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HUCK: Good. ’Night, Lorelai.
LORELAI: ’Night.
With a sigh, I toss my phone down. Maybe I need to add Craig to my apology tour, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why?
16CRAIG
DOIN’ THIS
These days, when I’m struggling with something, I go to the studio. I pull out my guitar or sit at my piano and I write until I’ve nailed down exactly what it is that’s holding me down.
Unfortunately, right now I know whatever is bothering me won’t be fixed in a studio, and home is the last place I want to be when every creak, groan, and door slam reminds me how close I am to Lorelai.
Instead, I cleared my meetings for the next forty-eight hours, told Arlo to take a long weekend, and walked my Harley out of the garage behind the duplex like a fucking chicken-shit teenager sneaking out past curfew. I pack an overnight bag and some well-used camping gear and hit the open road for my favorite spot up in the Smokies. It’s a tiny one-room cabin my uncle Huck built several decades ago to hide away from the world and focus on his art, which, honestly, ain’t a bad idea. The journey’s a four- or five-hour trek, depending on traffic, but I don’t mind, and for once, Idon’t bother with music. I need a break from melodies, instead choosing to let the rumble of my bike and the relentless battery of wind fill my brain. It’s not a perfect solution, but for a short while, with all my attention focused on the road, I stop seeingherlaid out before me. The heady scent of hot asphalt and pine trees erases the taste of her, and over the roar of my engine, I’m unable to hear the echo of her moans.
Most of all, I don’t see the memory of her stricken expression as I packed up leftovers like some fucking douche, opening the front door and telling her to text me when she made it back downstairs to her place, safe and sound.
Years.FuckingyearsI’ve spent dreaming of kissing her—of bringing her to the brink—and it was even better than I remembered. So of course I panic and fuck it all up with my overthinking.
I thought I could do casual. I’d convinced myself that whatever Lorelai could give me would be enough and I would be okay with that. People do it all the time. Hell, I’ve done it for years with other women.
Turns out, shocker, I can’t do it with Lorelai Jones. Not this time. It’s too much, too close to what I’ve always wanted, and now I’ve gone and hurt her.
Icarus, meet the fucking sun. She’s sure pretty, ain’t she?
By midmorning, it’s already scorching. The pavement ripples, potent and pungent under a cloudless Tennessean sky. I turn my bike down the unmarked but familiar dirt road that leads to the cabin. Within minutes, I’m dropping the kickstand, hopping off on slightly unsteady feet, and removing my helmet, letting a gentle breeze off the lake lift and tug at the damp ends of my hair. I remove my leather roadjacket, slinging it over the seat, while I unbelt my pack and the small cooler of food I brought.
The front door isn’t locked. As far as I know, it’s never been locked. My great-uncle used to leave the cabin stocked with canned goods and firewood over the winter months for strangers who found themselves without shelter, and I’ve kept up the tradition. It’s rustic up here. No electricity, water via a well pump. Outhouse dug downwind from the back porch. It’s not the kind of place someone with nefarious intent would bother taking advantage of, but it’s just enough for someone in need.
Today and tomorrow, that someone is me.
I ignore the only locked building on the property, the pottery shed. Not even the promise of mindlessly creating with my hands, allowing my muscles to take over and shape something unseen, can tempt me. Maybe another time. This visit is about avoidance and feeling.
It shouldn’t make sense, but it does. I’m here to write.
I shove open the heavy hand-hewn door with an almighty creak and leave it propped with a brick that’s been used as a doorstop since before I was born. Light streams in, revealing an uncluttered dusty space. I make my way through the cabin, which doesn’t take long, as it’s only one great big room. I open windows and wipe off surfaces before sweeping it all out. Once everything is habitable once more, I pull out the bedding I brought from home and make the bed.
And that’s it. Luxury, it is not.
My stomach grumbles and I eat a banana but know that’s not gonna hold me over for long. I pull my phone out of my pocket and confirm there’s no signal out here. Since there’sno point in keeping it on, I power it off and tuck it away in my back pocket. Arlo knows where I am in case I don’t return, but there’s not much else I can do to be accessible.
Which is kind of the point. Being unreachable is the best part of this place. No phone calls from lawyers, no texts with sexy siren songs, and no fucking thirst trap social media posts using my fucking songs to further someone else’s career.
Just me and the fish. I grab the old cane pole leaning up against the log wall in the corner of the room, along with a tiny rusty tackle box, and head out back toward the dock.
My older brother and I fixed up this dock a few years back, but it could already use another coat of finish and some basic maintenance. I roll some rocks back along the shoreline and find a few juicy night crawlers, jabbing them through with my hook and tossing it out into the water. After a while, I perch on a boulder we creatively named “the fishing rock” as kids and cast. In general, I don’t eat meat, but lake perch fresh-caught from the fishing rock is my one exception. It takes most of the afternoon to catch my dinner, but that’s all right. I end up cleaning and cooking my catch over an open fire out back, tossing the guts and bones out into the woods to make it real easy for the bears, before sitting by the fire until long after sun fades from the sky, sipping straight from a bottle and thinking.
About her.
I write some lines down. A few stanzas. Some are even good. Maybe the best I’ve ever written.
Stark honesty usually is.
And then I rip the pages out of my notebook and throwthem on the flames so I can watch them curl and turn to ash before floating on embers up to the sky.
Eventually I throw dirt on the fire and make my way to the dark cool of the empty cabin.
Grabbing the battery-powered lantern hanging by the door, I switch it on and light a fire in the small iron stove. It’s cooler in the mountains, but mostly I just want the friendly firelight and soothing crackle to keep me company until I fall asleep.
