23. Evan
EVAN
On their last full day at the cabin, Evan woke before CJ.
The light filtering through the blinds was muted and gray, and he could see a low ceiling of clouds hiding the mountain range.
He stayed where he was, half on his side and twisted toward CJ, and stared at the ceiling.
Next to him, CJ was on his stomach with one arm tucked beneath his pillow and the other flung sideways toward Evan like he’d reached for him at some point during the night.
His hair was a disaster and the sheet had twisted down around his hips, leaving his back bare.
His muscles shifted faintly with each slow breath.
Evan reached out and brushed a finger along CJ’s bare shoulder, not enough to wake him. Just to make sure he was real.
They’d been at the cabin for three days, and two of them had been used on slow mornings and longer afternoons, letting the time unfold however it wanted.
Yesterday, despite his protests, CJ had convinced him to hike a trail that wound through the pines and came out on a ridge with a view that had shocked them both into silence.
CJ had stood there squinting into the distance with his hands on his hips, face slack in awe, and Evan had watched him instead of the view until CJ caught him and raised a questioning eyebrow. Evan hadn’t looked away.
In the evenings, Evan cooked and CJ hovered, equal parts audience and obstacle as he leaned against the counter with a running commentary about whatever was in his head.
He stole ingredients off the cutting board when he thought Evan wasn’t looking, and asked questions he already knew the answers to just to keep Evan talking.
Once, CJ reached around Evan for a glass and stayed there a beat too long with his shoulder pressed lightly into Evan’s back.
“Do you actually need that?” Evan asked without turning, sliding the knife cleanly through a zucchini.
“I’m sure I will at some point,” CJ said, popping a piece of zucchini in his mouth as Evan nudged him out of the way with his hip.
CJ grinned and shifted two inches to the left, which did nothing except keep him in Evan’s space. Evan huffed in annoyance, but CJ had stayed there anyway, watching him like he was doing something more entertaining than cooking dinner.
By the time they carried the plates outside, the air had cooled, and the sky had deepened to that dark shade of blue that came just before darkness fell completely.
Neither of them had talked much, and that was okay.
Evan hadn’t wanted to talk. He wasn’t anywhere near rested—the kind of tired he’d been carrying for years wasn’t something a few days in the mountains could fix—but he felt more like himself than he had in a long time.
Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever this was, whatever they’d managed to carve out for themselves the last few days, had a time limit.
Evan shifted onto his side and tucked an arm under his pillow, and CJ stirred and threw his arm over Evan’s waist before turning his head to the other side without waking.
Evan watched him longer than he meant to, then he reached over and ran his fingers lightly along CJ’s spine.
Another low, sleepy sound rumbled in his throat as CJ shifted at the touch, but he still didn’t wake.
Evan let his hand fall away and exhaled slowly before easing himself out from under CJ’s arm.
Evan sat on the edge of the bed for a second, hands braced on his knees as he stared at the floor.
He didn’t want to waste the day inside, pretending they could hold on to something he could already feel slipping away.
The cabin had given them a version of themselves that didn’t have to worry about anything outside of these walls.
There were no cameras, no expectations, and no consequences.
But it wasn’t real, and if he didn’t find a way to create a distance between this and reality, leaving was going to feel like they were losing something instead of just… ending a trip.
“I’ve been trying to get you to go to town since we got here,” CJ said suspiciously.
He was leaning against the kitchen counter, clutching a mug of coffee in both hands, wearing a gray thermal Evan was pretty sure belonged to him and a pair of joggers slung low on his hips. Evan didn’t look at him, focusing instead on the pan of eggs he was scrambling.
“Have you?” Evan asked, like he wasn’t aware of how many times CJ had wanted to go somewhere.
CJ scoffed in disbelief. “Yeah. Repeatedly. You said no.”
“I said not yet.”
“You absolutely did not say not yet.”
Evan laughed and moved the pan off the heat. “Semantics.”
“It’s not semantics if you shut it down every time I bring it up,” CJ said. He stepped closer, and Evan wasn’t sure if he’d been drawn in by the food or Evan. “Now, suddenly, you wake up and you’re like, let’s go out in public?”
“It’s not like we’re going out in San Diego.” Evan divided the food onto two plates and shoved one into CJ’s hands. “Are you going to give me a hard time about this or are we going to go?”
“Oh, we’re going,” CJ said, smiling now but still suspicious. “Obviously, we’re going to go.”
He kept his face carefully neutral. “Good.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, but Evan didn’t miss the way CJ kept shooting looks at him.
“Why now?” CJ asked quietly.
Evan met his gaze and held it, trying to figure out what to tell him. Because there was an answer. Several actually.
Because it was their last day.
Because staying here all day felt like they’d be pretending they didn’t have to leave.
Because he didn’t trust how easy things were inside these walls.
Because he wanted a true version of them that existed in the real world, even if it was small and quiet, in a mountain town where no one knew them.
He didn’t say any of that. Of course he didn’t. Instead, he took another bite of eggs and said, “I just thought it would be nice to do something you wanted.”
CJ weighed that answer but looked at him like he knew it wasn’t the whole truth. “Okay,” he said after a second, though his tone said he wasn’t entirely convinced.
Juniper Creek was exactly what Evan expected it to be.
As they approached, the town unfolded before them like something out of a romantic movie, complete with a freshly painted white gazebo anchoring the town.
Side streets branched off in every direction from the center of town, each one lined with small shops and restaurants.
They passed a coffee shop with an outdoor patio occupied by families and dogs and a hardware store with a sandwich board out front advertising firewood.
Evan eased off the gas instinctively and rolled the windows all the way down.
Around the gazebo, the rest of the town fell into place.
There was a bakery with its doors and windows open and the smell of something sweet drifting into the air.
There was an honest-to-God general store, with a wide porch and wooden rocking chairs that were occupied by residents chatting and watching the world go by.
Next to that was a building trimmed in blue, with the words Fox & Fern Bookstore across the giant glass window.
They rolled slowly through the square, and Evan had the strange sense that this was the kind of place that adopted anyone who decided to stay.
People would nod at you when you passed them, and someone would say, “You’re back,” like it mattered to the town.
For a brief flicker of a moment, he saw a future where they were openly together here, and no one even blinked.
“I love it here,” CJ said quietly, as if he would ruin the moment if he said it any louder.
“Yeah,” Evan said just as softly. He found a parking spot and looked at CJ, tilting his head toward the bookstore. “You mind?”
“Nah,” CJ said with a smile as he climbed out of the car. “I knew as soon as I saw it that you would want to go there. Besides, I never met a used bookstore I didn’t want to wander through.”
The sign above the door was a stack of books with the store name on their spines, and the window displayed a careful arrangement of books about local history and novels by local authors.
He held the door open for CJ, then followed him inside, pausing to inhale deeply.
The smell of the old paper of used novels mixed with the fresh ink of new releases and the light lemon scent of wood oil.
The woman at the counter had her eyes fixed on the computer in front of her, reading glasses pushed into her gray hair.
She looked up at them and smiled, and Evan braced himself for small talk.
“Morning.”
“Morning,” Evan replied. He exhaled quietly when she turned back to the computer without extending the conversation. Next to her, a fat orange cat judged him from where he lazed on the counter.
The place was bigger on the inside than it looked from the street, and was organized in a way that probably made sense to whoever had designed it.
A front room held new releases neatly arranged by genre and author, and a narrow hallway led to a back room with shelves of used books loosely organized into categories.
Evan drifted toward the used books, running his fingers over the spines until he found something that caught his interest. He had his back to the shelves and was reading the first page of a novel he’d never heard of when CJ came looking for him.
“Find anything good?” His voice was almost a whisper.
“Maybe,” Evan said. He turned the novel so CJ could see the cover.
CJ glanced at the cover and nodded before returning his eyes to Evan’s face.
Something in his expression shifted, and he stepped closer, reaching out to take the book from Evan’s hand and putting it on the shelf behind him.
The motion brought them closer, and Evan didn’t think about it before he brought his hand up to CJ’s waist.
“Tell me to stop,” CJ whispered as he raised his hand to the side of Evan’s jaw.
Evan looked at the empty aisle. A few rows over, two men were arguing about which trail they should hike that afternoon and, up front, the woman at the counter was scolding the store cat. They weren’t alone, but in this narrow row of books, it felt like they were. Evan stayed silent.
CJ nodded and then his mouth found Evan’s in a kiss that was soft and intense.
Evan’s brain short-circuited for a moment, the way it always did when CJ touched him, before his body caught up.
His hand came up automatically and gripped CJ’s shirt as he leaned in to kiss him back.
His heart kicked hard against his ribs, and Evan pulled CJ in closer, deepening the kiss just enough to hear CJ’s breath hitch.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, sirens were going off, warning him to stop, that kissing CJ in public was dangerous.
But he kept kissing him anyway because kissing CJ was where he belonged.
Because he didn’t want to stop. Because, for once, he didn’t want to be careful.
CJ pulled back first and pressed his forehead to Evan’s, keeping his eyes closed for a few seconds longer before he opened them to look at Evan.
“Probably shouldn’t do that again,” CJ murmured.
Evan let out a breath that could have been a laugh. “Yeah.”
“Definitely shouldn’t,” CJ added when neither of them moved.
Evan huffed softly and pressed one more quick kiss to CJ’s lips before pulling back. He reached for the novel CJ had placed on the shelf behind him. “I’m buying this.”
CJ cleared his throat and took a step back. “Good call.”
They stopped for lunch at a restaurant two blocks from the bookstore.
It was the kind of place that served breakfast and lunch, closed by two in the afternoon, and had a menu that hadn’t changed since it opened forty years ago.
A chalkboard menu was propped outside listing the day’s lunch special, and when they pushed through the door, the host seated them at a square table in the corner without any wait.
Evan took a seat that faced the room out of habit, and CJ dropped into the seat next to him.
The restaurant was maybe a third full, and Evan’s shoulders dropped when he realized no one was watching them.
The server at the counter poured coffee with the skill of someone who had done it a thousand times, and a couple by the window argued quietly about her sister. A man in overalls sat alone at the counter, hunched over a newspaper. It was all so ordinary that it didn’t feel real.
“I think I’m getting pancakes,” CJ announced. He studied the menu carefully before looking up at Evan. “What are you getting?”
“Not pancakes,” Evan replied. “It’s noon.”
CJ looked scandalized. “Pancakes are an all-day kind of food, Evan. Everyone knows that.”
Their waitress came by at that moment to take their order, and CJ ordered pancakes without hesitation.
Evan rolled his eyes and ordered a cheeseburger.
When they were alone again, CJ leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, quiet as he stared out the window.
Evan nudged his knee against CJ’s under the table, and when CJ didn’t look at him, he reached over and squeezed his leg, then left his hand resting on CJ’s thigh.
CJ looked at him, surprised, and he scanned the room to see if anyone had noticed.
But no one was paying them any attention, and he reached down and curled his fingers around Evan’s.
They sat that way until their food came and the quiet between them was easy and comfortable.
There was no pressure to fill it, and the low hum of the restaurant carried on around them without really reaching their table.
But by the time they were finished and had pushed their plates to the side in a small, messy stack, Evan could feel the moment beginning to fade.
CJ shifted first. He leaned forward and rested his elbow on the table, chin propped in his hand and his gaze fixed on Evan with the kind of focus he usually reserved for games.
“What are you thinking about?”
Evan didn’t answer right away, and his eyes drifted out the window. “Going home,” he said finally.
CJ frowned, and Evan watched some of the light in his eyes dim. “Yeah.”
The server returned, efficient and unobtrusive as she cleared their plates and set the check down on the edge of the table. It was a quiet reminder that the moment was over, whether they were ready or not.
CJ reached for the check. “We should probably get back to the cabin.”
Evan nodded, but he didn’t move. “Three days wasn’t enough.”
“No,” CJ said softly. “It wasn’t.”
CJ stood and turned to leave before Evan could see his face, and with a sigh, Evan pushed his chair back and followed.