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The surge of jealousy was sudden and unexpected, something I wasn't sure I'd ever really felt before, but there it was, a clawing in the stomach, a pressure on the chest.
Unwelcome, but undeniable.
"Katie, this is Beau. He owns the cabin. Beau, Katie. She hates the heads in the living room."
"You do too," she shot back, but didn't look my way.
"My uncle," Beau said, shrugging. "This was his place up until last year. I really didn't do much except clean it up and stick it up for rentals. I should probably make some changes. You want some coffee before you go?" he asked, looking at Katie. "You look like you need it. Bed not comfortable?" he asked, already moving over toward the coffee machine, making a fresh pot.
"The bed is fine. I was just cold," she admitted, making guilt stab me in the gut.
"Why didn't you sleep in the room with a fireplace?" he asked, and I was pretty sure the look he shot at me was accusatory.
Mountain men and their good manners, wanting to take care of the little ladies.
I wanted to be pissed, but it was how I was raised as well. Even if my sister—and most of my female in-laws—would want my balls to wear as earrings for suggesting such a thing.
"I, ah, I preferred my room," Katie said, head ducking, hiding whatever might have crossed her face from me, but it made Beau's brows furrow before he turned, reaching for a couple mugs. "The cabin is lovely," she went on. And since she wasn't, by nature, someone who was chatty with strangers, I figured her being so right then was for one of two reasons.
Because she was interested in Beau.
Or because she was trying to avoid talking to me.
Neither of those things sat right with me.
But I stood there as the two of them talked about the history of the cabin, what the sights were at the woods should she ever decide to make another trip back, the next time more prepared, ready for the mercurial weather and the unexpected ups and downs of cabin life.
"I'm a little bit more, um, what you might call, you know... indoorsy," Katie quipped, making Beau give her a warm smile.
If I hadn't been riddled with jealousy, I might have noticed it was the kind of smile I gave to Scotti, or the Mallick women, to Savea and Reagan. It was a brotherly smile.
All I could see right in the moment, though, was a man smiling at Katie. And all I felt was a strange, primal voice in the back of my mind saying "That's mine!" Even though every rational brain cell I had knew that wasn't the case, it would never be the case.
An hour later, though, Beau was telling us we'd better get on the road, knowing the traffic patterns better than the two of us.
I offered to go get Katie's bags, mostly as a move to prevent Beau from being the good guy again. But regretted it as I was coming down the stairs and heard him rattling off his phone number to her.
"In case you remember the name of that board game you mentioned," he told her as she tucked her phone away. "I think the guests would get a kick out of it."
Not five minutes later, Beau was opening her door for her while I put her bags in her trunk.
"Drive safe, okay?" Beau asked as she gave him a shy smile before putting the car into reverse.
She didn't even spare me a glance.
"Don't know what you did to piss her off, but that is going to be a long-ass plane ride," Beau said, whacking me on the back of the shoulder.
He wasn't wrong.
By the time I got on the plane, I was exhausted, hungry, and in a shitty mood.
Katie was seated two rows up from me, both of us at aisle seats, but Katie was clearly not comfortable with it, shrinking smaller and smaller each time someone walked past her.
Despite arriving at different times, we'd both chosen the same book at one of the shops in the airport, some rom-com that likely wasn't even up my alley since it didn't have anything blowing up, and likely had fade-to-black sex scenes which didn't help me at all in terms of research. But I wanted something, anything, to distract me from watching every move she made, each time she shuffled in her seat, the way she closed the book inward toward itself to flip ages, how she nervously tapped her foot during takeoff and landing.
Clearly, the book wasn't great at doing anything but keeping my seat neighbors from talking to me, because I noticed all those things.
I noticed, too, the way she darted off the plane as soon as she could, getting such a head start that I didn't see her at the baggage claim, or even outside waiting for a cab or a ride.
