Chapter 8
Claire
I blinked awake to the sun slanting through a single crack in the curtains directly onto my face. At that first moment, I couldn’t connect to the unfamiliar room around me. It took several nanoseconds of my poor brain working at full sleep-addled power to remember the past few days’ events and how I ended up here in this new space. A weight like regret sat heavy on me as I tugged the comforter over my head and debated staying in bed.
I hid my face in my pillow and groaned loudly.
Levi.
It felt weird to think of him as a person with a name. Obviously, he had a name, but why did it feel so weird to refer to him as that, even in my head? Thinking of an amorphous nonhuman entity that spewed rules and grumbled at joy felt more natural. That had been fine with me. But to know Levi was the man in the grocery store had been a rough blow. But also karmically sort of perfect. Because if I didn’t want one person to know about the tragedy that was my life, it was the man renting me his home. But alas, what was done was done.
I’d have thought that realizing Levi was the man from the store would cause some sort of humiliation, but since I’d hit peak embarrassment, there was really nowhere else to go. He’d seen me at my worst. There was a freedom with him now. He’d seen me unmasked, unfiltered, and he’d helped. I didn’t need to pretend to be a normal person around him. And in fact, this almost guaranteed I wouldn’t need to interact with him at all. I had all but ensured that.
No wonder he left in such a hurry last night. I had accosted him, then had a maniacal breakdown when I put two and two together. I moaned again.
I froze in place when I heard something thump outside the door. The shuffling sound of something being dragged and dropped on the porch finally got me moving from the bed. I sat straight up, ears pricked in the quiet cabin.
Another loud smack of something heavy, then Ripley barked. Levi’s deep rumble in response wasn’t discernible but sounded less grumpy than he had last night.
Well, not at first. At first, he had been funny. And sweet . Not at all what I expected. Plus, the obvious fact that behind that overgrown hair was a man who was, by any measure, incredibly attractive. I’d been too lost in my suffering to notice during our first meeting. And without the protective glasses, his eyes were piercing and soulful—somewhere between brown and green, hard to tell. He’d been decent about showing his ID, and then, as I studied his picture, a wave of sudden shyness hit me. I had meant to be grilling him, ensuring that he wasn’t some weirdo watching me through the window, but I found myself getting flustered as he patiently let me study him.
Thankfully, I’d never been a person moved by conventional attractiveness so that reaction was neither here nor there.
I let out a long breath through pursed lips as I pressed my cold fingertips to my flushed cheeks. The fire had gone out, but the small space wasn’t uncomfortably cold yet. It was a good chilly temp while sleeping, but I might need to start another fire if I want to get to work. My stomach growled loudly. I hadn’t remembered to eat anything but a protein bar. I had to get to town and get food.
But first things first.
I crept slowly out of bed. The wooden floorboards squeaked, trying to give me away as I went to the window that faced the front porch. The blackout curtains were drawn tight, save the alarm-clock crack on my face, but by standing at the edge, I could just barely get a glimpse of outside without moving the fabric and alerting him to my presence.
Watching from inside my house to the outside wasn't weird. I was sure there was an unwritten rule somewhere that would support that.
Levi was walking back toward his truck, parked a couple of feet from my porch. His jean-clad backside worked it on the steep incline as he bent and reached across the bed of his truck. Ripley trotted alongside him in a neon orange puffy vest. He slid a case of water out, walked it back to the porch, and dropped it next to a pile of other food, which explained all the sounds.
Food. He brought me food and supplies. My stomach celebrated by growling loudly.
“Enough out of you,” I said quietly, placing a hand to silence the rumblies in my tumblies. Why did my gut choose to advertise all my needs loudly?
Either I hadn’t been as horrifying as I thought, or I was so scary that he brought me food to keep me from accosting him or the other patrons in town.
A win was a win.
It was easier than thinking he did it out of kindness because that didn’t line up with the image he was trying to impress upon me. Even still, I couldn’t help the smile I had to bite back. When was the last time I was cared for besides by my father?
Levi’s head wasn’t covered today, and his deep brown hair looked freshly washed and pushed back off his forehead, reaching down to the hood of a sweatshirt—similar to the one he had on last night. What had he called it? A HuggieHoodie?
Freaking adorable .
Levi looked directly at the window where I stood a few feet away, protected by glass and blackout curtains. I stilled, worried I’d been thinking too loud. He couldn’t see me. There was no possible way. But my heart picked up its pace nonetheless, and I slowed my breathing. He stepped forward toward the stairs, a look of stern determination pinching his brows.
I glanced down to where I wore only a sleeping tank and panties and panicked. But just as he came forward, he stopped, spun around, and left again. Mirroring that conflicting behavior from last night. His mood had changed on a dime. It didn’t make sense. Neither did this sneaky early morning delivery. This time, I was fairly sure I hadn’t done anything weird. Yesterday, for sure. I had done the Classic Claire thing where I shared too much or put my foot in my mouth …
But no. This man was just confusing. He seemed simultaneously annoyed by my existence but also responsible for my survival.
Well, as a fellow introverted little weirdo, I couldn’t say I blamed him. And I was more than a little relieved when he left. I hadn’t even had coffee yet. I ended up working until well after midnight and then lay staring in the pitch-black cabin for a long time, unable to shut down my chatty brain despite my exhausted body. It was just so dang quiet out here, and my mind was so loud. No internet to check out with. No traffic to act as white noise.
Thoughts were very insistent when there was no way to block them out.
Caffeine was required before I drove into town to check in with Dad, let alone try to have a strained conversation with a total stranger. I could already feel that this once-a-day call to Dad wasn’t realistic. The town might only be ten miles away, but winding roads at a creeping pace meant at least an hour a day, if not more, lost to driving. I would need a better system.
Levi opened his truck door and gingerly lifted Ripley inside like the passenger princess she was. I rolled my eyes, which felt much more natural than acknowledging the little tug on the heartstrings that his gentle ministrations caused. Once they were almost down the driveway, I moved the curtains to the side to get a better view of everything he’d left.
“Cookies, yay!” I said.
I waited to open the front door until the truck traveled down the winding road, peeking through the trees until it was no longer visible. A cool blast of morning air helped wake me up as I went to the pile of stuff.
The scrawled note on top read, “Use as needed .”
“Chatty as ever.” I began lugging the stuff into the kitchen. “Mmm trail mix.” I was a kid at Christmas as I explored his booty. The booty. The provisions.
Not thinking about his booty.
He had gone out of his way for a guy who didn’t seem to want me here in the first place. His whole listing had been designed to be off-putting, but something in my personality with people like that made me want to poke them like a bear.
The brewing coffee made from the fresh grounds he provided smelled heavenly as I slid on some warm layers. I had no idea what to expect from the weather today. If only I had an ever-present bot listening at all times to ask the temperature. I wandered around the small space to the locked door off the kitchen and wiggled it just for funsies. Still locked. Based on the size of the house, it had to be bigger than a closet. Maybe another bedroom? It was hard to say. The contents of that room called to me.
It might as well have been a bright red button that said, “DO NOT PRESS.”
I sighed and stepped away. I was restless and curious, a dangerous combination for me.
I stood in the kitchen, staring up at the main house, sipping my coffee. My mind drifted in a hundred different directions when I noticed the front door of the cabin was slightly ajar. Or at least it looked like it might be.
I perked up.
“Somebody should go close that,” I told myself aloud, hoping it might justify whatever I did next.
It did not. I was tugging on my boots before the coffee pot was even cool and stepping out onto the porch.
“If I shouldn’t go check on his house, give me a sign?” I said to the air around me.
In the fresh morning, I stood for a minute listening for any sounds of life, but only a few birds cawed, and the creek of the tall pines swayed slightly in the breeze, needles rustling.
Nothing. Okey dokey, that settled it.
I walked/jogged the steep drive to his place, slowing when I approached the front door. It was cracked open just a little. I hesitated only a second before closing it the last inch. I wasn’t going to go in. I wasn’t that nosy. I knew about laws.
The front porch was sturdy, my boots clomping loudly as I walked the length of it, peering into the windows as I went. Windows whose curtains were wide open, by the way.
“Wow.” It was gorgeous in there. Sleek, clean, and modern, with no signs of anything sketchy.
I jogged down the steps and around the side of the cabin to the big shack that had intrigued me when my phone vibrated against my butt. I didn’t even remember putting it in my back pocket, but I must have done it without thinking after years of always having it glued to me.
Still no service but?—
“That sonofa?—!”
On-screen, a message popped up reading, “Connect to Wi-Fi network cleverwifiname ?”
“Uh. Heck yes, please.”
He did not strike me as a customized Wi-Fi name guy, but alas, the dad jokes get us all in the end. I selected connect, but of course, the password option showed up. I tried the old standby of password and password1234, but neither of them worked. I tried various combinations of Ripley to no avail as well. Damn .
“Ugh. There isn’t even anybody around. Why would you have a password at all?”
Somewhere in the distance was a loud bang. It could have been anything, but it was enough to freak me out of my explorations and send me back to the house. I’d have to investigate another day. On the walk back to my cabin, I held up the Wi-Fi settings, waiting until the exact moment his internet name went away. It was maybe ten feet from the house .
“Stingy!”
There was nothing else to it. At this rate, it would be lunch before I returned from town, and I still needed to get work done. I didn’t even need food, and thinking of the drive made my motions sluggish.
“Blah.” I got back in the car, my sore backside remembering all the hours spent in the car yesterday, and began to make my way into town. Twenty minutes into the drive, I already decided that I would have to negotiate Dad down to once or twice a week tops, but even thinking about it caused my heart to clench with unexpected loneliness. I could hear his deep accent saying, but whadabout the daily Wordle?
As if with magic, my phone lit up on the dash, displaying the map that went out here about this part yesterday.
“Aha!” I checked the rearview mirror and pulled over to the side of the road. Two bars of service barely flickered with life. I pulled up the Wordle app, and slowly but surely, it loaded.
“There she is!” my dad said by way of greeting when I dialed him through the Bluetooth.
“Hey, Dad. Can you hear me okay?” I sat back against the seat and closed my eyes, surprised by the ache in my chest.
“It’s a little tinny, but I hear ya. Tell me all the details. Are you liking the place?”
“Yeah, it’s great. Not as—” I had been about to say, “not as bad as I was worried it would be,” but thought I better keep that one as an inside thought. “—close to town as I thought, though. We might have to cut back on the calls. I’m sorry. Just until I turn in the story.”
“Aw, but whadabout the daily Wordle?”
I smiled to myself.
“We will still do it. Or at least you should.” I was going to lose my streak. It was over five hundred days at this point. Crap. This was more upsetting than I thought. “But this drive is just too far.”
“I understand. You gotta do what’s best for you. Nothing lasts forever,” he said gently.
“Sorry,” I said. “Let’s do the Wordle before I have to go back.”
I beat him by seconds with “rupee,” but the strain of searching for reception already had my power down in the red. Also, I forgot to charge it last night.
“Ah, you win,” he said. “Those double vowels always get me.”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
The call was ending so fast. I knew I had made a big deal about the inconvenience of driving out here, but the thought of returning to that quiet all by myself threatened me with that same heavy feeling from this morning, wanting to keep me in place.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, sensing a shift in my tone.
I shook my head, eyes still closed, knowing he couldn’t see me. “I don’t know. Just emotional. I don’t know why.”
My dad waited a beat. “You’d think you’d had some sort of traumatic event happen or somethin’.”
I sniffled and pinched the area between my eyebrows, trying to stop an unwanted tear, to no avail. Dad’s gentle worry pushed me over the edge, and I quickly dashed away a tear. “Yeah. How about that.”
“You miss him?” my dad asked softly.
I thought for a minute; the truth blaring in my head. “A little.” But honestly, I think I missed having a plan. Maybe even more than him, but I wouldn’t ever admit that out loud. I felt unmoored and silly. I felt like a kid who was playing an adult. Shouldn’t someone almost thirty with a thriving career and purpose feel more certain about their wants? More established in their body? I needed a place to live. A plan for after this story. A quick look at homes in Colorado Springs made me realize I had no desire to return to that city. Nothing tied me to it since I worked my job remotely and traveled anyway. I never felt connected to it.
“You should give yourself time,” he said. “Get some ice cream and watch that movie that always makes you cry. Or maybe punch something.”
I chuckled. “Maybe.” I didn’t feel sad or angry—or maybe a little bit of both but mostly listless. Determined to finish that article and make my choices seem worth it.
“Why don’t you come home? When you finish the story.”
I opened my mouth to fight but found I didn’t want to. It sounded nice.
“Not forever,” he added. “You’ve always been so independent, but you know you always have a place here.”
“Yeah. Okay, that sounds good.”
“Yeah? Great, kiddo! I’ll clear out the old room. Just stay until you get back on your feet. ”
I let out a sigh as he chatted on happily. It wasn’t an ideal plan, but it was a plan, and when I got there, I could think about where I wanted to live next. I couldn’t even imagine that right now. It felt like too much.
My eyes were still closed, and I was so focused on my dad’s voice that I didn’t hear anybody approaching until it was too late.
There was a knock on my window, and I screamed.