And maybe that was enough for tonight. I trudged to my bedroom and glanced around the small room that I’d decorated to look like a garden exploded and slid under the blankets.
I tossed, and I turned. I kicked off the covers, pulled them back up, and flipped my pillow more times than I could count. Somewhere around 2:00 a.m., I realized I’d been lying still for ten whole minutes and got excited. Maybe sleep was finally, finally coming.
But nope.
My brain decided that was the perfect time to start replaying every awkward interaction I’d had since the third grade.
Including, but not limited to, every single encounter withBen Jensen.
His voice. His brooding glances. The way he saidthankslike it hurt his throat. The way he didn’t show up to dinner, and how that bothered me more than it had any right to.
He was a guest. A two-week blip. A handsome, emotionally barricaded man who looked like he split logs for fun and glared at sunlight on principle.
So why was he living rent-free in my brain like a moody lumberjack squatter?
I groaned and rolled over again, staring at the cracked ceiling in my tiny bedroom like it might offer answers.
It didn’t.
By 4:30, I gave up. I slipped out of bed, pulling on my oversized sweatshirt with the honeybee print that made me feel mildly functional, and padded barefoot into the kitchen.
The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that usually soothed me, but not tonight.
Or should I say this morning?
I filled the kettle, turned on the stove, and waited for the whistle like it might give me something to focus on besides the low hum of restlessness in my chest.
Outside, the early hours blanketed the world in silver. Streetlamps glowed softly and sleepily. The tree outside my kitchen window swayed gently in the breeze, its branches clicking lightly against the eaves.
I wrapped my hands around a chipped mug and stood at the window, watching the town hold its breath before morning.
And even here, even now, he crept back in.
Ben.
Doggone it.
Room four.
The guest who somehow made ‘pass the butter’sound like a challenge. Who barely spoke but somehow saideverythingwith a glance.
What was it about him?
It wasn’t just the looks, though, let’s be honest, those didn’t hurt.
It was the way he held himself, as if he were waiting for someone to disappoint him. The way he noticed things without reacting. The way he seemed almost surprised when I showed up with fresh towels, like kindness was a currency he hadn’t used in years.
I told myself it didn’t matter, and that I didn’t care.
But the ache in my chest told a different story.
Maybe I just wanted him to like it here, to smile, and toseethe lodge not as some quirky pit stop, but as a place that could wrap you up and remind you that the world hadn’t completely gone to hell.
The sun broke over the horizon before I realized I’d been standing there for almost an hour, tea gone cold in my hands.
I blinked.
And then the panic hit.
