2. Chapter 2
Beck
The cabin settles around me with its familiar creaks and sighs as I bank the fire for the night.
Wood smoke mingles with the pine scent drifting through the cracked window, a combination that never gets old after five years up here.
The day's work left my shoulders tight. Fence repair is not getting any easier at forty-two, but there’s satisfaction in problems that can be fixed with honest labor.
Mountain life suits me. Has since the day I drove up here with nothing but a truck full of tools and a need to disappear from everything that had gone wrong down in the valley.
No neighbors dropping by unannounced, no traffic, no complications, and no ex wives.
Just me, my dog Rex, the trees, and enough space to think with no one else's noise crowding in.
My phone sits silent on the kitchen counter where it belongs. Most days it stays that way. The occasional text from my sister checking I haven’t fallen off a cliff, maybe a supply delivery confirmation, but that’s about it. People learned not to expect much from me in the communication department.
The phone buzzes just as I pull off my shirt for bed. Rex’s ears perk up as he lifts his head from his bed.
Eleven PM. It’s either an emergency or a wrong number, and emergencies rarely announce themselves with text messages.
Probably someone looking for their teenager who missed curfew or a delivery mix-up.
Happens more often than you’d think when you live at the end of a dirt road that GPS thinks leads to three different addresses.
The screen lights up, and for a solid ten seconds my brain refuses to process what it’s showing me.
There’s a woman. There are breasts. There are a lot of words in all caps about cantaloupe and grapefruit and kidney selling, and my thumb “accidentally” hits the photo to make it bigger before I can stop myself.
"What the hell."
The image fills the screen now, and despite every reasonable instinct telling me to delete this immediately and pretend it never happened, I actually look. Not in a creepy way, but in the way you might study a car accident. Horrible and fascinating and impossible to ignore.
She’s pretty. That hits me first, which makes me feel even more of an ass for staring.
Soft curves and golden skin, standing in front of a mirror with her hair falling in waves over one shoulder.
The lighting is terrible and the camera quality worse, but there’s something about her expression that makes my chest tighten in ways it hasn’t in years.
Her breasts look fine. Better than fine, actually, they’re fucking perfect, though I'm not the guy she meant to ask. And I definitely shouldn't be looking this long. Salivating like one of Pavlov’s dogs.
The panic in her message is almost endearing. Emergency with three exclamation points, like asymmetrical breasts, might constitute a crisis worth calling in the cavalry. She sounds drunk and dramatic and is convinced her friend Maya needs to solve this catastrophe immediately.
Maya. Definitely not my name.
Common sense says to ignore this, let her figure out her mistake on her own, maybe block the number if she keeps sending pictures. That’d be the smart thing. The normal thing.
Instead, I type. My brain has taken the night off and left my fingers in charge.
Me: Lady, I think you've got the wrong number. But for what it's worth, they look fine to me.
I hit send before I can reconsider.
The response comes back so fast she must’ve been staring at her phone.
Her: OH MY GOD. Oh no. Oh no no no. This is not Maya, is it?
Me: Not unless Maya is a guy named Beck who lives on a mountain and minds his own business.
Her: I’m going to die. Actually die. Right here in my apartment. They’ll find my body clutched around this stupid phone and know that I died of mortification after sending boob pics to a random stranger.
Her: I am so sorry. SO SORRY. Please delete that immediately and pretend this never happened. I’ll change my number and move to another state.
A laugh escapes. Actual laughter, rusty from disuse but real. When was the last time anything amused me? Months, maybe longer.
Her: Oh god you’re probably married with kids, and your wife is going to see this and think you’re cheating with some crazy drunk woman who doesn’t know her own bra size.
Me: No wife. No kids. Just me and a very confused dog who is wondering why I’m laughing at my phone.
Her: You have a dog? What kind? This is me trying to change the subject of my spectacular humiliation. *Hint: take the change of topic.*
I chuckle again. This girl’s funny, and I can tell she isn’t trying to be.
Me: German Shepherd mix. He’s judging you less than you’re judging yourself.
Rex stares and gives me a look that says, "You're texting strangers at 11 PM. I'm judging you plenty."
Her: That’s good because I’m judging myself VERY harshly right now. Also, I don’t really have a Maya emergency protocol. I just panicked.
Me: Maya emergency protocol?
Her: You know, like when you need your best friend to tell you that your life isn’t falling apart and your boobs are normal and maybe eat ice cream while trash-talking your ex, who just got engaged to a yoga instructor.
The honesty in that message hits differently. She’s having a rough night, drunk and vulnerable and texting strangers for reassurance. Something about her rambling messages makes me want to help instead of hanging up like any sensible person would do.
Me: Rough day?
Her: The actual worst. Like if bad days were Olympic events, today would win gold, silver, and bronze.
Me: Want to talk about it?
Three dots appear and disappear several times before her response comes through.
Her: You don’t want to hear about my disaster life, trust me. You seem nice and normal and have better things to do than listen to drunk strangers complain.
Me: It’s 11 PM on a Tuesday. I’ve got nowhere to be.
Five years of peaceful mountain living and it takes one drunk woman's boobs to turn me into a chatty advice columnist. What the hell is going on with me? I’m of the mind that people should mind their own business, and deal with their own shit.
Not invite conversation with a complete stranger over text messages.
Her: You’re nice for a random mountain man. Are you real, or is this some kind of elaborate wrong-number dream?
Me: Real enough. And you can stop apologizing for the photo. It wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me today.
Or the past year.
Her: That’s both reassuring and concerning. What happened to you today?
Me: Spent four hours fixing a fence that a bear knocked down. Again. Same bear, same fence, third time this month. Thinking he’s doing it on purpose.
Her: A bear has beef with your fence specifically?
Me: Apparently. Either that or he’s the world's worst construction critic.
Her: I snorted. Actually snorted at that. Thank you for making me laugh instead of making me feel like a creepy weirdo.
Me: You’re not creepy. Drunk, maybe. But not creepy.
Her: Drunk is accurate. Wine drunk, which is the most dangerous kind because it makes you think you are deep and philosophical when realistically you’re just messy.
Me: What is your non-drunk emergency contact situation like?
Her: Maya. Best friends since college. Long-suffering saint who deserves better than midnight boob consultations.
Me: Probably should text the right number next time.
Her: Probably should lay off the wine next time. But where’s the fun in that?
The conversation flows easier than it should. She’s funny in a way that doesn’t feel like she’s trying too hard, and there’s something refreshing about talking to someone who knows nothing about my history or why I ended up alone on this mountain.
My thumb hovers over her contact info. The smart thing would be to wish her luck and end this here. Clean break back to my quiet routine.
Instead, I save her number as "Drunk Boob Lady" and realize I'm smiling for the second time tonight.
Her: I should let you get back to your mountain man routine. Thank you for being sweet about my spectacular mortification.
Me: Not a problem. Hope tomorrow is better.
Her: It cannot be worse. But thank you, Beck the Mountain Man. You’re a good human.
The phone goes dark, and the cabin feels quieter than usual. Rex is still giving me the side-eye from his bed, wondering why his hermit human suddenly discovered social skills.
Drunk Boob Lady. What are the odds she'll remember any of this tomorrow?
What are the odds I'll delete that photo like a decent human being?
Yeah, we both know the answer to that one.