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I stare up at him. “Then why did you stop?”
“Because, Sidney,” he says with a sigh, “you just wandered off into Sidney-land in your pretty head. And don’t deny it, you did. I’m betting you weighed up the pros and cons and then maybe talked your way back to the edge of thinking this is a mistake. Am I close?”
I press my lips together. He’s not right, but he’s not wrong. It was something like that.
“Sidney?”
“You’re so. . . there, and I’m so . . . me.”
He drops his head to mine and slides in close making it all very unfair. Because this close, it’s hard to breathe, to think.
“I’m not even gonna fuckin’ pretend to know what that is, but I could hazard a guess. Are you letting your parents get to you, even here?”
“I’m not bigger than life, or bigger than you. I’m not confident in the ways you are. And for me, climbing on your lap was huge. I don’t do that.”
“Is it weird to accept I like you for what you are, Princess? A mass of insane contradictions? Because I do. I don’t go around doing things I don’t want to. And if I wasn’t attracted to you, I’d never have kissed you.”
Heat burns under my skin.
“Okay.”
His hand slides under my hair to the back of my skull. “I don’t ask for much, Princess. Because it kinda ruins the whole experience, but I do ask you stay with me, and tell me if you don’t like anything or want it different.”
“What if I like it all?” I swallow.
He smiles. “That’s not a fuckin’ problem at all.”
Mack takes my hand, and for a second, I think he’s heading upstairs with me, but instead, he leads me outside.
“Woah.” I stumble to a stop. Like this up close, the big lake is stunning with the silver rivers of moonlight, the water an inky black at night, like I could go up to it and step into the sky itself.
“Admire away, Princess.” He releases me, and I stand, taking in the night the slightest bite of cool to the air that’s crisp and welcome, the way the area changes in the low light.
There aren’t any other buildings around. No light pollution, so the sky is just alive with the silver of the stars and the Milky Way.
The breeze rustles tree leaves and somewhere an owl hoots.
I could fall in love with Mack. Mack’s place. I could fall in love with this place.
He swears behind me, near the side of the cabin.
So, I wander over, and he’s got a flashlight in one hand. He sees me, like he always knows where I am. Of course, he knows where I am . . . I’m the only other person here.
“I’m just going to change to the back-up gen. It’s smaller, but it’ll keep the fridge going. Hold this will you?” He hands me the flashlight.
I keep the beam steady for him as he works. I try not to salivate at the way his muscles bunch and shift, the deftness of his movements—the strength.
“I did have solar panels, which I’ll get again but not now.” He shrugs. “So, recently, I’ve just had the generator. Power it up and plug in the fridge and we’re ready to go.”
“Don’t you worry about the contents?”
Mack laughs. “We’ll take anything perishable back, and there’s never usually anything. My friends are fuckin’ beasts.”
“You gave your solar panels away, didn’t you?”
“Me? Why the fuck would I do that? And it was more a social service for Mrs. Kinney. Okay, done.”
He looks at me as the house flares up again and he takes the flashlight away, switching it off and shoving it in his back pocket.
