39. Cole
“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say before hanging up my phone. I take a long sip of cider before crossing the cabin where I rejoin Sydney and Paul, both of whom are sitting on the rug in the middle of the living room, packing boxes.
“I secured a storage rental in town,” I tell them, lowering to sit between them. “He said I can pick up the keys in the morning when we bring boxes over.”
“And you’re sure you want to keep all this stuff?” Paul asks. “Aside from the pieces you made, I say you should just chuck it all.”
Sydney bites back a smile, and I chuckle at his flippancy. “I think I’m a little more sentimental than you are, Paul.”
“Ah.” He huffs, shrugging me off.
“You definitely need to keep the table and stool you made,” Sydney says, pointing to the furniture. “Those can go in the keep pile.”
“Sure,” I say before an idea comes to me. “Actually, do you want either of them for your new house, Paul? I don’t have much of a need for them.”
His eyes perk up as he considers my offer. “Oh, that’s actually a great idea. Yes, I’d happily take them. I don’t have much furniture in the house yet.”
“They’re all yours. Let me know if there’s anything else you see that you want.”
“How about this lovely duck lamp?” Sydney stands to pick up the old lamp on top of the shelf. As she lifts it, the bottom part of the duck breaks right off, falling to the ground.
“Oh no,” she mutters under her breath as she quickly tries to gather the pieces. Paul and I simply laugh.
“Believe it or not, that was here when I bought the place many moons ago,” Paul says.
I help Sydney place all the broken pieces into our trash pile and then I grab the end table to move to the keep pile.
“Be careful with that furniture now. Don’t want those to break,” Paul says under his breath. Sydney blushes at his teasing while I smirk.
“Oh, now these are deemed valuable enough for you?” I tease back. “Now that they’re yours?”
“That’s right,” he says with a wink. Then he stands, brushing his hands on his jeans. “Well, Shirley is on her way to pick me up, so I’ll see you two tomorrow.”
“Oh, um…okay,” I say, surprised by his sudden exit. I didn’t even hear his phone ring. “Thanks for your help packing today.”
“You bet. I’ll be back in the morning to help you haul boxes down. Bye, darlin’,” he says to Sydney before walking right out the door, pulling it shut behind him.
“Alright, then. I guess he’s done.” I chuckle and turn to find Sydney grinning to herself.
“I think there’s a love connection happening,” she says with a smirk.
“You might be right,” I agree. Outside the cabin, we can hear the sound of an ATV approaching and then, moments later, disappearing again.
“We got a lot done today in a short amount of time,” Sydney comments, placing her hands on her hips, looking around the nearly bare cabin. We successfully cleaned out the kitchen cabinets and packed up anything in our keep pile—which, admittedly, is not much. There wasn’t a whole lot here to begin with, so between the three of us, the task didn’t take long at all.
“We did,” I agree. “Thanks for helping.”
She strolls toward me in the middle of the cabin, our eyes locked on each other, and a buzz zips down my spine with each passing second—a primal reaction to simply being near her.
“We can pack up the bed tomorrow morning,” I suggest softly, reaching out to pull her the rest of the way toward me.
“Okay.” Her smile is coy as she steps into my arms. I wrap my arms around her in a tight hug as she lays her head against my chest.
“I feel bad that you spent so much time fixing this place up all to have it be torn down in the end,” she says quietly against my shirt.
“Don’t feel bad.” I run a hand down her back. I’ll keep repeating the same thing over again as many times as she needs me to in order to prove to her that I’m okay with this. Because I am. “These are just things. The memories are what’s important.”
“Okay.” She nods slowly, her head sliding against my shirt. I run my hands down her arms, pulling her back slightly so I can give in to this overwhelming urge to feel my mouth against hers.
She reaches up on her tiptoes to meet me halfway, pressing her lips to mine. An instant flooding of warmth overcomes my body the same way it does every single time I kiss her. It’s a rush I can’t seem to get enough of. The way my pulse quickens and my chest gets tight. The way it feels like a wave of tiny electrical pulses sparking across every inch of my skin.
She fists my shirt at my lower back, pushing herself even harder against me. I hyperfocus on the way she tightens her grip around me. I respond by clamping under her thighs to lift her up in a jolt. My hands slide under her legs as she wraps them around my waist with a squeal.
I take a few steps forward until I’m able to set her on top of the back of the couch, all the while keeping her pressed tightly against me. I smile at the hum she makes when I explore more of her with my mouth, down the base of her neck to just below her collarbone, spending more than a few seconds there.
She slides her fingers through my hair, eliciting a shiver that runs all the way down my spine. It’s then that my last thread of control snaps, and I’m officially consumed by desire for her.
After dipping my mouth a few inches lower, using my teeth this time to scrape against her skin, I raise back up to claim her mouth. She squeezes her legs tighter around me as she slides her hands down my chest.
“How about we make one more memory to take with us?” I whisper against her lips. She hums again, and I can feel it vibrate against my mouth as she smiles through the kiss. I take that as a yes, lifting her to bring her slowly, yet urgently, over to the bed.