Chapter 15 - Hayden
HAYDEN
“Oh my God, Hayden! What the hell?”
My friend’s voice was choked with alarm, but also relief. Amy and I talked all the time, and we exchanged text-messages every day. My last-minute call to her had been quick and cryptic, before I’d turned my phone off two days ago.
“Where are you?”
“Away,” I said, breathing in the fresh mountain air. I’d wandered up the path from the cabin, holding my phone to the sky like the Olympic torch, trying to find a signal. It was at least a quarter-mile walk before I found one.
Once I did, my phone’s screen was carpet-bombed with alerts, messages, and missed calls. Not just dozens, but hundreds of them.
And almost all of them; from Cole.
“Away?” Amy repeated, exasperated at my lack of detail. “What’s away?”
“I’m up in the mountains,” I told her.
“What?!”
“Everything’s fine. In fact—”
“Hayden, I heard you got into a bar fight!” Amy cut me off. “I heard you were attacked by a whole crowd of people!”
My lip wrinkled in disgust. “Who told you that? Cole?”
“Well…”
“He’s been looking for me, hasn’t he?”
“Hayden, yes! He calls me several times a day! He showed up here three or four times, looking for you, and at first I don’t think he believed me when I told him you weren’t here.”
“Tell Cole to fuck off,” I sneered. “And that he’d better not bother you again.”
“So you still haven’t talked to him?”
“No,” I said proudly. “And I gotta tell ya, it’s been magical.”
Magical didn’t even begin to describe it. Setting aside the skiing, the sex, and the snowy mountain vistas, not even reading a single one of Cole’s rage-texts had been amazingly liberating.
“Look, I’m fine,” I told my friend. “Better than fine, actually. And I’ll be home soon, I promise. We’ll meet up, have coffee. I have a million and one things to tell you.”
“Yes, yes of course!” Amy cried. “But Hayden where are you?”
I took stock of the abject beauty that currently surrounded me. Snow had begun falling again, gently.
“Sugarloaf.”
There was a long pause at the other end of the phone. “You drove all the way to Maine?”
“Technically, no. I was driven all the way to Maine.” I filled my lungs again with the crisp mountain air, then sighed happily. “I’ve been skiing and snowboarding. With some guys I met, on Halloween.”
“Snowboarding,” Amy repeated. “With… some guys.”
“Yes. And hey, remember when we were saying I needed to get laid?”
There was another pause — along with a gasp — on the other end of the phone.
“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but—”
The crunch of footfalls coming up the path diverted my attention. I turned and saw Carter, stomping his way up the steep mountain trail. When he saw me, his face broke into a cheerful smile.
“Sorry,” I told my friend. “Gotta run. I’ll call you when I get back.”
“Wait!” Amy protested, with a slight chuckle. “But what about getting laid?”
“That story’s gonna have to wait,” I smiled. “But trust me. It’s a good one.”
I hung up and slipped my phone into my pocket, just as he reached me. Carter’s tousled hair was wind-blown but still messy perfect. His usual warm expression had an air of serenity and contentment to it.
“Whatcha doing up here, Angel?”
“Taking selfies,” I lied.
“Yeah,” he snickered. “Okay.”
“What? You don’t believe me?”
He square jaw twitched. “Not even a little bit.”
I shrugged resignedly. “Smart man.”
“I figured you needed a minute,” he allowed. “But I also noticed you escaped breakfast without this.”
His arm swung forward, presenting a travel mug of steaming black coffee. My heart leapt with joy.
“You really do love me.”
“So much that it hurts.”
I laughed, and poked my tongue out at him. For a brief, heart-stirring moment I let myself wonder what it would be like if he really did love me.
“You didn’t come up here just for this though,” I said, taking a sip. “Or the selfies.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Wanna clue me in?”
Carter shrugged and went to put his hands in his pockets. Which was especially hilarious, because the sleep pants he’d thrown on didn’t have pockets.
“I guess I just wanted to check up on you,” he admitted, his palms sliding awkwardly down his thighs. “Make sure everything’s okay.”
I took an ambrosial sip of coffee and let out a long, gratified sigh.
“And why in the world wouldn’t it be okay?”
If I thought he looked awkward with his hands not in his pockets, the half-hearted shrug he managed looked even more so.
“Could you be referring to our all night, no mattress marathon?”
Carter practically choked. “I— I uh…”
“My abrupt hosting of every event in the living room floor Olympics?”
I watched him twist uncomfortably over the rim of my mug. It was cute, knowing he’d come all the way up here just to see if I was alright with everything that had happened between us. But it was even more cute watching him squirm.
“Look,” I finally chuckled. “I’m fine. More than fine, actually. To tell the truth, I’ve always wanted a threesome.”
He squinted back at me curiously. “You have?”
“Sure,” I shrugged again. “Every girl in the world wonders what it would be like, at one time or another. And the ones who say they don’t are filthy liars.”
I hoisted my mug his way; and gave him a wink.
“Four of us together though… gotta admit, that was pretty crazy.”
“Good crazy or bad crazy?”
“I dunno. Just… crazy.” My cat-that-ate-the-canary smile met his sheepish one. “Hey, I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
He laughed. “Like it?”
“Okay, fine,” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “I loved it. You happy?”
Smiling, he scratched at his stubbled jaw. “Not as happy as you ought to be.”
God, he was handsome. Handsome and skilled. And hung. Let’s not forget about that.
“Well, yeah,” I finally smirked back at him. “I’m pretty sure you had a good time too, if I remember correctly.”
The wind picked up, fluttering Carter’s sleep pants around his thick legs.
I almost laughed at his snow boots, but didn’t.
On his forearm though, I noticed something I hadn’t before: a long, vertical scar.
The jagged white line of flesh ran from his wrist all the way to his elbow, twisting in a smooth curve.
“What happened there?” I asked, nodding toward it.
Carter looked down, as if surprised to see it, then crossed his arms over his chest. The move buried the scar, as he slowly shook his head. “Nothing worth talking about.”
“Got it.”
He looked a little relieved at my response. I sighed and stretched, then squinted back at him.
“The others are going to be weird about this, aren’t they?” I asked.
“What? No, no, definitely not.” He paused for a moment. “I mean, Sawyer might crack a few jokes…”
“Jokes, I can handle.”
“And Bodie might be… quiet,” Carter admitted. “A little bit, anyway. Normally, he’s pretty straight-laced.”
“He wasn’t straight-laced last night,” I grinned.
“No. No, he wasn’t.”
“Because what we did last night?” I paused, pointing down the mountain. “That was a lot of things. But ‘weird’ definitely wasn’t one of them.”
Carter’s smile was warm and comforting. Exactly as when I’d first walked into his bar.
“Hmmm…” I thought out loud. “Just in case, though…”
I rose, stood on my toes, and kissed him.
Without hesitation, Carter kissed me back.
Our lips fell into a familiar rhythm; our mouths and tongues moving slowly as if we’d been together forever.
My mind began recalling the scent of him immediately; the feel of his hands, the sights and sounds and roller coaster of emotions, that came bundled with what we’d done last night.
By the time I broke the kiss to smile up at him, Carter’s eyes were still half closed.
“See? Not weird at all.”
Leaving him in a daze, I skipped past him, and down the path toward the cabin.