Chapter Five | SUNNY
Chapter Five
SUNNY
I woke to Flint’s cabin breathing around me.
It wasn’t literally breathing, because I was a culinary professional with a functioning understanding of architecture. The rough pine walls didn’t have lungs. The old roof beams didn’t sigh.
But morning moved through that small ridge cabin in slow, golden bands, and every quiet sound felt too intimate.
Wind brushed the screens. A jay scolded something outside.
Somewhere below the porch, water ran over creek stones, bright and steady, like last night had left an echo in the mountain and the mountain had decided to play it back for me before breakfast.
I lay still in Flint’s bed with his gray T-shirt riding high on my thighs and my hair loose across his pillow.
A sane woman would have sat up, checked the time, found her clothes, and remembered she had a final round to prep for.
I pressed my face into Flint’s pillow instead.
The cotton held yesterday’s smoke and the warm, clean trace he’d left in it.
That wasn’t a brand note. That wasn’t a recipe note. That was a very serious problem wearing yesterday’s beard burn on the inside of my thigh.
My cheeks heated. I squeezed my eyes shut, which did nothing except make the pictures sharper. I saw Flint on his knees by the creek, his rough hands gentle on my hips, asking, “Tell me what you want,” like my answer mattered more than his own hunger.
And then Flint proving, with almost unfair dedication, that my answer mattered very much.
A floorboard creaked below the sleeping loft.
I opened one eye.
Flint stood at the bottom of the ladder in worn jeans and a dark T-shirt, barefoot, holding two mugs like he hadn’t personally rearranged my understanding of campfire safety, marshmallow physics, and adult decision-making.
“Good morning,” he said.
His voice had sleep in it, low and rough and unfair, the kind that should’ve required a permit near open flame.
I sat up and immediately remembered the T-shirt situation. The hem slid higher on my thighs. Flint’s gaze dropped for half a second before he looked at my face.
That half second did more damage than a full speech.
“Good morning,” I said, smoothing the shirt down with all the dignity available to a woman wearing another person’s cotton and very little else. “I’m going to need you to stop looking like that before I’ve had coffee.”
“Looking like what?”
“Like a man who knows exactly what happened in that bed and is being polite about it.”
His mouth moved. It wasn’t a full smile. Flint Sparks rationed smiles like they came from an emergency supply kit and we were down to the last box.
“I brought coffee.”
“I note the deflection.”
“I also brought breakfast.”
That got me moving. “Breakfast may proceed.”
He climbed the ladder one-handed, which was unnecessary and therefore rude, and handed me a mug.
Real coffee, dark and hot, with just enough cream to keep it from tasting like punishment.
The smell curled into the warm loft air, mixing with cedar and the faint smoky sweetness still in my hair from last night.
On the little tray tucked against his forearm sat two tin plates: thick toast, scrambled eggs, and sliced peaches glossy with honey.
“I thought you said you weren’t a chef,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“You brought me peaches in bed.”
“I own a knife.”
“That explains the slicing, not the emotional ambush.”
He set the tray between us and sat on the edge of the mattress. The bed dipped under his weight. My bare knee brushed his denim-covered thigh, and the tiny contact sent a spark through me sharp enough to make me tighten both hands around the mug.
Flint caught the movement. The man could spot sideways smoke from a ridge. My knee had no chance.
“We need to get you back before Caprice turns the meadow into a search grid,” he said.
I took a sip of coffee. “Caprice would call it a compelling behind-the-scenes segment.”
“Do they know where you went?”
“She knows I left the meadow after wrap. She doesn’t know I stayed.”
His hand stilled on the edge of the tray.
I added, “Joelle probably suspects I’m alive because my camper hasn’t exploded from neglect. Ed suspects nothing because Ed doesn’t want to know anything unless it affects battery life.”
Flint nodded once. “No one needs to know unless you want them to.”
His hand stayed on the tray, steady and open, not claiming a thing.
And somehow, that made my chest hurt more than if he’d swaggered around the cabin like last night had been a victory lap.
I set my mug on the floor beside the bed. “Is that what we’re doing?”
His eyes met mine. Blue-gray in morning light, softer around the edges than the first day, still serious enough to stop my mouth before it ran ahead of me.
“What do you want to be doing?”
I laughed once, too quiet. “That question was much more fun last night.”
Heat moved across his face, quick and controlled. “You know what I mean.”
“I know.” I picked up a peach slice because it gave my hands a job. “The final round is today. One of us wins. One of us loses. Caprice gets her footage, the sponsor gets its drama, and then everyone has to decide what was competition pressure and what was...”
I stopped.
Flint waited.
He sat beside me in the morning light, bare feet on the pine floor, coffee cooling in his hand, and waited.
The problem was, I didn’t know how.
Had last night been chemistry, bad judgment, a marshmallow-related emotional incident, or a private detour before he went back to his ridge and I went back to my invoices, pop-ups, and people asking whether my food was supposed to be cute?
I bit into the peach instead.
Juice ran over my thumb.
Flint reached for the napkin on the tray. I reached at the same time. Our fingers bumped.
Both of us froze like the napkin had turned into a live coal.
Then he took it slowly, wrapped it around my thumb, and wiped the honey away.
My breath caught.
“I don’t know what this is yet,” Flint said. “I know I don’t want you walking back into that meadow thinking last night was nothing.”
My grip tightened around the peach slice.
“Good,” I said. “Because I was prepared to throw this breakfast at you if you did.”
“I’d deserve it.”
“You would. The peaches are excellent, so it would’ve been a tragic waste.”
The smile it earned was small, crooked, and devastating.
He lifted his mug. “Can we start with breakfast and getting you back safe?”
I reached for the toast. “We can start there.”
Starting there sounded safer than admitting the rest of me wanted to start with his hands, his bed, and an alternate universe where final rounds, cameras, prize money, and emotional consequences could wait until Tuesday.
We ate in the loft with our shoulders almost touching. Flint gave me the better piece of toast without commenting on it. I didn’t comment on him giving it to me. The cabin warmed slowly around us, and the creek kept talking below the porch.
By the time I found my shorts, my red sleeveless top, and the bandana I’d worn around my wrist last night, the clock on Flint’s shelf said eight-fifteen.
I stared at it. “I’m dead.”
“You’re not dead.”
“Caprice is going to kill me, which is similar but includes more emails.”
“She texted?”
“My phone is at the camper. Which means Joelle has either assumed I’m fine or begun making a spreadsheet of my possible final resting places.”
Flint pulled on his boots. “I’ll drive you down.”
“I can walk.”
He looked at me.
I held up a finger. “I said I can walk. I didn’t say I should walk. I call that growth.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“Be careful. I’m vulnerable and holding toast.”
He picked up my folded clothes from the chair and handed them to me. “The bathroom’s yours.”
I took them. His T-shirt brushed my thighs as I stepped past him, and his hand touched my lower back for one steady second.
The touch held me there without pushing.
I went into the bathroom before I did something wildly mature, like ask him whether he wanted me to stay forever while wearing yesterday’s shorts and no bra.
The mirror over his small sink wasn’t kind, but it was honest. My hair was a coppery riot. My lips looked swollen. My freckles had taken full advantage of the sun, and my cheeks still held a soft color I couldn’t blame on blush.
I looked like a woman who’d spent the night being wanted.
That thought should’ve made me panic.
Instead, I straightened my shoulders, pulled my clothes on, tied the bandana around my wrist, and finger-combed my hair into something that might pass for intentionally tousled if everyone on set agreed to be generous.
When I stepped out, Flint had packed the tray and put a small canvas bag by the door.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I packed extra water, a clean towel, and your wedges from yesterday.”
I blinked. “You rescued Liza Minnelli?”
“She was in my truck bed.”
“She has endured so much.”
“The left buckle may not recover.”
I pressed a hand to my heart. “She gave everything for the brand.”
Flint opened the cabin door. “Wear better shoes today.”
“I brought better shoes today.”
“Actual better, or Sunny better?”
“Those are two different but equally valid categories.”
He held the door for me. “That answer worries me.”
“It should.”
Outside, Fire Mountain had put on Sunday like it wanted credit for the lighting.
Sun cut through the pines in clean angles.
The air smelled of warm dust, sap, dry grass, and the faint cold ribbon of creek water.
Flint’s truck sat in the clearing, battered, practical, and exactly the sort of vehicle that could survive my family’s fairground parking lot without developing a personality disorder.
We drove down the ridge road with the windows cracked. Gravel popped under the tires. My knee brushed the canvas bag when the truck bounced over ruts. Flint kept one hand on the wheel and one near the gearshift, his forearm scar pale in the morning light.
I wanted to touch it.