16. Jensen
JENSEN
I hear the bedroom door open and then the bathroom door shut.
I’ve been sitting on the couch reading the same damn page of Walden over and over again for the past three hours, appreciating not one bit of Henry David Thoreau’s wisdom about the merits of simple living while I listened for any sound to reassure me that the woman on the other side of the wall is okay.
I’ve done plenty of waiting. In hospital lounges during my mother’s treatment.
Backstage while roadies set up the stage for the night.
In a booth in a Nashville dive bar hoping a woman named Sutton would show up for night three.
But I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so alone knowing Sloane’s heart has been broken and I can’t do a damn thing to mend it.
While she was in the bedroom, I showered and changed into clean clothes, then checked out the bookshelf lining the far wall.
The cabin has a decent collection of reading material, from field guides to classic fiction to a handful of bestsellers.
One of them is a signed copy of The Year of Losing It, with a coffee-mug-worthy inspirational quote scrawled inside the cover in loopy handwriting.
I didn’t read beyond that, since I’m not convinced the woman who left it here has anything to offer beyond curated platitudes and aesthetically lit selfies. Even if Kristen Quinn is everything Sloane believes, she let Sloane down.
I get that fame makes personal correspondence a challenge.
When “Lucky Me” blew up, I had to hire an assistant to manage my inbox.
But Sloane isn’t some random fan. She’s a bookstore owner and a fucking cancer patient, and both of those should count for something.
I tried to make time when the letters came from people who resonated with my story.
They were the ones who needed to be seen. Sloane needed that.
It about killed me watching her whole body deflate in real time. I wanted to gather her up and carry her somewhere safe, which is the type of impulse that would make her furious, so I kept my mouth shut and let her walk into that bedroom and close the door.
And hated every minute of it.
The shower starts running, which seems like a good sign. There’s no amount of emotional wreckage that hot water can’t ease, at least temporarily.
I close the book with a silent apology to Henry David for my lack of focus, and move into the tiny kitchen.
The gas stove lights on the second try, and I set the pot of water I filled earlier onto the burner.
I find a bag of frozen meatballs in the freezer, plus a jar of marinara and a box of vermicelli on the shelf next to the fridge.
At least I can provide a meal that’s a step up from camp food.
I thought about checking for cell service so I could reach out to her friends and let them know we arrived safely. But this is Sloane’s story, so I’ll let her decide how to tell it.
I’m stirring the sauce when I hear the bathroom door open. “Something smells edible,” she says from behind me a moment later. Her voice is rough at the edges but steady, and the relief that floods me is so strong I have to lock my knees to keep from sinking to the floor.
She stands at the edge of the kitchen in leggings and an oversized flannel, her hair damp and her eyes red-rimmed but clear. And definitely daring me to comment on her emotional breakdown.
I hold up the spoon instead. “Frozen meatballs and jarred sauce, so set your expectations accordingly.”
“My expectations are currently set at freeze-dried pad Thai level, so you’re already exceeding them.” She leans against the counter, arms folded, and checks out the cabin. “This place is nice for being so remote.”
“It is.”
“I almost cried when I sat on an actual mattress, which would have been embarrassing if I hadn’t already been bawling my eyes out.”
She wraps the vulnerability in a joke, which I recognize as her pattern by now. It makes me want to reach for her. The need is so sharp it scratches my throat.
“You don’t have to pretend you’re okay,” I say.
“Pretending is one of my favorite things.” She holds my gaze for a beat, and then her mouth curves into an almost smile. “Is there any alcohol in this joint?”
I grin. “As a matter of fact, there’s a bottle of Prosecco in the fridge. Girlie drink.”
“Good thing I’m a girl.”
I pull the bottle out and work the cork free while she takes two mismatched cups from the cabinet. Both plastic and maybe a thousand years old.
I grimace. “There’s definitely BPA leaching out of those things.”
“But more dignified than guzzling out of the bottle,” she says with a laugh, then pours wine to the rim on both cups. We toast to nothing, and she takes a long sip while I turn back to the stove to check on the pasta.
Which is when I realize the sauce has gone from simmering to scorching. As I grab for the pot, Sloane appears at my elbow, hip-checking me away from the burner.
“I got this,” she says, reaching for the spoon. She scrapes the bottom of the pot, lowers the heat, then tastes the sauce from the spoon. “I love a hint of char in my sauce.”
“You make saving me look easy,” I tell her and wonder if she knows I’m talking about more than the sauce and my blistered feet.
“It is.” For a second, her expression is so unguarded and pleased, my pulse stutters in response. What I wouldn’t give to see that look on her face all the time.
We eat at the small wooden table in front of the window while the distant peaks fade to silhouettes. The meatballs are mediocre, and there’s way more than a hint of char, but it might be the best meal I’ve ever had. Because Sloane is across from me, and she doesn’t seem sad anymore.
She talks about the foods she missed during chemo and how everything tasted like metal for weeks.
The first thing she ate when her taste buds came back was a frosted strawberry Pop-Tart and cheese enchiladas from her favorite local Mexican restaurant in Skylark.
When she asks about my favorite food, I tell her about my mother’s chicken and dumplings, the meal she made on birthdays and special occasions.
“She didn’t write down the recipe, and I’ve been trying to reverse engineer it ever since.”
“How’s that going?” She tilts her head to study me, and I feel like a horny teenager with a crush on the homecoming queen.
I shrug as I feel my cheeks heat. “About as well as the sauce tonight. But I keep trying.”
Sloane twirls pasta around her fork. “Do you try with all the women you pursue across state lines, or am I special?”
“You’re special,” I say without hesitation, and feel gratified to know I’m not alone in the blushing.
“I bet the guitar works better than cooking when you want to impress a woman,” she says, steering us back to safe ground. “Like bringing a puppy to a park, except the puppy can play Willie Nelson.”
“The guitar does okay.”
She points her fork at me. “Okay, my ass. Veronica and her friends were ready to fight me for tent space.”
“You weren’t fighting anybody for tent space.”
“No,” she agrees, and her eyes hold mine over the rim of her faded plastic cup. “I wasn’t.”
We clean up together, moving around each other in the small kitchen with an ease that shouldn’t exist between two people who’ve shared trail meals, a tent, and a few nights that rearranged everything.
She washes, I dry, our shoulders brushing in the narrow space, and every point of contact sends a current through me that I’ve stopped trying to suppress.
By the time we finish, the daylight is completely gone.
The cozy cabin has no electricity, but there are enough solar lanterns to cast the interior in a golden light that makes the space feel disconnected from the rest of the world.
My heart is down for the idea of having no obligations beyond the woman drying dishes next to me.
“I guess I can pick my own book tonight,” she says when we finish, gesturing at the bookshelf. “You and Thoreau are off the hook.”
“Your book is on the shelf.”
She blinks. “I have a journal, not a book.”
“A signed copy of The Year of Losing It. A parting gift, apparently.”
Her eyes flame with surprise, then with anger. “Fuck that book,” she says. Then she shakes her head, pressing her fingers to her temples. “No, I don’t mean that. Her book means the world to me. Kristen Quinn—”
“Doesn’t deserve you.”
“What is it they say about not meeting your heroes?” She heaves a resigned sigh then moves toward the bookshelf but doesn’t make a selection.
“You don’t need a hero.” I’m tired of watching this woman lavish admiration on a stranger without seeing the good in herself. “You don’t need a self-help author to teach you how to be brave. You already are.”
She stares at me, a battle raging behind those blue eyes. The part that wants to believe me fighting the part that’s been telling herself she’s not enough for so long that it’s woven into the fabric of her being.
She picks up a worn paperback, turning it over in her hands. “I hiked through the backcountry to a cabin when I could have just rented an ATV or waited a few days and jumped a flight to Tahoe,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. “Real inspiring stuff.”
“What you chose to do was more than simply meeting your favorite author, and I wouldn’t have traded this trip for the world,” I tell her before letting myself wonder if the words are too revealing. I did, after all, follow her into the wilderness.
And the truth of it rings through me like a perfect chord. Somewhere between the first blister and this cabin, Sloane stopped being the one who got away and became the woman I want to build something real with going forward. A forever kind of real.
When she returns the paperback to the shelf and faces me, the lantern light catches the highlights in her dark hair and shadows the hollow of her throat peeking out from the buttoned-up flannel.
She looks young and fierce and tired and beautiful, and it takes every bit of willpower not to reach for her.
“Oh, I forgot.” She clasps her hands together. “There’s an old guitar in my bedroom. Will you play for me?”
I haven’t felt the level of scared shitless-ness that rushes through me since the first time I walked onstage at the Ryman.
I’ve performed for crowds of thousands, played in dozens of cancer units, and shared studio space with legends who made me feel like a rookie.
None of that compares to these nerves. Because I know playing for Sloane is going to expose more of me than any on-stage version of myself.
“Sure.” Okay, that sounded casual. Good start. “If you want me to.”
Her slow grin does grievous things to my composure. “I’d like that.” She sounds almost shy, as if she realizes the weight of this, too, which is enough to undo me completely.
“I’ll get it,” I say, needing a minute to get my pulse under control.
The guitar propped in the corner of the bedroom is an old Martin, its weight familiar and grounding. I sit on the bed to tune it, taking my time as the muscle memory settles my nerves.
When I come back out, Sloane is on the couch with the old blanket tucked around her legs.
She’s refilled our cups and watches me with an expression that’s equal parts anticipation and vulnerability.
Or maybe I’m projecting. But this is a moment I’m going to remember forever, no matter what comes next.
“Any requests?” I ask as I take a seat in the armchair across from her, the Martin resting on one knee.
“Something you wrote.”
I think about playing “I Will Find You.” Even if she’s heard Cody’s hit, I’m sure she doesn’t realize I wrote it for her. But it’s too much, too soon. She’s comfortable with me right now, and I don’t want to tip us out of this fragile equilibrium.
So I play “Lucky Me” in the arrangement I used in dive bars before it went viral.
The cabin is small enough that I don’t need to worry about projecting, and like all Martins, the guitar has a honeyed tone that fills the room.
Watching Sloane’s face, I’m hit with the realization that every performance I’ve ever given was practice for this one.
When the final note fades, Sloane’s eyes are bright in the lantern light, her lips slightly parted. “Welp. I see why the guitar works with the chicks.”
I laugh as our gazes hold and don’t bother to hide how much I want her. What’s the point when she has to see it all over my face? “There’s only one chick I care about.”
She blushes—God, that blush. It climbs her neck and spreads across her cheeks.
My mind is consumed with thoughts of devouring her until every inch of her carries that flush.
I launch into Johnny Cash—“Ring of Fire” and “Folsom Prison Blues”—then keep going, cherry-picking from the catalogs of artists who shaped me as a musician.
Playing for the woman who’s changing me in ways I didn’t see coming.
Holding a guitar has always been where I feel most myself, and the fact that Sloane looks happy means more to me than any sold-out stadium or platinum record.
Eventually, she starts yawning, and I press my palm against the strings to quiet them. “It’s getting late.” In the low light from the lanterns, it feels as if we’re suspended in our own little wilderness oasis, the rest of the world blurred at the edges. “I bet you’ll sleep well tonight.”
She unfolds herself from the couch and stretches her arms overhead in a way that lifts the flannel just enough to show a sliver of skin at her hip, and I look away in an act of self-preservation. Then she crosses the small space, and my hands go still on the guitar neck.
“I bet I’d sleep better if you were in bed with me.”
My brain short-circuits for a full three seconds. Her expression says she’s done running from this thing between us, and suddenly, I can’t catch a full breath.
“Yeah.” My voice sounds like I just dragged it across gravel, and I don’t care. “Hell, yes.”
“I like your enthusiasm.” She flashes a wicked grin and picks up the lantern from the table.
I stand and set the Martin on the chair. “I like everything about you,” I answer as she takes my hand and leads me down the hall.