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I went through the motions of giving Heather a tour of the cabin, trying to sound happy to be here. I ended with our bedroom. I opened the door and showed it to her from the hallway like it was a broom closet I didn’t want to step into.

We hadn’t had sex yet. We’d gone on six dates in the last two weeks. Some desperate fast track I’d put us on to try and speed up the “Forgetting Larissa” phase I’d been hoping to enter. Heather and I had kissed, but never anything past first base. I had this vision that this week would be a transformative trip. I’d see Larissa and feel nothing. Heather would outshine her, I’d be smitten, and everything would be as it should be.

I didn’t even want to be standing here with her.

She slid a hand up my chest. “Want to sneak away for a bit?” she whispered, looking at my lips.

“Can’t,” I said, peering past her at Larissa sitting in the kitchen at the end of the hall. “I have to shovel snow with the men.”

“Come on…” She got on her toes and kissed me. Larissa’s eyes flickered up for a split second and locked with mine before looking away. I felt sick.

“I’ve got a headache,” I said. It wasn’t even a lie.

Heather put her lower lip out in a pout. “Want some Advil?”

“No.”

Becca saved me. “Heaattther! Ready for drinks?”

Heather let herself be led away, and I grabbed my jacket and boots and left out the back door to join the guys without looking at Larissa again, feeling ashamed that I wanted to.

“There he is,” Jesse said, pushing his shovel into the snow.

Xavier nodded at me and kept shoveling.

The deck was buried. Good. I wanted to work myself to exhaustion. I wanted to be too fucking tired to think about what I was feeling.

Jesse shook his head. “We got at least three feet.”

“Good, you two motherfuckers can use the cardio,” Mike said, handing me a shovel.

The sliding glass door opened and Larissa popped her head out. “Who wants hot chocolate?”

She looked at me first. “I’m good, thanks,” I mumbled.

Mike headed over to her. “I’ll take a hot toddy.” He leaned into the open door, and I looked away and shoveled so I wouldn’t have to see them kiss again.

I didn’t feel safe raising my head until I heard the door close and Mike’s boots crunching the snow on his way back over.

“So how was the drive up?” Mike asked.

“Fine,” I lied.

“You guys got here fast,” Jesse said.

“They didn’t want to stop to eat,” I said.

That killed me. I didn’t even realize how much that part of the trip meant to me until Larissa said she didn’t want it.

There were so few things I could do for her in the open. I’d picked that restaurant for her like it was a sacred task, I’d spent days searching for where to go. I made sure it was safe, read reviews, checked the nut allergy websites to see if anyone had had a bad experience there, called ahead.

And I had to keep driving, the vision I had of her excited to eat out because she didn’t have to worry about the food, disintegrating as we passed the turnoff.

Samantha opened the sliding door. “Hey, can you guys do the walkway to the firepit?”

“Yeah, we’ll do that next,” Jesse said.

“Can you do it now?” she asked. “We want to do a bonfire before the hot tub.”