Chapter 17
THEO
The walk from the campsite to the cabin couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but we stretched it into twenty. Maybe even thirty.
I wasn’t really sure, but I also wasn’t complaining. Raquel walked beside me, so close that our shoulders bumped every so often.
I would have preferred if she’d just kept holding on to me, but she’d dropped my arm like I was toxic just moments after we’d left the firelight. At least she was sticking close though, neither of us apparently interested in creating more space between us.
“Do you see that?” she asked a few minutes into the walk, pointing toward a dark shape a little ways up the hill.
I followed the line of her finger, struggling to make out what it was at first, but as I squinted at the structure, I realized there was a platform hidden among the branches of an old tree. “Is that a treehouse?”
She let out a soft giggle, not a sound I’d heard from her before, but definitely one I wanted to hear again. My pulse kicked up in response, my hands practically twitching to touch her at this point.
“Well, once upon a time, it was a treehouse, but now it’s more like a safety hazard,” she said, hesitating for a beat before she continued, but her voice was different now, taking on that slightly hushed quality of memory lane.
“Dad built it years ago with a few of the guys who owned cabins around here.”
My eyebrows shot up, my steps slowing as I tried to get a better look at it. “That thing is enormous. How the hell did they manage to build something that big, that high up?”
“It was a labor of love,” she said. “I know it doesn’t look like much now, but it’s survived pretty much my entire lifetime of being abused by every kid who came here.
Every summer, kids used to race for it and we’d play our hearts out while our parents set up camp.
The second the RVs stopped moving, we’d disappear into that thing and only go back when they called us down for food or swimming. ”
I chuckled, squinting through the dark again as I tried to picture it, little kids sprinting toward the treehouse while parents wrestled with tents and gear. “That sounds awesome. I’m suddenly jealous.”
It wasn’t even a lie. I could easily imagine the lake being packed with families who returned year after year, the kind of place where everyone knew everyone and the kids couldn’t wait to see each other again.
Raquel bumped her shoulder into mine. “Don’t be too jealous. Avery fell out of it one year. Straight onto the picnic table.”
“Ouch.” I winced. “Was he okay?”
“Well, I mean, he broke his arm, but yeah. Otherwise, I think the bruised ego was the worst injury he suffered.”
“Did he cry?” I asked, grinning. “He did, didn’t he? I bet he bawled his eyes out.”
“You’re a terrible friend.”
“I’m the best. It’s a friend’s job to keep you humble, right? I can think of a few ways that reminding him of his treehouse misfortune might help with that.”
She laughed. “Hey, if you want to keep him humble, I won’t stand in your way. There are plenty more stories where that one came from.”
“Are there plenty of stories involving you, too?” I asked.
“While I’m all for blackmail material on Avery, I’d also like to learn more about your embarrassing stories.
So what was it, a first kiss gone wrong on the shore?
Perhaps tripping and falling flat on your face while you were sprinting to the treehouse? ”
She scoffed. “No way. If you want an embarrassing story, you’ll have to earn it, but for the record, you already know my most embarrassing story. It’s the one where my fiancé was sleeping with my best friend and then married her just six months later.”
“Fucking idiot,” I muttered, my head shaking as I let the back of my hand brush hers. “Let’s talk happy memories instead. It must’ve been amazing coming out here every summer.”
“It really was,” she said after a beat. “I’m over him, you know. Hunter. It didn’t take me long after he and Farrah left to realize that I’d been with him for so long only because I’d been with him for so long. Things weren’t ever that great between us. I just didn’t know any better.”
“Yeah. I think I know what you mean.”
She glanced up at me, her brow slightly furrowed in curiosity. “You do?”
I groaned. “Well, no. Not really, but I do know what it’s like to think there’s only one path laid out for you and that you have to stick with it.”
Of course, in my case, that one path was vastly different from what she was referring to. I could see how she’d thought that marrying her high school sweetheart was the only way to go, though. Our lives had been so different, growing up.
She’d been here, in this small town where locals vacationed at the lake every summer and her dad had built treehouses with other dads. Meanwhile, I’d grown up in a house so big that visitors occasionally got lost and the only thing my dad had built had been a larger empire.
My childhood had been good. It’d just been completely different. As different even as the woman walking beside me right now. Raquel was tough as nails, independent, and completely capable in a male-dominated industry, but there was also this softer side to her.
She tried to hide it, but it was there in moments like this, the vulnerability and the willingness to open up once someone had earned it.
I didn’t think she even knew it, but her beauty was different too.
It was the kind that made me want to keep looking and that made it difficult to remember my own name sometimes, like this afternoon, when she’d been lying in that tube.
God, I could build a shrine to that moment.
In my world, she’d fit right in amongst royalty at a Westwood gala. With those lips, those eyes, and that smile, she’d walk into a ballroom full of socialites, executives, and senators, and she’d still be the most gorgeous, most interesting person there. Without even trying.
She just had that level of presence, that natural, effortless beauty, and yet, she had no idea. I honestly didn’t think she had a clue what those pale gray eyes could do to a man’s ability to form coherent thoughts.
To my mind, she was incredible. I just wished I could somehow make her see that.
“Is there just one path laid out for you?” she asked quietly, her arm brushing against mine as the lights of a cabin came into view between the trees.
I glanced down at her, shrugging instead of letting her see how heavily that very question weighed on my mind every damn day. “I prefer to think that I’m choosing my own path. It’s parallel to the one that’s been laid out for me, but I’m working on navigating it in my own way.”
“Well, if that’s not cryptic,” she muttered on a soft chuckle. “To think, people say I’m guarded, but I don’t have anything on you.”
“That’s not true,” I protested immediately. “I’m an open book. You look at people like you’re going to stab them if they try to get close to you.”
“I don’t do that.” She scoffed but then sighed. “Fine. Maybe I do, but I haven’t actually stabbed anyone, so that should count in my favor.”
“Sure, but you have thought about it, haven’t you?”
“Frequently,” she admitted, pumping her eyebrows at me.
“You try living in a town like this and you’d get stabby too, though.
Everyone is all up in each other’s business, and if you give them half an opening, they’ll make you bleed your soul out to them.
Then they’ll run to the cafe and call a town meeting to share your innermost thoughts and feelings. ”
I huffed out a quiet laugh. “Probably not without adding a few dramatic twists, turns, and tales too. Am I right?”
“Spot on,” she said. “It’s easier to keep to yourself, but at the same time, we’re lucky to live in such a tight-knit community. People really care about each other in Quartz Pass. I don’t think that’s true everywhere.”
I snorted. “Definitely not.”
When we reached a tiny cabin right on the shore, she slowed and motioned toward the steps. “This is me.”
“Oh, wow. Really? We’re here already?” I blinked up at the little wooden structure, the roof laden with dried leaves and the railing around the narrow porch listing dangerously to one side. “Are you sure that has AC?”
She smiled, turning to face me once we came to a standstill at the bottom of the stairs. “Don’t judge a book by its cover. It might not look like much, but it has AC, running water, and a double bed.”
I glanced back up at the cabin, slowly testing the first step before I ascended to the door. “If you say so, but I’m not sure I trust it. Do you want me to check your bed for scorpions before I leave? I’ve heard they’re a common problem.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be safe in there,” she murmured when she reached me, those eyes silver in the soft glow of the lights from inside that were filtering through the thin window dressing. “Thanks for walking me home. I’m sorry Avery made you do it. I really would’ve been fine on my own.”
“He didn’t make me.” I stared into those eyes, evidently completely losing the ability to stop myself from looking at her like I was about to become a stalker. “I would’ve done it anyway.”
Raquel smiled, even tipping her head back a little to keep looking into my eyes as she took a tiny step closer. “Yeah? Is it because you were so desperate to check the bed for scorpions?”
No. It’s because I’m desperate for you.
The person I was back in Chicago would’ve come right out and said it, but I wasn’t that guy here.
I had actual, real feelings for her, and I was pretty fucking confident she felt the same way.
Right now, we were just two people out here in the middle of nowhere, with a blanket of stars above and the lake glittering a few feet away.
Back at home, dating was complicated before it even began. There were expectations and assumptions, press to deal with, and never knowing if the woman wanted me or just someone with my last name and bank account.
This, however, was just for me. No matter what happened out here tonight, no one would ever know unless we told them. There were no cameras hidden in the bushes and no headlines waiting to be written.
Tonight, there was just me, standing on a shitty cabin porch that might cave in at any minute, looking at a woman I couldn’t stop thinking about, and she was looking right back. I took a small step closer, drawn to her in a way I couldn’t really explain but wasn’t interested in fighting right now.
I’d never been in a situation like this, but when her eyes flickered to my mouth, I decided to just go for it. On a whim, I brought my hand up to her cheek and pushed my fingers into her hair, closing the distance between us by stepping into her.
I sealed my mouth over hers.
The sensation hit like a bolt out of the blue, the entire world seeming to slam to a stop now that her soft lips were finally pressed against mine. My brain abandoned ship, the kiss sweet but electric as she opened for me. Her hands found my shoulders and held on tight.
I hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her to me, groaning at how good it felt to finally have those soft curves against my body. She pushed closer, the kiss deepening and losing that sweet edge so fast that I knew I’d been right.
This wasn’t one-sided. Raquel felt all the same things I did, and when she didn’t push me away, I stroked my tongue into her mouth, my heart hammering in my ears and my dick threatening a hostile takeover.
Desire to take this further pumped hot and heavy through my veins, my body begging to take the reins.
Ultimately, the fact that I wanted her so very fucking badly was what made me break the kiss. Raquel wasn’t some one-night stand in the city, whose apartment I could flee tomorrow morning. Whatever this was between us deserved better than my usual playbook.
I slid a hand to her hip and flexed my fingers, letting her know I wanted her to stay close even as I lifted my mouth away from hers.
“I should say goodnight,” I murmured, my voice rough and my breathing way too heavy, but at this point, it couldn’t be much of a secret how badly I wanted to not leave. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She smiled up at me, her hands still on my shoulders and her cheeks flushed. “Yeah. Okay. Good night, Theo.”
As I nodded, she suddenly shook her head and slid an arm around my neck, pushing up on her toes to press her mouth against mine again. In the same motion, she stepped backward toward the door, pulling me with her and not letting go.