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“Mason! Wait!”
I turn back to Laney rushing over to me. I furrow my brow. “What is–”
I can’t get all the words out before her arms are wrapped around my neck, and her lips are on mine. I stumble back against the door, catching her waist in my hands, feeling her body flush against me.
My eyes might be closed, but it’s like the whole world is glimmering.
Laney’s kiss is long and genuine.
I don’t dare pull away until she’s done, not that I would even want to.
Her lips have always felt wondrous against mine, since the very first kiss at the Lyons Club all those years ago.
The kiss ends, sudden and gradual at once. Sudden because I want it to continue forever. Gradual because I felt every second of it rumbling through my bones. Reminding me of yesterday. Of the whole week. Of the past however many years.
“Bye.” The word lands against my mouth.
My eyes flick over her shoulder toward Nate who looks so casual by the car. Smiling even.
I return to her endless blues. “Bye, Lane.”
Her lips curl into a loving smile, arms sliding off my shoulders until she’s no longer touching me, though my body is tattooed with the feeling of her against me.
Laney backs away from me until she spins around on her heel and returns to Nate. She snags a kiss from him too, a quick peck, before slapping his thigh to get him out of her way so she can climb into the driver’s seat.
As Nate rounds the car, he holds his hand up and waves. “See you, man.”
“See you…” I’m not sure I say it aloud.
I climb into the truck in a daze, turn the key in the ignition, grab the steering wheel, and stare off into the distance at the sparkling lake.
I might be more confused than before. But the sadness has dissipated. No more grief over saying goodbye to my reality here.
Laney’s purpose seems clear. To keep the string connecting the three of us.
While I might not have answers now, I can return to New York knowing that the thread exists.
And as long as the thread exists, I will have a chance to pull it tighter.
Right?
26
NATE
Laney hasn’t touchedme in a week. At least not for anything other than a professional reason.
I’m starting to think I’m some pariah to her. A leper. If she touches me, she might get whatever disease I have.
Even when we work together, on strengthening or flexibility exercises, her hand is almost a ghost against me. Not wanting to make much of an impression, scared to remind me of what happened up at the cabin.
However, joke’s on her. Everything is a reminder of what happened at the cabin. Her mere presence is such an obvious reminder it makes me lovesick every morning when I see her first thing and every night when I know my dreams will be filled with her.
I noticed her pulling back on the drive back from the cabin.
She kissed Mason. Then kissed me. And I thought that must be a sign that whatever we had created we were taking back. We weren’t going to leave it up at the cabin as some secret kink we explored, never to be spoken about again.
Except Laney’s blissful smiles and tinkling laughterlessened until her mouth was a thin line, and any joke I made only garnered a huff through her nose that could barely be considered a laugh.
