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They’re only letting you stay here because they want to fuck you.
It’s a long, long night.
I give up on sleep at about five in the morning, slipping out from under the boys’ arms to pad to the kitchen. I make myself a cup of tea and sit by the window, looking out. The snow is still falling, but nothing like the blizzard yesterday afternoon. Now, the flakes look delicate and gentle as they flutter innocently to the ground. I sip my tea, remembering the awful, gut-wrenching feeling that hit me as soon as I recognised Cole struggling through the storm, barely a blur in the distance.
Cole said the problem was with visibility. Normally, he would drive the car straight into the barn, but he couldn’t, because the snow was so thick he couldn’t even see where he was driving. He’d had to abandon the car halfway down the drive.
It seems ridiculously dangerous to me. If the guys can’t see where they’re walking during a storm, they could die. But none of them has set up any kind of safety measure, in case that happens. It’s dumb.
I come up with a plan. Grabbing a bit of paper from Riven’s desk, I start drawing a map of the yard. Then I tiptoe back into the bedroom. The boys are still fast asleep.
I creep up and poke Eli lightly on the shoulder. “Eli,” I hiss.
“Wha’?” He grumbles.
“Do you have any really long rope? And some metal hooks? And a hammer?”
“Tools are all in the porch,” he mutters, reaching out blindly for me. “Come back to bed.”
“Nope. I wanna make a safety line from the drive up to the house. Kind of like a handrail. Is that okay?”
“Go nuts,” he mumbles, rolling over and shoving his face back in his pillow.
By the time I’ve found the rope and some tools, it’s getting bright outside. I pull on my snow clothes and head out into the yard, trailing the rope behind me. I start off right outside the house. It takes me almost twenty minutes to hammer a hook into the doorframe and tie the rope to it. Hopefully the boys don’t mind; the cabin is pretty weathered on the outside, so they don’t seem too precious about it. When I’ve tightly secured the knot, I lift the rope and follow my map, making a trail down to the drive. Every so often, I’ll wrap the rope around a tree, fastening it tightly.
It’s not long until I come to the barn. I drop the rope and survey the doorframe, looking for a good spot to fasten the rope. Maybe it would be better on the inside? I step through the door and start scanning the walls.
“What are you doing?” A deep voice asks.
The hairs all over my body prickle and stand up. I set my jaw, turning to Cole. He’s sitting crouched on the barn floor, surrounded by thin planks of wood. He’s hammering them into a square. It looks like he’s making some kind of picture frame.
They’re only letting you stay here because they want to fuck you.
Because that’s all I’m good for, right? I don’t have any other good, non-vaginal qualities. Why else would a man want me around?
I lift the rope. “Making a safety line. Got any idea where I can hammer in the hook?”
He straightens. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“I know, right?” I sigh. “I should be sucking the other guys’ dicks. Luckily, they’re both pretty tired out, so I’ve got a quick break from shagging their brains out. It’s tough work, being a walking, talking fleshlight.”
He sighs, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that. What I said last night—wasn’t true. They’re not just keeping you around to sleep with them.”
“Well, I figured. Unless Eli has some kind of UNO fetish he hasn’t told me about.” I study the heavy beams making up the barn’s doorframe. There are already a few metal rings buried deep into the wood, I guess from where they used to hang equipment. I give the biggest one a tug. It’s not going anywhere. “Can I use this one, do you think?”
He grunts.
“Very insightful. Thanks for your input.” I put down the toolkit and tug the rope taut. He watches as I start to wrap it around the hook. I can feel his eyes on me, like laser-points on my skin. I sigh, turning to face him. “What?”
“Just…” He grimaces. “Don’tdothat again. Don’t come after me. Don’t put your life in danger, just to help me.”
“I’ll make the decisions about who I want to risk my life for, thank you.”
His face darkens. “I wouldn’t havedied.”
“Probably not,” I agree. “But you definitely would’ve been more seriously injured. Riv says if you stayed out there much longer, you would’ve probably gotten hypothermia. You would’ve lost more blood. Lugging that pack around was tearing open the wound. If I hadn’t gone to get you, you wouldn’t be sitting in here, chopping logs right now. You’d be getting driven down to a hospital for a transfusion. I’m not expecting athank you,but it would be nice if you stopped calling me an idiot for three seconds.”
He doesn’t respond to that. We’re silent for a few minutes, as I twist the rope into a tight double constrictor knot, then step back, testing it out with a few tugs. The knot holds fast.
