Unsurprisingly, nearly ruining Thanksgiving doesnotget me out of wilderness excursions. It’s my second-to-last Saturday, and contrary to his assurances that he’s not mad at me, Forrest has strapped me to a pair of cross-country skis. They look cute but feel like a medical bill waiting to happen.
Weirdly, I was almost looking forward to this outing. Apart from Thanksgiving, it was a busy week of failing to make the edits Anjali suggested and tripping into Forrest’s bed at every opportunity. A little fresh air seemed appealing. But now, as I’m forced to duckwalk up another hill, I realize what I took for a newfound outdoorsiness was just the sex-fueled dopamine fog I’ve been living in for the past week.
“How much farther?” I call-slash-whine up to him. He’s ahead of me on the trail, and I almost regret interrupting him. With every back-and-forth swish of his skis, his muscular ass has been the dangling carrot keeping me going.
“Just another mile,” he says, smiling back at me like this is welcome news.
I consider going full dead bug in the snow and forcing him to drag me.
“You can do this,” he says in his steady voice before continuing to ski. It’s not the first time today that I’ve almost looked beside me, hoping for a sympathetic smile from Ollie or another group member, but after we exchanged contact information and tearful hugs goodbye yesterday, I’m the only guest left. It makes today’s trek with Forrest feel less like a wilderness excursion and more like an overly ambitious date. But ten million minutes later, the woods break into a clearing, and I’m looking at—
“Aresort?” I scream, startling some birds from a tree. “You took me to aresort?”
“Surprise,” he says, smiling down at me.
I look down the hill to where people—actual human beings other than Forrest, Trapper, Jo, and me—are milling about in stylish winter gear, sipping from steaming coffee mugs or pulling on ski gear. I suddenly feel like Mowgli stumbling from the jungle into civilization for the first time. Gratitude and excitement fill me up like a hot-air balloon, ready to send me into the stratosphere. I could just kiss him, so I do, leaning over the side of my skis and almost falling down in the process.
When I pull away, breathless for more reasons than one, he says, “Come on. I hear the spa offers very overpriced mud baths.”
At this, I dig my ski poles into the snow and bomb down the slope like I’m Mikaela Shiffrin going for gold, leaving his laughing baritone behind me to catch up.
After being peeled, wrapped, and exfoliated within an inch of my life, I decide I still haven’t had quite enough pampering to make up for the last month, which is how I find myself in our room’s private outdoor hot tub. It’s currently a balmy five degrees outside, but apparently, enjoying the contrast of hot water and soul-freezing temperatures is an Alaskan tradition.
“So how was the return to your natural habitat?” Forrest asks from across the tub. His head is tilted back, steam curling from his wet, sunset-lit shoulders, confirming he’s the hottest man on the planet.
“Sucha relief.” I sigh, sinking a little lower as I put my feet in his lap. “I’ve been needing to molt for weeks now.”
I feel his soft chuckle more than I hear it.
“Are you too blissed out to read your letter?”
“You brought it?” I ask, yanking my foot from his grip and sitting up. The buoyancy of the water carries me halfway to him, and he pulls me onto his lap.
“On second thought, no,” he rumbles, lifting me to lick quickly cooling water from my cleavage. “Must’ve forgotten it.”
Unfortunately for him, I get a good view of the table beside his shoulder and see a corner of an envelope sticking out from underneath our bathrobes. I feel the usual sharp thrill of desperation to read it, but to my surprise, it doesn’t linger.
“You okay?” he asks, picking up on my hesitation.
I tear my eyes from the envelope. “I’m good. I think I’ll read it later,” I say, leaning in to kiss him.
He stops me short and arches a brow. “Who are you, and where have you buried Margot Bradley?”
It’s impossible to escape his scrutiny, but I try anyway, and after a moment, he makes a hum of understanding. Without a word, he twists around and grabs my letter. He holds it between us, examining it. “I don’t think it’ll bite you.”
“Then maybe you could,” I suggest in a halfhearted attempt to distract him. He pinches my ass beneath the water.
“It won’t be worse than the last one,” he says, getting right to the heart of my avoidance. “Unless you’ve been through another life-altering trauma I’m unaware of.”
“No, you’re right,” I say. “I mean, there was that time my career did cartwheels into an active volcano, but that was just a blip.”
He scoops warm water with his free hand and pours it over my shoulders, warming me. “Do you want me to read it first?”
The opportunity to tease him for being nosy barely registers under the weighted blanket of relief I feel. “Would you?”
With damp but careful fingers, he opens the letter. There’s a sheaf of folded paper inside, but when he pulls out a trio of friendship bracelets, I feel like a house of cards facing down a hurricane. He slips two of them on my wrist, stretching one onto his own, and tosses the envelope back on the table. Gently, I spin the letters on each bracelet to face upright:#1 MB FAN. HEA CLUB.I do the same for Forrest’s, and my heart bucks like a wild horse when I read the words stretched over his thick wrist:LOVE U MB.
Trying not to read too much into his probably random bracelet choice, I focus on the gifts themselves. They’re from my readers. A handful of the endless tokens of appreciation I used to receive. I look up at Forrest to see if he understands the magnitude of this small gift, but his eyes are scanning Savannah’s letter. After a few more seconds, he smiles, a glow of affection softening his cut-from-granite features. “You need to read it.”
