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The man is frustratingly good at winning arguments.
Standing on the landing of the loft, I look down at the first floor of his cabin and for a moment, I consider sleeping on the couch just to prove a point. That seems rude, though. It’s one thing to protest hospitality and another entirely to reject it.
I step into his bedroom, a small lantern in my hand. I feel like I’m trespassing, like I’m still that incredibly nosy ten-year-old who went through her parents’ closet once when they were out.
I regret that, by the way. I regret it a lot.
His bed is made. His sheets are nice. The room is simple but neat, rustic furniture, a small bookshelf, one flannel shirt tossed over the back of a chair. There are windows along two walls, simple white curtains over them. On one wall is a framed print, and I hold the lantern up to it.
It’s the cover of East of Eden, enlarged. I study it for a long moment, trying to remember what it’s about, but I finally step back because it feels like none of my business.
I look around the room quickly, a small part of me tempted to see what’s in his drawers, in his closet, under his bed. For most of my life Levi has been kind but aloof, nice but quiet, present but remote and this feels like a chance to peek under the hood, so to speak.
I resist the urge. I already I feel as if I’ve come into this quiet, peaceful space like a wrecking ball and Levi is going to regret ever being nice to little sisters.
Finally, I sit on the bed. I take off the clothes that Levi loaned me, fold them, put them on the floor next to the bed.
I slide between his sheets, put my face into his pillow, and inhale, wondering what he smells like, but the only scent is laundry soap. He changed the sheets for me.
I lie there, thinking. I think of him soaking in the rain, wearing rubber gloves and rubber boots. I think of him lifting me effortlessly, putting me down gently. Lending me clothes, making hot cocoa.
The way he paused a moment when I took his hand, just long enough, before telling me he just wanted the mug, and even alone in the dark, I put my hands over my face.
It takes me a long time to fall asleep.Chapter FiveLeviI wake up to the sound of shattering glass.
The dog scrambles up instantly and I sit up on one elbow, blinking into the dark. I was in the middle of a dream that Caleb and I were in an airport, only to find our gate, we had to put together a 500-piece puzzle of a castle.
Then the dog barks and just like that I remember where I am and instantly, I’m off the cot, onto the landing, opening the door to my bedroom.
“June?” I ask the dark, heart thumping.
“I’m here,” comes the answer. “What — did something fall?”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. The dog pads up next to me, and there’s the sound of rustling bedsheets, June’s dark form moving, more my imagination than anything I can actually see.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she says, her voice still dreamy as a light suddenly flares through the darkness and I shield my eyes.
“Oh, shit,” June says.
There’s a tree through one window, shattered glass on the floor. For a long moment, both of us just stare at it. I’m trying to shove the last dregs of the dream out of my mind, trying to figure out what the best course of action is when a tree falls through your window at two o’clock in the morning.
“Is it storming again?” June asks. “Is the power back on? Is that a whole tree or just a branch? Has this ever happened before?”
Finally, I look over at her, not sure which question to answer first. She’s sitting upright in my bed, lantern held aloft in one hand, the other holding the sheets up over herself.
She’s not wearing a shirt.
Any answers I may have had instantly fly out of my head. All I can think of is the curve of her collarbone, thrown into sharp relief by the lantern light. The swell of her breasts under the sheet, rising as she breathes, the way the sheet falls away from her side and leaves visible a sliver of her back.
It’s the dog who jolts me out of it, again. She steps forward, toward the window, sniffing, and I grab her by the collar.
“Sorry, girl,” I tell her. “Careful, there’s glass. Let me put her in the office and we’ll clean this up.”
“I’ll put on clothes,” June says, and I give her one last glance before guiding the dog out of my bedroom and close the door.
