5. Hallie
five
Hallie
Maple definitely saw.
I know she saw because when I come down for breakfast she looks up from the front desk with this expression — not smug exactly, more like satisfied, the way someone looks when a thing they've been quietly hoping for has gone ahead and happened — and says good morning about half a beat too warmly.
"Good morning," I say.
"Sleep well?"
"Fine, thank you."
She nods. Goes back to whatever she's writing. I get two steps toward the door and she says, without looking up, "I'm happy to take Theo this afternoon if you want some time. He could help me repot the window boxes."
He's been staring at those window boxes since we arrived.
"That's very kind," I say carefully. "I don't have anything planned."
She looks up. Just looks at me and slides me a number written on a piece of paper. “He left this for you after fixing the shelf.”
Ronan.
"Okay," I say. "Thank you."
I text Ronan from the room. I have his number from when Maple put us in touch about the window, which I'm choosing not to think too hard about.
Maple is taking Theo this afternoon. If you wanted to do something.
I stare at it. It's a terrible text. I send it anyway.
His reply comes back in four minutes.
Pick you up at noon. Bring a jacket.
He shows up with Boots in the passenger seat and a pack in the truck bed. “Hop in.”
I take the seat, which means Boots goes in the back, which she does with the energy of someone deeply wronged. She puts her chin on my shoulder before he's even started the engine and lets out a dramatic sigh.
He drives us out of town and up a forestry road I haven't seen and then we drop down through a treeline to a flat stretch along a river. Wide and shallow, running clear over rocks, grass along the bank, the mountains on three sides, and the sun warm and the air smelling like pine and cold water.
“Wow,” I breathe.
“Right?” He spreads a blanket. Unpacks sandwiches, fruit, and a thermos. The kind of food someone puts together when they've thought about it but don't want to make it into a thing.
Boots wades into the river and stares at the fish.
"Does she catch them?" I ask.
"Never. Extremely confident about it though."
We eat, and the afternoon opens up a conversation unlike one I’ve ever had before.
Ronan asks real questions: what I liked doing before, where I grew up, what Theo was like as a baby, and waits for the full answer each time. I find myself saying more than I plan to, but it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere it shouldn't. Just two people talking while a dog fails to catch fish.
Time passes slowly. We're on our backs looking up at the sky, and Boots has given up and fallen asleep in the grass. The sun is warm on my face, and I cannot remember the last time an afternoon felt this long in a good way.
"I keep waiting for it to get weird," I say.
"Is it?"
"No. That's what's weird."
He turns his head. I turn mine. He reaches over and tucks a strand of hair back from my face, slow, his thumb just grazing my cheekbone, and every nerve I have goes very quiet and very awake.
I roll toward him and kiss him. He makes a low sound, and his hand comes to my waist and pulls me in.
Giving in feels right. Easy.
His hands move over me like the afternoon is endless, which it nearly is.
I get his shirt off and run my palms over his chest, his shoulders, the muscle of his back, and he lets me look, lets me take my time, which is its own kind of thing — being allowed to just look without it becoming something I owe.
"Tell me what you want," he says.
The old reflex fires: whatever you want, I don't mind. I've said some version of that so many times it's practically automatic. I catch it.
"Touch me," I say. "Here." I take his hand and put it between my legs.
He does exactly that, his fingers moving against me through my jeans first, slow and deliberate, watching my face the whole time. I stop trying to keep my expression neutral. I let him see it.
"Still good?" he says.
"Very good. Don't stop."
He gets my jeans off and touches me properly — his fingers sliding through my pussy slow, no rush — and I make a sound that surprises me more than it surprises him. He doesn't comment. He just does more of it.
He takes his time. His thumb works my clit while his fingers push inside me, deep and steady, watching my face the whole time, and I stop trying to manage what he sees.
I let him look. His fingers curl and I gasp and grip his shoulder and he keeps the pressure exactly there, reading me, until I come around his hand — hard, my whole body clenching, his name catching in my throat before I can stop it.
I lie there with my eyes closed for a moment while the afternoon hums around me.
He kisses my jaw. Doesn't say anything.
"Come here," I tell him.
I pull him over me and get his jeans open and wrap my hand around his cock and he makes a rough sound against my neck, low and genuine, the first time I've heard him lose composure. I like it more than I expect to.
He pauses, weight braced above me, looking at my face.
"Still good?"
"Get on with it," I say.
He almost smiles. Then he pushes inside me, slow, giving me time to open around him, and I exhale hard and dig my fingers into his back and think: oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like.
He's big and he knows it — takes his time, lets me adjust — and then he starts to move and it's deep and steady and exactly right, his weight on me something I want pressing down instead of something I'm managing, and I wrap my legs around him and stop thinking at all.
I feel it everywhere.
I finish before he does, clenching around him, and he feels it and his rhythm breaks. He presses his forehead to my temple and follows hard and quiet, his whole body going still and then loose against me.
The river keeps going. Boots is still asleep in the grass, completely unbothered.
The sun is lower now, the light gone amber, and I lie there looking at the sky and feel — like myself.
Not the old version, not trying to get back to her.
Just a woman on a blanket by a river whose body is entirely her own.
"Alright?"
I turn my head. He's watching me, steady, giving me room.
"Yeah," I say.
He takes my hand and we lie there while the sky goes gold at the edges.
Eventually Boots wakes up, shakes herself from nose to tail, and stands over us with river mud on all four feet.
We pack up slowly. He shakes the blanket, I fold it, and we carry things back to the truck without needing to talk through any of it. He opens my door and stops and looks at me and kisses me once more — his hand at the back of my head, unhurried — and I hold onto his jacket.
When he pulls back I don't have anything smart to say. I just look at him.
"Next time," he says, "bring Theo. There's a good spot upstream where he can throw rocks."
It's such a practical thing to say. I don't know why it makes my chest ache.
"Okay," I say.