of ice by my reaction, but I swear I’m not being dramatic. I grab my fuzzy socks from my nightstand and slide them over my feet before stepping onto the floor again.
I frown as I look at my face in the mirror. Do I usually look this bad in the morning? I pull my hair back into a messy bun. Every bun is a messy bun—even if I don’t want it to be—because my short hair just pings out at every angle.
After brushing my teeth and splashing cold water over my face, I trudge out into the kitchen .
“Morning March, you look chipper.” Rafael stands at the countertop, putting sandwiches together.
I just frown in response. Even more so at the fact that he looks so fucking hot at five in the morning. Like, what the hell?
He’s wearing a dark blue t-shirt that stretches over his broad shoulders. Why was I ever thinking about pizza guy's shoulders when Rafael’s could literally bowl me to space?
Even better than the shoulders is the fact that he’s got that baseball cap sitting backwards on his head, making the ends of his hair come flicking out the sides. His stubble is a few days grown out, and he looks fucking delicious.
He moves around the kitchen swiftly. I’ll never get over how effortlessly he looks like he fits there. Like it’s his natural habitat.
“Hot chocolate?” He asks hesitantly. I wonder why until I realize how harshly my eyebrows are pulled together.
“Coffee,” I say, walking further into the space.
“It’s ready in the pot.”
I walk over and grab my whale mug from the drawer where it sits surrounded by plain white mugs. It’s like a diamond in the rough. My whaley.
Just as I go to close the drawer, Rafael comes up behind me. His warm breath whispers across my neck as he reaches around me, pulling the drawer back open, and grabbing a mug of his own. I nearly shudder when he walks over to the coffeepot, leaving my skin feeling unbearably cold.
I shake my head, trying to rid my mind of the reckless thoughts Isla and Marina pummeled me with first thing this morning.
I don’t even like Rafael—even if his company hasn’t irked me so much lately. I definitely shouldn’t be thinking about fucking him, and I definitely shouldn’t have thoroughly enjoyed the way his breath felt on my skin just now. I silently fill my mug with coffee and stir in a splash of milk, trying to focus on the swirls in the cup instead of letting my mind wander to places it shouldn’t be .
“You’re quiet this morning,” he says. “Having second thoughts about whether you’re up to the challenge?”
I know he means the fishing, but my mind immediately goes to a different kind of challenge. Snap out of it, Whitley . “I’m not a morning person.”
I feel his heat come up behind me and I think I hold my breath as his skates over my skin one more time. “Oh, I know.”
It’s been over an hour since we’ve been on the road, and it’s been a silent hour. Awkward as all hell.
I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I can’t tell if he can tell what I’m thinking, what I can’t seem to get out of my mind. It’s like now that the thought has been planted in my head, I can’t get it out.
I spare a glance at him every once in a while, but he seems calm. Oblivious to the inner turmoil that's making me spiral inside my mind.
He just drives with one hand hanging out the window, and the other tapping along to the tune on the radio against the steering wheel.
I try to focus my mind, reel it back in. I close my eyes and focus on my senses. I focus on the sound of the radio, the song I don’t know floating from the speakers. I focus on the feel of my body sinking into the car seat. These are really comfy car seats for a truck . I focus on the feeling of my hair being tugged away from my face with the cool breeze that’s floating in through Rafael’s open window, carrying the smell of pine and musk with it. Rafael’s smell. The smell that invaded my nostrils first thing this morning when he got close to me.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. How did I end up back here?
“We’re here.” I open my eyes to big trees, massive trees sitting against the bank of a river. The water is so blue, as if it’s got a filter over it. And nestled into the corner is a cabin. This place is like a postcard. How did I never know it existed?
“No one really knows this place exists,” Rafael says, making me wonder how much of that I said out loud.
“The cabin has been in my family for decades. We are far enough off the beaten path that not many people come across it.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, and he hums in response. It’s like we’ve stepped out of Ruby Cove and crossed the border to somewhere completely new. This place grants me with new surprises every day.
“Come on, let’s put our stuff in the cabin and then we can get started.”
The sound of both of our car doors shutting is the only sound for miles apart from the distinct sound of running water coming from the river. The thick grass flattens beneath my feet as we make our way over to the cabin. Rafael punches in a code on the door handle and it beeps, the light turning green before he pushes down on it. He opens the door, and we step into the coziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
The interior walls are logs, just as the outside is, with a gigantic fireplace taking up nearly an entire wall. Rafael flicks on the light switch as he trudges into the space. He looks way too big and gruff to be in this place. The morning sun filters in through the few windows, but most of it is coming from the big transom window over the door.
There’s a tiny kitchen, with a potbelly stove and a farmhouse sink, and a bed sits front and center in the space, looking way too comfy for the fact that I still wouldn’t be awake by now on a regular day. And that’s when it hits me. There’s one bed.
My eyes flick to where Rafael lays his bag on the floor against the wall. “I’ll sleep on the couch,” he says, as if reading my mind.
“What couch?”
“That one right there.” He points to what I would call closer to a chair. I’d probably break my back if I tried sleeping on that thing, and Rafael is at least twice my size .
“It’s fine. I’ve done it before.”
Who else has he brought here?
“Marisol doesn’t like to share.”
My heart slows its rhythm that I didn’t even know had picked up, and I don’t know why.
“Shall we get to it, or did you want to do some more standing around?”
I frown as I look over at him. “You gonna teach me how to fish?”
“You gonna listen?”
I frown even harder. “Lose the attitude, old man.” He scoffs in return before tramping out the door, leaving me to do some more standing around.
I take one step towards the door, ready to give him a piece of my mind, when his frame fills the doorway, a fishing rod in each hand. The one in his left is bright pink. “Here,” he says, shoving it towards me. “Thought it might help.”
I blush as I take the rod from his hands. “Thanks.”
“Come on, then.”
I always thought fishing would be boring. I’ve seen people do it, and it always seemed to me that they just sat there waiting. Dave used to watch those fish wrangling shows. The ones where they’d shove their hands in a cave looking for some massive fish that they’d pull out. That looked a tad more adventurous.
Now that I’m out here, doing it for myself…I can confirm it’s just as boring as I had anticipated. If not worse. This sucks. I’ve got no fish. Not one singular munch on the bait I spent way too long figuring out how to put on the hook.
Rafael has got a few, but it’s not much fun watching someone else catch fish and having none for myself .
I sigh as I slump back in my camping chair that’s set up on the edge of the river. I close my eyes as I tilt my head up to the sky.
I was wrong earlier when I said the car doors were the only sound. When you really listen, you can hear a whole world around you.
The water moves down the river with a calm pace, but I can almost hear it passing over the rocks jutting out in its path. Can nearly hear it sweep along the grass that hangs over the edge of the bank.
I can hear wings rapidly beating above me until a branch rustles as weight falls upon it. Can hear the chitter chatter of the sparrows, telling each other about their days before they move on. Can hear the leaves shuffling against one another when the breeze passes through them.
“If you think this is beautiful,” Rafael starts, breaking me out of my haze, “then you’re going to love the waterfall.”
“There’s a waterfall?”
He nods. “It’s a fair hike away. You up for it?”