Forty
Montana
He was back. The smell of bacon wafted into the bedroom, and I heard the television. It had to be Than.
He’d stayed gone all day yesterday, and when I went to bed, I didn’t even check to be sure Ransom was still outside. I was afraid he’d left. There were car doors closing earlier and the sound of a vehicle starting up twice. I didn’t go to look though. If he’d left, I was afraid I’d have a panic attack.
When it got dark and Than hadn’t shown up, I gave in to my tears. Crying in the shower, then curling up in bed alone, I’d finally gotten to sleep.
I wanted to be angry with him for leaving me. But that would make me the girl who thought sex meant I had some claim on him. Or that we had some relationship, which I knew we didn’t.
Trying to shake loose the hurt that he’d caused or at least mask it, I gave myself a pep talk before finally opening the door and going out there to face him.
He wasn’t shirtless this time as he stood at the stove with his back to me. That was a plus, I guessed. At least today, it was. I didn’t need that view. Not when it affected me the way it did.
He glanced back over his shoulder and gave me a smile that didn’t match the apology in his eyes. That, and the regret. I didn’t smile back. There was only so much faking I could do, and that was asking too much.
“Hungry?” he asked.
I shook my head. I’d barely eaten yesterday. My appetite had vanished, along with him, and although he was back, it was not.
“You’re not going to make me eat alone, are you?”
He’d been fine with leaving me to eat alone all day yesterday. No, not going to say that.
“Just not hungry,” I replied, walking over to get coffee.
I could feel him watching me, but I didn’t make eye contact. I’d seen his regret, and I didn’t want to see it anymore.
“I had some work I needed to get done at the distillery yesterday,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied.
That was a lie, and he knew it. His brother could have done the work instead of staying here and watching the cabin all day. It was humiliating to think of the reason why he’d convinced Ransom to switch places with him.
“Six.” He said that nickname he had for me.
“Yes?” I asked while stirring sugar into my cup.
“Look at me.”
Ugh. I’d rather not.
Trying my best to look as if he hadn’t hurt me, I looked up from my cup to meet his gaze. Damn him and those blue eyes. The butterflies in my stomach didn’t seem to care that he didn’t want me the way I did him. They went off just the same.
“You’re mad at me. I’m sorry. I should have told you where I was going.”
I shrugged. “You don’t have to report to me,” I said as casually as I could, then headed back toward the bedroom.
I’d faced him. Now back to my safe space.
“Wait, don’t go back in there. We need to talk.”
Great. I closed my eyes tightly, wishing he’d just let me go. Keeping my back to him, I said, “I have schoolwork to get done. Can we talk later?”
I heard his heavy sigh.
“Six, come on. Don’t be like this. We both know that your schoolwork can wait.”
Yes, well, not with my new plan to get out of your hair so you can get your life back.
But I turned around anyway. “What is it you’d like to discuss?” I asked him as if I didn’t know.
He turned off the stove and moved the bacon off the hot eye, then looked back at me. “Can we sit down?” he asked, motioning toward the sofa.
I thought about the other times we’d been on the sofa and the things we’d done. I shook my head. “I’d rather sit on the stools.”
There was that damn regret again. Flashing like a neon sign on his face.
I pulled out a stool and sat, then looked at my coffee as I continued to stir it. The stool beside me moved as he dragged it across the hardwood, then took a seat. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, which put his eyes right at the same level as mine, making him impossible to ignore. I glanced at him and wished I hadn’t.
“I panicked, and I handled things wrong. Okay? I ran to clear my head and think through what we’d done. It was a shit thing to do, and I am sorry.”
Fine. He was sorry. But what had he needed to think about? Because he was clearly not happy we’d had sex. The outcome of his thinking couldn’t be in my favor.
“Okay,” I replied.
His crooked grin was laced with disappointment. “Is that all you’re going to say to me now? Okay?”
“What do you want me to say? I don’t know what to say,” I told him honestly.
He straightened up and took a deep breath, then blew it out. “Look, I shouldn’t have taken your virginity. I got carried away in the moment. We’re friends. I want us to remain friends, and I’m afraid I screwed that up. You’re a virgin.” He paused. “Or were. And it wasn’t my place to change that. The idea of friends with benefits doesn’t work with virgins. You’re new to sex. You don’t know what you like yet. Your emotions get involved. Sex is something more to you than…” He stopped.
It had meant more to me than it did him. That stung. I had known it, but it stung. Like a wasp of hornets attacking me.
“We’ve already been over that—your fear of me getting attached. It’s fine. I’m the same girl I was before we had sex. I just don’t have a hymen now. Not a big deal. I’m nineteen, and it should have been gone before now anyway. You relieved me of it. I enjoyed it. That’s all it was.” It sounded believable. I’d missed my calling in Hollywood, it seemed.
He studied me, and I dropped my gaze back to the coffee, then lifted it to my mouth to take a drink.
“You’re telling me that what I did—we did—it isn’t going to change our friendship? We’ve got almost three months left in this cabin, hanging out together. Our friendship is new, and I don’t want to lose it after I just got it.” His small smile was uncertain.
I lifted my shoulders and then let them fall. “Yeah. I don’t see why we can’t still be friends. But you’re right. It is new. It doesn’t seem that way because we’ve been forced together like this. Close quarters and all make it easy to get to know someone.” I tried to sound light. As if I were perfectly fine. “I agree it’s best that there are no benefits, as you put it. Not that I’m afraid of some attachment to you or whatever, but because it clouds things.”
The ache inside me was almost unbearable. Thinking about him never touching me again. Not having that connection like we had for those few brief moments. But it was the only way I’d survive him. And it was clearly what he wanted too. I had seen it the moment it was over.
“All right then,” he said with a forced chuckle. “Uh, then friends it is. We’ll go back to before I started, uh, touching you”—he cleared his throat—“and just, uh, be friends.”
I nodded.
He looked over at the stove, then back at me. “What about that breakfast?”
I wanted to be alone to lick my wounds and possibly grieve what I’d never had. He’d never even kissed me. How many girls could claim that? The guy who had taken their virginity never kissed them.
I shoved that thought away and nodded. Because that was what friends did.
And Than Carver was just my friend.