Chapter 22 #2
“You’re so sweet,” Oliver says. He leans across the seat to kiss me.
Even though I know that it’s just for show, I still feel a jolt of electricity when his lips meet mine.
It starts as a peck on the lips, but he stops before pulling away completely.
Our lips reconnect, and then I feel his hand in my hair and I’m brought back to that moment in his bathroom before we were interrupted.
“Let’s keep it PG back there, okay?” Tina says.
I pull away and look at the front of the car. Tina watches us through the mirror on her visor. I stick my tongue out at her. “Okay, mom,” I say in my brattiest voice.
We listen to loud music the rest of the way to the cabin.
About halfway there, Oliver gets tired and lies down across the backseat, resting his head in my lap.
My hand ends up on the side of his head.
Without really thinking about it, I run my fingers through his short brown hair.
When I notice what I’m doing, I pause. Oliver reaches up to take the hand that was in his hair and holds it against his chest. I can feel the beat of his heart.
The steady rhythm relaxes me. I keep my hand there for the rest of the drive.
“We’re here!” Tina squeals.
I’m roused out of a half-asleep state. Oliver shoots up into a sitting position. We both look out the window as the car turns off the main road and onto a dirt road that seems to lead into a dark forest.
“This is it?” I ask. I lean closer to the window to try to get a glimpse of the cabin.
“It’s another half mile up this road,” Ryan says.
I turn away from the window to look at Tina. “Are you sure they’re not luring us here to kill us?” I ask her. “This seems like the kind of place where no one will hear us screaming.”
“The bedroom walls are pretty thin, so try to keep the screaming to a minimum,” Ryan says.
“Unless you like an audience,” Tina adds.
“I don’t know about an audience,” Oliver whispers into my ear. “But I’ll have you screaming.”
My face heats, even as his words send a shiver down my body. I turn to look at him. He’s still so close that my nose bumps his and I can feel his breath on my lips. Before I can think of what to do next, the car comes to a stop.
“There it is,” Ryan announces. “Home sweet home for the weekend.”
Oliver and I turn away from each other to look out the window at the cabin.
It’s a two-level building with log siding.
There’s a wooden porch that wraps around the whole house, and on the front of the cabin are windows that extend from the floor all the way to the arched roof.
I wasn’t expecting it to be this nice. I know that Tina and Ryan are rich, but this is Ryan’s parents’ cabin.
They didn’t have any money until Ryan made it big.
He and Tina made all of their money from designing apps, which is also how they met.
Since this cabin has been in Ryan’s family since long before that, I guess I assumed it would be a lot smaller, like a hunting cabin with four walls and an outhouse.
This cabin is by no means a mansion, but it’s nicer than my apartment.
Then again, most places are nicer than my apartment.
I get out of the car and take in the view.
We’re surrounded by tall pines as far as the eye can see.
Beyond the pines are mountains with hiking trails, which I only know about because Tina told me.
There are stacks of wood on one side of the wraparound porch.
A porch swing hangs by the front door, looking inviting.
It’s colder up here in the mountains than it is back home.
Even though the sun is out, I find myself wishing I had worn a long sleeve shirt.
“Let’s get inside,” Tina says. “I want to unpack and go for a hike.”
“A hike?” Oliver and I repeat at the same time. I exchange a look with him, and then I look back at Tina.
“We were just in the car for four hours,” I remind her. “Don’t you want to relax for a bit?”
“I just relaxed for four hours in the car,” she says. “How much more relaxing do I need to do? I need to stretch my legs.” She narrows her eyes and looks back and forth between me and Oliver, then smiles. “Oh, I get it. You were hoping for a little alone time with Oliver.”
“No. I mean—yeah, but…” I trail off and start over. “I guess we could go for a hike.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I brought something special for you two for later.”
I frown. “What did you bring?”
“Come inside and find out,” she says. “It’s in my bag.”
We grab the bags from the trunk and head inside.
The front door opens onto a large main room.
The open kitchen is on one side, a living area in the middle, with a fireplace on the other side.
There’s a staircase toward the back of the room that leads up to the second-floor landing, where I can see the bedroom doors lining the far wall.
It doesn’t smell dusty like I might have expected for a cabin that goes unused for weeks or months at a time.
It smells like fresh cedar with a hint of cleaning product.
“Wow. It’s so clean in here.” I run a finger over the top of the kitchen table. No dust.
“We have a cleaning service that comes in monthly and again whenever we’re planning a trip,” Ryan says.
“So the beds are nice and clean,” Tina says with a wink.
I ignore her, hoping for a subject change. “What’s the special thing you brought?”
She smiles, then lifts her suitcase up onto the table and unzips it. Without letting me see inside, she digs through her things for a minute, then pulls out a thick foil square. She holds it up, letting it unfold as it drops down to reveal a long strip of foil-wrapped condoms.
My jaw drops, and I blush. I’m sure my face is bright red. I don’t dare to look at Oliver.
“Why would you bring these?” I ask when I can compose myself again. “You don’t think we have our own?”
She shrugs. “Just want to make extra sure you’re careful. It’s bad luck to conceive a baby in a cabin.”
Oliver snorts behind me, which makes me laugh too. “I don’t think that’s a thing, Tina,” I tell her. “And I don’t think anyone here is talking about having babies.”
“Talking doesn’t make babies,” she says. She holds the condoms out, forcing me to take them. “Sex without these does.”
“How many even are there?” Oliver asks. I don’t realize how close he is until he reaches around my shoulder to take the condoms out of my hand. “Twenty? Who needs that many condoms for one weekend?”
Tina stares at him blankly, then looks at me. “I feel bad for you, Priscilla. You need a man with better stamina.”
“No, I agree with him,” I say. “That’s like…” I do the math in my head. “We would need to have sex at least ten times a day if you don’t count Sunday morning. And even then, that’s a lot.”
She grits her teeth. “Is it, though?”
Oliver and I both turn to look at Ryan. He looks like a deer caught in a pair of headlights. Then, choosing to ignore us, he grabs some of the bags from the floor. “I’m going to put these away. You guys want to come upstairs and choose your room?”
It’s not until he says those words that it fully occurs to me that I’m going to be sleeping in the same room as Oliver tonight.
And tomorrow night too. I knew this would probably be the case when I agreed to stay the weekend here, but it doesn’t fully register until now.
It would seem weird if Oliver and I insisted on staying in separate rooms.
We follow Ryan upstairs.
“This one’s ours,” he says, stepping into the first room. I peek inside. The room is huge and has the largest bed I’ve ever seen. It’s almost twice the size of a normal king bed. I don’t know why Tina and Ryan would need a bed that size and I’m not about to ask.
Oliver and I keep moving down the hall. The next room has two sets of twin-size bunk beds. I look at Oliver to gauge his reaction. Choosing the bunk bed room might be even weirder than two separate rooms. He shakes his head.
We stop in the doorway of the third room in the hall. This one has a king size bed, which is perfect. There’s enough space for us to sleep next to each other without it being any more awkward than it needs to be.
“I like this one,” I tell him. “The king size bed is good.”
“I agree,” he says, his voice quiet. “More room to throw you around.”
I look up at him, caught off guard. He leans over me in the doorway, watching me.
I’m not sure what’s more to blame for the blush creeping over my whole body—the words he just said, or the way he looks at me with a slight smile and hooded eyes.
I look around us, but Tina and Ryan are still in their room. They couldn’t have heard him.
“You don’t need to say things like that when no one is listening,” I remind him.
He stands up straighter and wrinkles his brow. “Right. Okay.”
I follow him into the room. I set my backpack on a chair, then turn to look at him. “Are you one of those people who unpacks everything for two nights, or do you live out of your backpack for the weekend?”
“If it’s just a night or two, I live out of my backpack. Any longer than that, I unpack.”
I smile. “Same.” I leave my backpack on the chair and wander the room. “Guess I’m done unpacking then.”
Oliver puts the strip of condoms on top of a dresser.
Until now, I had forgotten he was still holding them.
I can feel his eyes on me as I stare at the condoms. I turn around and head for the bedroom window, looking for anything to distract myself.
I can’t handle being so close to Oliver and those condoms, his words still ringing in my head about how he could throw me around on this bed, with the memory of how he pushed me up against the sink this morning and his hand pulling my hair.
I can’t even be in the same room as him.
I’m afraid that he will somehow figure out that these are the thoughts going on inside my head.
I head for the closest door, which is definitely not the door that leads back out to the hallway.
It’s not until I’m two feet away from it that it occurs to me that this is probably a closet, but I’m committed now, so I keep going.
I open the door and step inside, shutting it behind myself.
I lean against it, eyes closed, breathing heavily for a minute.
There’s a light tap on the door behind me. “Priscilla? Are you okay in there?”
I open my eyes. I’m surprised to see that I’m not in a closet, but a bathroom.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. My voice is a lot higher than I’d like it to be. I wonder if he can tell. “Just needed to use the bathroom.”
“I’m coming in.”
“What? No. I, uh—” I step away from the door just as Oliver pushes it open.
He closes the door behind himself, then stops and looks at me. He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m not actually using the bathroom. “Are you okay?” he asks again.
I nod. “Yeah. No. I don’t know. I just need a minute to breathe.”
“Can I help?” he asks.
“Help me breathe?” I chuckle. “Are you going to do mouth to mouth resuscitation?”
He shrugs. “Well, if you need me to…”
I smile. “I don’t think that will be?—”
Before I can finish my thought, he bends down and, cupping his hands around my face, he touches his lips to mine.
My heart was already going haywire, and now it’s beating completely out of control.
He doesn’t linger for long, but it’s enough to make my head spin.
He pulls away slowly, keeping his hand on my cheek for a second longer.
“I’ll give you a minute to yourself,” he says. “I’ll meet you downstairs?”
I nod. “That will be good.”
He leaves me alone in the bathroom, closing the door behind himself. I hold my breath until the sound of his footsteps fades out of the room. I take another minute to compose myself and then I follow him out.
On my way out of the bedroom, I sneak a glance at the dresser where Oliver left the condoms. They’re gone.