Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Tessa
Iwake slowly. Not with the jolt of panic and my alarm blaring, the way I’ve grown used to over the last few years of being a student, thinking I overslept.
I take a moment to revel in that thought. There’s nowhere I need to be today. No class that I’m running late for. No exam I need to study for.
The only place I need to be is here in this moment.
In this extremely comfortable, warm bed.
Holt’s bed.
It takes a second for that to hit me.
I’m in my dad’s best friend’s bed.
My eyes snap open. I’m wide awake now.
Rain is still pounding on the metal roof, only it’s faded to a soft thrumming now. Either that or I’ve already grown used to it. Either way, the wild wind from the night before that sent a tree branch crashing down on the roof seems to have settled, too.
I sit up, the heavy quilt slipping down to my lap as the memories of the night before come rushing back: the storm, the crash on the roof, the couch in front of the fire, Holt, his shoulder strong and comforting beneath my cheek.
The last thing I remember was sitting next to him and feeling safe and warm right before I fell asleep.
He must have carried me to bed.
The thought sends a strange flutter through my chest. I glance around the room, taking it in properly in the light of day. The big dresser against the wall matches the bed with its simple elegance. There’s a stack of fresh towels on top, but nothing more. No pictures, no books. Nothing personal.
A chair in the corner holds a stack of neatly folded clothes. The faint, unmistakable scent of him clings to the pillows. Pine and soap and… something all him.
I lean back against the headboard and close my eyes for a moment, imagining what it would have been like if he’d stayed with me last night.
What would it have been like to wake up wrapped in those thick, strong arms? Pressed up against his chest, held safe and protected from the raging storm outside.
The image slips into my mind, the way countless fantasies of Holt have taken up residency in my imagination over the years, only this one is different because it’s based in reality. It’s so much more than the fantasy of a young girl who has built up the perfect man in her mind.
This feels right.
Very, very right.
The realization settles into me and has me reaching for the nightstand where I left my journal the night before, flipping to a fresh page.
Writing in my journal is more than a habit for me; it’s more like an obsession—a way to deal with the things in my head that feel too big to process.
I did it. I left school.
The decision to leave school only a few months away from graduating with my finance degree was pretty major, to say the least.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it anymore; I just… couldn’t.
I felt like I was suffocating at school, and it wasn’t just the classes.
It was everything. I didn’t fit there. It wasn’t my future.
Every morning when I woke up, I felt a little more like I was dying inside.
It was like I was trying to force myself into a sweater that was too small.
I’d been trying so hard to be a version of myself that just didn’t fit.
I hadn’t even told my mom yet. I couldn’t figure out how to tell her that, after all she’d sacrificed as a single mom, I just couldn’t do it.
Part of me was hoping that after a visit to Iron Peak and my dad, I might have some kind of great insight on how to break it to her that I chose something else.
Something more.
I jot down Holt’s name without even thinking about it. Not that I should be surprised. Besides the whole quitting school thing, waking up in the bed of the man who’d been the object of my fantasies my whole life was up there with things in my head that were way too big to process.
And really, I’ve been writing about him for years. Not like this, of course. It’s never been real. Never tangible.
He’s always been a quiet measuring stick that I’ve used to size up every man I’ve met. And every single one of them fell short in ways I could never quite explain.
Because they weren’t him.
They weren’t the man who, even as a child, made me feel special. Made me feel seen and heard. And safe.
I pause, my pen hovering over the page as the memory surfaces, just as vivid as if it hadn’t been over a decade ago.
I’m twelve again, sitting on the steps outside of my parents’ place before they divorced, knees pulled up to my chest, head down, trying to hide because one of Dad’s other friends had laughed at me. I know now he hadn’t meant anything by it when he asked why I didn’t have a boyfriend.
He’d just been playing. But I’d been so sensitive back then, the last of my friends to hit puberty, I was already self-conscious, and I took his teasing to heart. Worse, I let it get to me and cried in front of them all.
Holt noticed and stepped in. He didn’t make a big show of it or turn it into a big deal; he simply stepped between us, turned to his buddy, and said, “Enough.”
That was it. Just one word. That was all it had taken.
The guy backed off immediately, muttering an apology, and even though I was already upset, I could tell he hadn’t meant anything by it, but the damage had been done.
I ran outside in tears, where Holt found me a few minutes later.
“You okay?”
I nodded, even though my throat was tight.
He crouched down so we were at eye level. “He didn’t mean anything by it,” he told me, and I nodded. “But that still doesn’t mean you need to take that from him,” he continued. “Not from anyone. Ever.”
No one had ever said anything like that to me before.
It changed something in me, and at the same time, it lit a spark.
I didn’t fall for him because he was handsome—although even at my young age, I recognized how good-looking he was. But I fell for him because in that moment, he made me feel safe. And like I mattered. That I was more than just a dumb kid.
That was the moment the standard had been set.
Holt
I’m up before the light fully breaks over the trees.
Not that I slept much anyway.
The cot might as well have been a slab of concrete for all the rest I got.
All night, the wind rattled the cabin, branches snapped, and the rain came down in driving sheets against the metal roof.
But I’ve slept through dozens of storms before. None of them have kept me awake. Not like this.
No. The real reason for my restlessness is currently asleep in my bed.
I pause at her closed door as I make my way into the kitchen, but only for a moment.
What I really need this morning is distance.
The little bit of sleep I did manage to get was fueled by dreams of her.
The sweet strawberry smell of her shampoo when I wrapped my hand through her blonde tresses. Her long, lean, bare legs and how damn delicious they looked spread wide for me. Her tits, bared to me for the first time. Her dusky nipples, hard and peaked between my lips as I—no!
Fuck. I’ve spent the last few hours trying to banish thoughts of my best friend’s daughter from my brain long enough for my aching erection to go away. I have no business thinking of Tessa that way, no matter how fucking gorgeous she is. Or how good she felt in my arms.
Distance.
Yes. That’s what I need this morning.
I busy myself, building the fire back up. Outside, the storm has calmed down and settled into a steady, driving rain, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up soon. And in weather like this, I wouldn’t be surprised if the power goes out completely, too.
In the kitchen, I crack a few eggs, pull the bacon out of the fridge, and pour some pancake mix into a bowl.
I’ve always liked cooking, but with no one but myself to cook for, it’s hardly worth it to do more than make toast in the mornings.
Soon, I lose myself in the simple rhythm of preparing breakfast, focusing on the things I can control, like heat, temperature, and timing. It makes sense, and soon I feel my nervous system settling down a little.
Last night shouldn’t have meant anything. Tessa was tired and scared. She’d sought out comfort and safety with me; that was all. It wasn’t anything more.
That’s what I tell myself.
But it’s not enough, and the truth is, I didn’t move her off my shoulder right away because I wanted her to rest.
That would have been the selfless thing.
But nothing about letting Tessa curl her sweet body into mine had been selfless.
Exactly the opposite.
It had been a long time since I’d felt a woman’s touch and even longer since it had felt like that.
If ever.
I tighten my jaw and flip the eggs, once more forcing thoughts of her out of my head.
She’s young.
She’s passing through.
Fuck. She’s Luke’s kid.
That should be the only reason I need, and it’s the one thing I latch onto as I grab plates from the shelf over the counter.
I can handle this. I just need to remember who she is and what my job is here.
Keep her safe until Luke gets back.
That’s it.
Simple.
Tessa
I write faster, my thoughts tumbling out. About wanting to leave. About needing space. About the decision I’ve already made to blow up my life as I’ve known it and go traveling.
I need to disappear for a while and figure things out on my own terms.
All of this is temporary, I remind myself as I write. This little stop in Iron Peak is just a moment. It’s not my life.
I won’t see him again.
As the words appear on the page in my handwriting, they feel like permission.
I stare down at the page, pen hovering, my breath coming faster with the realization.
This feels like fate.
I’m not usually one to believe in things lining up perfectly for a reason. At least, I didn’t before now. But here I am, and it’s really hard to deny the timing of it all.
I’m in the middle of nowhere, led here by a spur-of-the-moment decision, sharing a cozy cabin with the man who’s lived rent-free in my head for years.
Holt was the first man I ever wanted. The one who set the bar so high that no one else quite measured up.
And now he’s real.