Chapter 25
Claire
Cozy Creek Confectionery was fully decorated for fall as Madi flitted from table to table, helping tourists and locals alike with an easy smile and friendly chatter. I’d become a sort of regular these past few weeks, chatting with locals and learning all the hot gossip. Sometimes, Dad joined in from my computer on a video call, falling for this funky little town as much as I was.
Did I know about the one and only Huber car service? Did I know a billionaire was in town?
“No! Tell me everything,” I’d said, and Madi did between customers, Gigi filling in pieces for me.
The journal I’d started keeping when I first got here about the stories of Cozy Creek had even started getting some traction online. Not a lot, as it wasn’t as exciting to read as watch videos these days, but enough that it kept the side project alive. Even though I wasn’t changing the world with these hidden treasures, I found I couldn’t get enough of them. They kept me occupied as I waited to hear back from my editor. I had emailed her to tell her that I couldn’t do the Lily story but pitched a few others that I would hopefully get excited about when the time came. For now, I interviewed the locals and learned about the Ruby Ridge Art Retreat, just outside of town.
“Only one more week, huh? I feel like I’m just getting to know you,” Madi said. “Then again, I’m leaving too.” Her voice held the same sad realization that settled in my bones.
“I know. It doesn’t feel real. Time is going so fast,” I said.
We sat for a beat in silence, both staring without saying what weighed on us. Neither of us voiced it out loud.
I couldn’t think about how Levi and I were obsessed with each other. How we’d fully given in to our desire for each other. How we hadn’t talked about what any of this meant or if we had a future. I tried to think of a plan where I could move on from here but found it hurt too much, and the plan was already decided. He hadn’t mentioned when my rental was up either.
Maybe I should make a PowerPoint presentation to clarify the boundaries and expectations of this newly budding situation-ship?
But then, what if I imagined things that weren’t there? He typically shared easily. If he wanted to see me after my time was up … it wouldn’t matter. I had a storage unit of all my stuff waiting for me to come get it, and my dad had already booked his flight .
My phone lit up, and I reached for it, instantly wondering if Levi was ready to head back. Not to sound like a teenage girl, but maybe we would finally go all the way tonight.
Instead, I winced when I saw it was Kevin. Again.
“Hope you are doing okay. Heard the news. Call me if you want to talk.” I stared at his confusing text for too long. What news? Was he stalking me? Had small-town gossip about Levi and me somehow made it up to his fancy New York condo? I highly doubted that.
“Oh, that’s a face I know too well. Either the milk is expired in that coffee or an ex-boyfriend?” Madi said.
“My ex,” I said, shaking off his confusing comment. The coffee was bad, milk or not, but I kept that to myself.
“Ew.”
“I don’t know why he continues to talk to me. I haven’t even been thinking about him at all,” I confessed.
“I wouldn’t be either if I spent that much time with Levi Carmichael.” She smiled suggestively, but I didn’t spill the beans.
“I think my ex is just toying with me. I don’t know.”
My phone lit up again, and it was my editor this time. This call I would take. “Excuse me.”
I stepped outside and despite the cold fall day, the sun shone bright and felt good on my face.
“Hey, Claire.” Melanie’s voice was tight and businesslike.
“Hey, Mel. What’s going on?”
She sighed. “Listen. I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to get this out as fast as I can before the big boss comes down here. There’s no good way of putting this, but I know you, and you like it straight to the point anyway.”
A cold breeze had me shiver as a cloud moved in front of the sun. My stomach churned audibly.
“Okay,” I whispered, slumping into one of the metal bistro seats.
“You’re about to get an email saying you’ve been let go. The Finance Scheme story has been pulled from next month’s schedule too. They’re threatening legal action if we publish it. I’m so sorry. I really am. I fought for you.”
“What—no. That can’t be because every source was sound. Triple verified.”
“I know. It’s absolute BS. Shit, he’s on his way down. He just messaged me. The short reason is claiming budget cuts, but it’s bullshit.”
“But all those people—” My fingertips went icy numb. The single mom and her ceramic beads. It was almost Christmas. My ears rang so loudly that I couldn’t fully process what Mel told me.
“I know. It’s a bullshit reason. The truth is, one of our last advertisers is a subsidiary of his company. They would pull their ads if we ran the story about him. Crap. I hear big boss. Gotta go. I’ll call tonight. I just wanted you to hear it from me before you saw the email. I’m so sorry. I did try, but my hands are tied. It’s been great working with you. I wish you the best of luck, and you will always have a reference with me.”
The call ended without so much as a click. Just like my career. Soundless. Without fanfare. All these years of working hard, searching out justice, trying to make a difference …
I couldn’t think about it for another second?—
I stared unseeing for so long. Distantly, I registered my brain was in shock. It wasn’t dissimilar to the days that followed Kevin’s departure. I was numb. But not numb in a physical sense, numb, as though I floated outside my body. My stomach clenched with a viselike grip cramp, and my fingertips were icy. I registered it all but absorbed nothing as my brain became a maelstrom of endless looping fears and anxieties.
People talked around me, but I heard nothing. I needed to get out of here. I needed to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do now. Jobless. Soon-to-be homeless. I was a disaster. But I worked so hard to avoid this. I did all the things I was supposed to. And just like that, everything was gone.
“How long has she been like this?” Levi’s voice pierced the fog.
“About twenty minutes. She isn’t answering us. Just mumbling that she’s okay. As you can see, she’s catatonic.”
“Thanks for getting me. I’ll get her home,” he said.
Home . I snorted as Levi scooped me up and carried me to his truck. A rational part of my brain would be embarrassed about this coddling later. It was lamenting how poorly I was handling the situation, but then I remembered Kevin’s cryptic text and blurred into oblivion again.
We made it back to the driveway somehow. Ripley whined and circled on my lap .
And how could this be happening? When I’d been feeling so good, very much in the physical sense, thanks to the past week. From the day Levi had given me the most spectacular orgasm of my life, and lucky me, every day since then. Every day, I texted him and met him up at Big Cabin or in the work shed, and every day, we came together literally and figuratively to explore each other with our hands and mouths. I never offered for him to come to my place since it was still so tied up in memories. But every day, we would lick and kiss and bring each other to orgasm. I was in heaven.
I was resting regularly and relaxed for the first time I could remember. From college to my career, I’d never felt like I’d taken a single breather. It was always the next step in the plan, the next story consuming my mind. I had never luxuriated in the touch of another person, woken up late, only to fool around and go back to sleep without a care in the world.
Maybe that was why I was paying the price now. I was caught unaware.
Levi carried me up to his room and tucked me in. The sheets smelled familiar now. It felt like comfort.
“Just sleep. We will talk tomorrow,” he whispered as he tucked me in. I registered the worry creasing his sharp features, but it was like the sound of a distant train, noticed but unregistered at the same time. He pressed a light kiss to my temple, and the first tear formed behind my clenched eyes.
I fell asleep instantly, even though it wasn’t dark outside.
I shot up, slamming awake. My heart raced as I remembered it all. From Levi’s bedroom window, the comforting glow of his workshop was like a beacon in the dark, cold night. Urgency, like I never felt, moved me forward. There was no time to waste. Nothing was promised. Nothing really mattered. Any effort was pointless.
I pushed into slip-ons and made my way to Levi. It must have been after midnight. I had no idea what time it was. I didn’t care. The garage was open as always, despite the cold of deep fall now and the lightly falling snowflakes.
Late fall meant heavy snow, and winter was right around the corner. Winter meant the end of this contract. It meant the end of?—
No . I stopped before the thoughts could snowball into each other and bring me right back to what I was not thinking about.
I stood on the edge of the garage, waiting until he reached a good breaking spot. Again, I had that vague and distant awareness that I wasn’t wearing a coat as the shivers wracked my body, but I didn’t feel them. Levi hadn’t noticed my arrival yet, so I watched him work.
He was incredibly, undeniably beautiful. Sculpted in the most extreme example of peak male physical form. It made no sense that anybody so gentle and loving and thoughtful and sensitive could also be gifted with the handsome face and that objectively incredible body.
His long, strong fingers held his tool with a simple dexterity that could only come with years of practice. The more effortless looking a talent, the more skill it required, and the more years taken to hone it. His shirt was off despite the flurries falling outside. His back muscles gleamed under the orange from heated lamps, beads of perspiration at his temple and the back of his neck. Triceps, biceps, and whatever other tiny muscles made up the arms worked and flexed in perfect cohesion.
I needed Levi. Time was running out. I needed him. He was good and nice and lovely and generous and the best man I knew. He made me feel good, and I would feel good before I dealt with the bad.
After another minute of me scrutinizing and remembering how those muscles felt under my palms, how his tongue, currently pressed against his lower lip in concentration, worked itself to exhaustion against my most intimate parts, Levi seemed to notice my hovering. His head shot up, and he pushed off his goggles. Those same goggles he wore the day I first met him, the day I’d spilled my guts to what I thought would be a stranger I would never see again. Now, Levi was the person I came to when my life imploded.
“Hey, Claire.” The deep, grumbly way he said my name felt like a soothing pressure on my shoulders. He said it like he was happy to see me and not the other way around. Like the mere sight of him wasn’t a soothing tonic on the blistering crisis burning up my throat. This beautiful, kind man. “How are you feeling? ”
“Are you busy?” I asked, ignoring his question, and my voice cracked to my deep annoyance and shame.
He tossed his tool onto the bench and headed toward me, large steps quickly eating up the distance between us. His eyebrows lowered and pinched together as he scrutinized me. “Why don’t you go get more rest?”
I shook my head.
Whatever he saw in my features made me think I wasn’t as numb and out of my body as I initially thought. He grabbed my hands and dragged me closer to the heat lamps. “Christ, you’re freezing. What is it with you and appropriate outerwear?”
“I forgot a coat,” I said.
Warmth suffusing my shivering muscles was the first sense of feeling that I’d registered in hours. He reached up to crank the heater to a higher setting before grabbing his jacket from a hook and putting it over my shoulders.
“I’m f-fine.”
“You’re not. You’re all pale?—”
I jumped up on my tiptoes to plant a kiss on his lips. I’ve missed him so much. Just since this morning. I needed him. Now.
“Hey,” he said, gently rubbing my arms up and down, not kissing me as planned. “Are you ready to talk? Tell me what happened?”
“No talking. I’m fine. I was fired. But fine.” Even saying the words was too close to what I didn’t want to feel. I pushed up to kiss him again. He avoided me, darting my puckered lips like it was second grade and I had cooties .
“Wait, what?” he asked.
“They pulled my article. They fired me.” I put my hands up under his shirt, letting the hot skin warm my numb fingertips. I moaned as he sucked in a breath.
“Whoa, whoa. Darling . Wait.” He spoke between the kisses that I peppered him with.
I leaned my head forward to kiss him, but he pulled back and away. “Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to think or feel. If I start now, I’ll shatter.” My teeth chattered harder the longer he wasn’t kissing me.
“Oh, my love,” he said it so softly, so quietly. He said it without knowing the impact of hearing that word come from his lips. “I’m so sorry.” I closed my eyes to brace myself for his gentle kindness.
“It’s fine. You can distract me. I want you, Levi. I want everything. Please.”
“Darling, no.” He grabbed my wrists to keep them from where my hands were reaching for his buttons. He placed gentle kisses on my fingertips, his face contorted with pity and pain. “I’m not going to make love with you half out of your mind in a state of catatonic shock.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, pouting up at him. He narrowed his eyes, glaring with disappointment. “But. Why?” I asked.
“You need to process what happened. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
My head fell back, and I groaned at the roof. “That sounds stupid. Let’s let our bodies do the talking.”
When I met his gaze again, I found him with his arms crossed, showing off his big stupid muscles and an unamused expression. “I won’t be a distraction.”
“Please?”
He met my gaze and held it for a long moment. I was pretty sure I had him now. This was it. We were going to do the thing. And this was what I wanted and needed. Definitely. I wasn’t avoiding anything. What did he know?
“I know just what you need,” he said.
I yelped as he scooped me up and threw me over his broad set of shoulders. I had nowhere to go.
“Hell yeah!” I said as he brought me out of the shed and toward Big Cabin.
He chuckled and smacked me on the bottom.