Chapter 10 Carter
The gravel crunches under my tires as I turn off the main road onto the long drive. Through the bare winter trees, I catch my first glimpse of the cabin and the car already parked in front of it.
Jamie's car.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. He's here.
I couldn't leave until after lunch—a meeting I couldn't cancel without raising questions, not when I'd already cleared the rest of the week. Jamie could have been here for hours, the growing heat in his blood. He’ll have had long enough to walk around and really look into the cupboard.
Long enough to see my childhood spread across the walls in faded photographs.
I didn’t plan to take him somewhere so personal but we won’t be disturbed here. It was the most practical solution.
I pull in beside his car and kill the engine, but I don't get out immediately.
The trunk is full of groceries and supplies.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time at the store this morning, googling what omegas need during heat on my phone while standing in the vitamin aisle, second-guessing every choice.
Protein bars or protein shakes? Electrolyte drinks or coconut water?
The internet had opinions. Many, many opinions.
I don't even know what Jamie likes to eat.
I don't know anything about Jamie, really.
Not how he takes his coffee or what music he listens to or whether he sleeps on his back or his stomach.
I know how he sounds when he comes. I know the exact pitch of his voice when he's close to the edge.
I know what his face looks like when pleasure wipes away everything else.
But I don't know him.
I get out of the car.
The air is cold and clean, sharp in my lungs after the recycled air of the drive. Smoke isn't rising from the chimney yet. Jamie either didn't know how to start the fire or didn't want to presume.
I grab two of the grocery bags from the trunk and head for the door. It's unlocked, which I expected. I told him where to find the spare key.
The door swings open, and I see him immediately.
Jamie is in the kitchen area, his back to me, opening and closing cabinets with the movements of someone unfamiliar with a space and searching for something.
He's wearing jeans and a soft-looking sweater, and even from across the room, I catch his scent of honey and citrus, richer than usual: the heat building in his system.
My body responds before my brain catches up. The pull is immediate, visceral, and I have to fight the urge to cross the room and press my face against the curve of his neck.
Jamie turns at the sound of the door.
We stare at each other.
"Hello," I say.
The word sounds absurd. Too formal. Like we're meeting at a networking event instead of a remote cabin where I'm about to spend the next week fucking him through his heat. But it's the only word that comes out.
"Hi." His voice is equally stilted.
Silence stretches between us, thick and uncomfortable. This is the first time we've faced each other without immediately colliding. In the hotels, there was no preamble. We showed up, we fucked, we left. Simple. Wordless. Nothing like this.
I cross to the kitchen counter and set down the grocery bags, just to have something to do with my hands. "What were you looking for?"
"Coffee pot."
Coffee pot. He drinks coffee. I file this information away like it's valuable intelligence, which is ridiculous. Half the country drinks coffee.
"Cabinet above the stove," I say. "There's a French press too, if you prefer."
"The pot's fine."
More silence.
I start unpacking the groceries, mostly to fill the awkward void. I'm hyperaware of Jamie watching me, standing a few feet away with his arms crossed over his chest. He’s made no effort to grab the coffee pot. The defensive posture makes something in my chest tighten.
"I brought food," I say, obviously. The bags are right there.
"Simple things. Healthy." I pull out eggs, bread, cheese, chicken breasts, broccoli, spinach, several containers of premade soup from the fancy deli near my apartment and electrolyte drinks which I wave at him.
"The internet said those were important for heats. "
"You googled what to buy for an omega in heat?"
My neck heats. I focus very intently on arranging the soup containers in the refrigerator. "I wanted to be prepared."
Jamie's expression is unreadable when I glance at him. "That's... thoughtful."
The word hangs between us. Thoughtful. Like I'm a considerate host rather than the man who's been hate-fucking him in anonymous hotel rooms for months.
"There's more stuff in the car," I say, because I don't know how to respond to thoughtful. "Blankets. Extra sheets. I wasn't sure what condition the linens here would be in."
"I can help carry."
"You don't have to—"
"It’s no problem."
We make two trips to the car. Each time we pass in the doorway, I catch a stronger wave of his scent. Each time, neither of us acknowledges it, though my body is keeping very careful track. The honey is sharper now, the citrus brighter, and there's a warmth to it that makes my mouth water.
I've cleared my schedule for a week. It took three phone calls and a favor I'd been saving for something important.
Alexander Colborne and I were at Yale together. I helped him out of a situation our sophomore year—the kind of situation that would have ended up front page of the tabloids. He's told me half a dozen times since that he owes me, that I saved his bacon, that if I ever need anything, just ask.
Yesterday, I asked.
Now, as far as my father and Warren know, I'm upstate with Alex for an off-grid reset. Alex Colborne is old money and an old friend, and after years in the spotlight, he knows the value of time away from the public eye. Alex has asked his assistant to confirm the story if anyone calls
Warren was almost pleased when I told him. "Good," he said. "Take a few days. God knows you've earned it after dealing with Dean's smear campaign. I'll handle any press questions—tell them you're taking a much-needed vacation that you'd postponed to deal with this mess."
He liked the framing. Carter Crane, so dedicated to defending his family's honor that he delayed his own vacation. It plays well.
I watch Jamie take in the cabin as we carry stuff from the car. His eyes move over the worn leather couch, the stone fireplace with its blackened grate, the braided rug my grandmother made decades ago. He's taking notes of everything the way journalists do.
His gaze lingers on the photographs.
There are a lot of them. My grandmother never believed in minimalism.
The walls are cluttered with frames of all sizes: black and white shots of people I never knew, faded color photos from the seventies and eighties, more recent ones of Kate and me.
In one, we're standing on the dock, maybe eight and six years old, squinting into the summer sun.
I'm grinning with a gap where my front teeth should be.
Kate has her arm flung around my shoulders, mid-laugh.
"This is nice," Jamie says finally. "The cabin."
"It was my grandmother's. My mother's mother." I set a stack of blankets on the couch. "She left it to my mom when she died. But no one really uses it anymore."
"Why not?"
"My father thinks it's too rustic. Too far from anything useful." I shrug. "Kate prefers five-star hotels. Room service. Spas. She doesn't see the point of a place where you have to make your own bed."
"But you come."
"Sometimes." I look around the room, trying to see it through his eyes. The worn furniture, the slightly musty smell that no amount of airing out ever fully eliminates, the creaky floorboards. "When I need quiet."
Jamie nods slowly. His eyes are still on the photos, lingering on the one of Kate and me on the dock.
"You were cute," he says. "As a kid."
I don't know what to do with that. The comment feels too intimate, even though we've done far more intimate things than exchange childhood observations.
"Kate put a frog in my bed approximately ten minutes after that picture was taken," I say.
Something flickers across Jamie's face. Not quite a smile, but close. "Sounds like a good sister."
"She's a menace." But I say it with affection, and I see Jamie register the warmth in my voice when I talk about her. I'm not sure I want him knowing that about me, but it's too late to take it back.
We end up in the kitchen again, putting away the rest of the groceries together. Side by side, reaching around each other, navigating the small space. I'm acutely aware of every near-miss, every moment when his arm almost brushes mine, every shift in the air when he moves.
This is strange. Wrong. We're not friends. We're not even lovers, not really. Lovers implies affection at least, if not actual love. We’re certainly not that.
"The bedroom's through there," I say, gesturing toward the door at the back of the cabin. "Bathroom's off the hall. There's a—" I stop myself. I was about to give a tour, like Jamie is a houseguest here for a pleasant weekend visit.
He is a guest, I suppose. In a manner of speaking.
This is insane.
"Spares for the bathroom are in that bag," I finish awkwardly, nodding towards it. "Towels. Toiletries. Whatever you might need."
"You really did prepare."
"I said I would handle it."
"I know. I just..." Jamie trails off. He's giving me a confused look like he doesn’t even know how to finish the sentence. Maybe he doesn’t. Neither of us know how to talk to each other.
We've run out of tasks. The groceries are put away, the blankets stacked, the supplies organized. We're standing in the kitchen, maybe four feet apart, and the air between us feels charged.
Jamie shifts his weight. His cheeks are flushed, and not from embarrassment. His pupils are slightly dilated. His body is responding to mine whether he wants it to or not, just as mine is responding to his.
"So," he says. His voice has dropped, gone slightly husky. "What now?"