Chapter 33
Korren
When I wake up in Dex’s arms, I feel warm and safe and content. His chest is rising and falling gently against my back, and one of his knees is slotted between mine.
I want to linger here. But it’s too risky.
This is exactly why I can’t let my guard down with him.
I slip from bed, leaving him asleep, and brew a pot of coffee. My head feels swollen and stuffy after barely sleeping at the fire.
I don’t like the way we’ve been living, tiptoeing around each other as I try to maintain a safe distance. I wish we could return to how things were, before they started getting dangerous.
But I can’t start thinking of him as a substitute for a partner. Us living together is temporary, and I can’t put myself in a position where I’ll fall apart as soon as I’m alone.
Still, after last night, I can’t bring myself to care as much about keeping my distance.
When Dex gets up, I wordlessly hand him his coffee, and we linger over breakfast on the porch. I feel like the whole forest is holding its breath, waiting for who knows what.
After a while, he says, “You said you wanted to hike to one of the cabins in Chugach National Forest. There’s space at McKinley Lake Hut tonight, if you’re interested. I’ve reserved the bunks just in case.”
I look sideways at him, my heart twisting. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dex.”
“What—can two guys not go hiking together? Is that too gay for you? I thought this was something you were interested in.” He’s getting defensive, which makes me regret saying anything.
“Don’t you have any other friends?”
Dex reddens. “Of course I do, asshole! But Rowan can’t get away from work in summer, and I haven’t spoken to most of my other friends after what happened. You know that.”
I’m digging myself deeper into a hole. “I just mean, what will the rest of the crew think if we start spending every day off together?”
“Are you seriously worried about that now? They already think we’re letting this game go on way too long. You think I don’t notice the looks they give us?”
I know he’s right. I’ve been trying to ignore it. “They don’t know how broke we both are,” I say with a grimace.
“Sure.”
But we both know something else is going on here. Something I refuse to think about.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll go for the damn hike.”
We throw a couple salvaged MREs and snack bars into our packs, add sleeping bags and mats and my old camp stove, and pile into Dex’s car.
We drive the whole way to the trailhead in silence.
When we shoulder our packs and start walking into a dense forest of pines, all I can think about is how much of a nightmare it would be to clear this shit away if a fire broke out here.
Which reminds me—“Don’t we have work tomorrow?”
“Uncle Rhodes can go to hell,” Dex grumbles. “He’s not even paying me yet.”
“What d’you mean?”
Dex looks uncomfortable. “I guess I never told you that part. He gave me the job in exchange for food and housing, but he’s not paying me until he decides he can trust me. Other than the call-out bonuses we get.”
My god. All the times he treated me, all the times he supplied us with food as if he could afford it, and he’s way worse off than I am. I suppose he’s assuming his uncle won’t let him starve, whereas I’ll have to fend for myself if anything goes wrong.
“Where did you get the money for tonight, then?”
“I asked my uncle to give me the most recent call-out bonus early. So—yeah. I’m not exactly set up well for the next few weeks.”
He’s done this for me. Because I suggested he could take me to a backcountry cabin, and he’s gone and arranged this even though it’s probably cost him his whole pay.
I feel like absolute shit about this. If he were my boyfriend, it would be a different story, but he’s not. He shouldn’t be doing this for me.
For some reason my eyes are stinging. I lower my head and charge past Dex so he doesn’t see, hating how much it tears me apart when he does nice things for me.
It doesn’t take us long to reach the cabin, which is perched on the shores of a crystalline lake surrounded by dramatic snow-capped peaks. When I first got to Copper Creek, the cabin we’re living in seemed like the epitome of remoteness, but now it feels like nothing more than an extension of town.
This, though, is a real wilderness retreat.
Inside, the cabin is dim and smells like pine and woodsmoke. We dump our gear and head off to explore the lakeside, where we find a deer trail that leads above the tree line. We climb higher and higher, the ground turning loose and rocky underfoot, until at last we reach a saddle between two peaks.
There we stop, breathing hard and grinning.
The views are unbelievable.
Beyond the ridge, mountains stretch as far as we can see, while McKinley Lake sparkles in the afternoon sun.
“Have you been up here before?” I ask Dex.
“Not on this ridge. But my dad took me on a hunting trip to this cabin once. We stayed here and spent the weekend hiking all around.”
I don’t say anything more, because I know he’s still hurting about his family cutting him off.
I want to drink in as much of these views as I can. This is something real, something I can remember when everything else is going to shit.
Holding out my arms so I can feel the wind buffeting me, I turn in a circle, taking in the ridges and snow fields and wildflower meadows and glistening water.
And the light. The sun is beating down on us, painting the sky a vivid blue, glaring off the contours of every peak. It’s so intense it makes my eyes water.
We linger on the ridge long enough to eat our lunch of salvaged snack bars. Even though we’re not talking, it’s enough having Dex here with me.
By this point the breeze has chilled the sweat on my back, and the cold is working its way deeper, so we hurry down the ridge until we reach the more sheltered lower reaches where the sun beating off the rocks warms us.
“We’ll sleep well tonight,” Dex says wryly when he stops to massage his calves.
“Did you not get enough of a workout at the fire?”
“I’m an experienced firefighter now. It wasn’t hard at all.”
I snort.
By the time we return, the cabin is warm and humming with the sounds of voices. It looks like we’ll be sharing it with a mother and teenage daughter and a couple guys hunting in the surrounding forest.
The hunters are going on about the moose they saw the previous day while the teenager listens in fascination.
They’ve have brought beers with them, and it looks like they’ve been here several days already.
You can tell they’re great friends, and I find myself wishing Dex and I could enjoy that sort of easy camaraderie, instead of whatever the hell it is that’s going on between us.
I suppose fucking someone you want to be friends with complicates things.
Dex was right to suggest the trip, though. Something about the hike today rearranged something inside me, and I’m not even worried about sleeping in a room full of strangers.
I’m out like a log all night.