10. Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Benji
It’s early, but the birds woke up at least half an hour before the sun, and the frogs never slept.
No one closed the curtains last night, so pale golden light is streaming in.
The throw pillow in my arms smells like Gina’s shampoo.
I took a big hit of that fragrance off the bottle when I showered last night.
That coconut and salt scent had me coming down the drain in a world-record-setting time.
Smelling that scent on the pillow is almost enough to convince my half-asleep brain that she’s lying beside me.
I'm pretty sure it’s Trouble curled up against my lower back. The purring gives it away. He wouldn’t go into the RV last night. He woke me up with zoomies at three am. I had a hard time falling back asleep.
But all that’s fine because I’m awake when Gina creeps into the kitchen barefoot in shorts and a loose T-shirt. She’s not wearing a bra, the dark cotton falling perfectly down the slope of her tits and over the tips. The morning sun limns her in gold.
Trouble uncurls himself, leaps over me, and trots over to wind around her long legs like he’s rubbing it in that he gets to touch her—little bastard.
I prop myself onto an elbow as Gina bends to pet him, her braid falling over her shoulder. She feeds him—Briar left his breakfast here—then watches him eat for half a minute, a sleepy smile on her face.
She has to know I’m up. But she ignores me, so I watch her make a pot of coffee. It feels intimate in the quiet morning. Or it does until I hear the lumber jackass roll over in bed.
Gina’s eyes land on me when I sit up and stretch.
My shirt is somewhere among the blankets of the sofa bed, but I don’t bother reaching for it.
Instead, I climb to my feet and stroll into the kitchen, right up to Gina, until the loose fabric of my joggers brushes her knees, and I have her backed against the counter.
Not too close, though. I’m not about to poke her with my morning wood.
“Good morning,” I whisper, reaching over her shoulder to grab a couple of mugs from the cupboard.
“How’d you sleep?” she whispers back.
I set the mugs on the counter behind her. “Not too bad.”
The coffee maker is still spluttering and burbling, but the aroma of rich coffee is already permeating the cool morning air.
I lean closer to her ear to ask, “How does my wife take her coffee?” and move back to watch her eyes dilate. “Sugar?” I slowly lift an eyebrow and grin at her. “Or cream?”
A sound that might be a whimper gets stuck in her throat. She places a single finger against my chest and pushes. I take a step back.
“Non-dairy creamer is in the fridge,” she says softly.
“You’re pretty when you blush,” I tell her before turning toward the fridge. There’s a vintage Smokey Bear on the front of her T-shirt, so I add, “But be careful. You could start a forest fire.”
She mumbles something about me being the real fire hazard. From her, that makes me ridiculously happy.
I feel the dark, menacing presence before I see him.
When I grab the creamer and close the fridge, Milo is in the kitchen, wearing plaid pajama pants and a faded Star Wars T-shirt.
He mumbles a good morning as he walks up to stand by the coffee pot, waiting for it to finish before pouring himself a cup.
He doesn’t pour one for her or me but takes his outside without a word.
“Not a morning person?” I ask, leaning against the counter next to Gina.
“He’s not.”
Milo sat out by the campfire for a long time last night and didn’t go to bed until long after Gina had. I should feel guilty about that since I’m the reason they’re fighting, but Gina doesn’t look unhappy as she pours us each a cup and stirs sugar and creamer into both.
My stomach grumbles, and I want to make her blush again, so I lean into her space. “You look good enough to eat for breakfast.”
Gina takes two steps to the pantry, digs around, and then tosses a packet of PopTarts at me. I catch it and laugh. “My second choice.” I’m already tearing into the wrapper—blueberry, my second favorite after brown sugar cinnamon.
“There’s a toaster,” she says, appalled as I take a bite.
“Too hungry,” I say between bites, holding up the half-eaten pastry. “This could be you.”
Gina laughs as she puts her PopTarts in the toaster. “You like messing with me.”
“Flirting with my wife is my new favorite thing. Admit it, you like it, too.”
She doesn’t admit it, but she also doesn’t deny it.
By the time her breakfast pops up, I’ve finished mine. Gina hands me another packet, and this time, I figure I might as well pretend I’m civilized, so I stick them in the toaster.
“What are we doing today?” I ask while I wait for the PopTarts to heat up.
The screen door sprangs , and the lumber-jerk walks back in. “You’re with me,” he says in a sleep-roughened voice.
Gina frowns. “What are you doing today?”
“A dead tree along Wood Duck Trail needs to be taken down before it can fall. Spotted it yesterday.”
“It needs to be done today?”
He refills his coffee. “Lucky it didn’t come down already in a storm, and with the forecast for this afternoon…” he shrugs.
Gina sighs, and as the toaster spits out my second helping of breakfast, my day isn’t looking as good as I’d hoped.
My wife’s fiancé is kind of a dick, and I’m pissed that I can’t bring myself to hate him.
I should hate him. He glowered at us last night when we came in dripping water everywhere, and those were some of the most awkward minutes of my life.
And that’s including telling my grandparents at Thanksgiving—in excruciating detail—what type of dancing my job entails while the rest of my family snickered behind their turkey.
And this morning, I’m paying for my skinny-dipping sins.
The thing is, Milo is so irritatingly good at this that I can’t stop myself from being in complete and total awe as I watch him work.
He lifts the chainsaw like it’s a toy, and even though his muscles strain, he’s still steady.
There’s no hesitation—he cuts down that tree like he was made for it.
Then he sets to work, cutting it up into massive chunks.
Most of the time, Gina told me as we finished breakfast, they leave fallen trees to decompose—providing shelter and food for wildlife, eventually breaking down into the soil. But the camp also needs firewood, so trees that fall across the trails get chopped up and hauled back.
My job is to load those chunks into the back of the trailer. And reload them when he tells me we could fit more in and take fewer trips if I did it right. It’s a lot of heavy lifting and a lot more standing around watching him work.
I can work a reception desk or make a latte easily enough—I’ve done those jobs before. But suddenly, it doesn’t feel like enough. Anyone can do those things, but not anyone can work a chainsaw like a goddamn pagan god.
By the time we’ve cleared the last of the tree—all the useful logs to the woodshed and the rest left to decompose—clouds have covered the sky, and the air is thick and soupy. Bark and dirt stick to my sweaty skin, I’m scratched to hell, and I’d give anything for a dip in the lake or a cold shower.
But Milo has other ideas. After a quick lunch, we’re back at the woodshed to chop kindling. This time, I get an axe.
It doesn’t look all that hard. Milo raises his axe over his head and brings it down swiftly onto a piece of wood. It cleaves neatly in half.
I set a small log on the large stump, raise the axe, and bring it down, and—
My axe sinks into the log, which doesn’t split in half. It doesn’t split at all, but the blade of my axe is stuck fast. Nothing I do frees it, so I raise the axe—embedded log and all—over my head to bring the entire thing down onto the stump.
“Don’t do that,” Milo snaps. “It’ll hit you on the head if it comes loose.”
I lower it back to the stump.
Milo comes over, easily pulls the axe free, then shows me, in slow motion, where to put my hands and how to let my dominant hand slide down as I swing.
He’s not trying to make me feel dumb—at least, I don’t think he is—but something in the brusque way he demonstrates the right way to do it after letting me fail on my own has me wondering if today is about making a point.
He’s out here, where he belongs, lumberjacking away with all those muscles and that ridiculous man bun and coming home every night to my wife. Who the hell am I to threaten that?
My next attempt is better, although the log doesn’t split as cleanly as his. There’s something satisfying about it, though.
Milo doesn’t tell me I did it wrong. He returns to his pile of wood and gets back to work, all fluid movements and bulging muscles, logs splitting cleanly for him one after another.
I can do this.
It doesn’t take long for me to get into the rhythm of the job.
Soon, the sound of axes on wood blocks the sounds of birds and insects in the forest around us.
My finished pile grows. I’m moving faster, muscles remembering, the axe an extension of my arms, my entire body.
It feels good, like nailing choreography.
Milo picks up speed. When I look over, there’s a sheen of sweat on his brow and an intense look on his face.
I’ve caught up—or nearly. Okay, not really, but I’m doing good, and he’s moving faster, which makes this a race. All I have to do to win is not let him beat me as badly as he expects to beat me. Right now, I’m winning.
Sweat drips down my face, down my nose. I grab another log and another. My arms are burning, but I push through it because he’s not slowing down.
This isn’t about the wood. It was never about the wood.
I bring my axe down, and there’s a loud crack and a sharp slap of pain against my shin as a large splintered hunk of wood tries to take off my leg. I drop the axe, grab my shin, and hop on my good leg until I can slump onto the stump.
Slowly, I lift my hands. Ah, shit—there’s blood.
I’m not good with blood. It’s mildly better when it’s my own, but it still makes me feel lightheaded.
Milo drops his axe, his chest heaving. He’s as sweaty as me, but he’s still standing and not bleeding, so fuck. I guess he wins. Not that he looks particularly triumphant or smug. He doesn’t look concerned or guilty, either.
“Let’s see,” he says.
I keep my eyes on him as I lift my hands.
“Probably doesn’t need stitches. Walk back to the lodge, and Diana can take a look.” He points to a trail through the woods. “That’ll take you to the lodge faster than the road. Just stay on the main trail.”
The trail looks overgrown even from here. Maybe today isn’t about showing me I don’t belong. Maybe today is about showing me how unwelcome I am.
He goes back to work, dismissing me. Like I’m not good at anything that matters. Would Gina feel the same? She’s choosing to marry him.
Is she, though? There’s no spark between them. They act like two people who have known each other for a long time and are comfortable together, but not like two people madly in love.
But what do I know? When I’m with Gina, I feel like I’ve known her all my life, but maybe I don’t know her at all. Maybe she wants a grumpy lumberjack to take care of her.
I grab my water bottle, pouring some over my hands to wash off the blood. I pour some over my shin next, but my stomach flips when I try to look closer. I have to close my eyes until the lightheaded feeling passes.
There’s no way in hell I’m going to ask Milo for a ride or admit I’d feel better taking the road. So, I start down the trail.
Stick to the main trail . Easy. It’ll take me less than ten minutes to get to the lodge. My leg doesn’t hurt much when I don’t think about it.
Ten minutes pass, but the trail is wider all of a sudden. Better maintained. The saunas should be around here somewhere, and beyond them, the cabins and the lodge, but there’s nothing—just woods. I can’t even see the lake from here.
My trail ends as it intersects another trail. The forest to the right looks thicker and darker. To the left, there might be a clearing.
Thunder rumbles in the distance as I head to the left, hoping the clearing will give me a view of something. I reach it a minute later. There’s nothing—only more woods.
Shit.
The next rumble of thunder is closer. I have to keep walking. Sooner or later, I’ll encounter a trail marker. The map Gina gave me is in my pocket, so if I walk until I find one, I’ll know which trail I’m on.
Not that I’ll know which direction to go.
When the first fat drop of rain lands on my head, and I still haven’t found a marker post, I finally admit it—I’m lost.