Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six(23)

Oh god.

Everything with him was so good.

Too good.

Definitely too good to be true, she thought as she experienced a seismic orgasm that left her weak and breathless beneath him, staring at the swaying green leaves above them. He came inside her; so much for the condoms still in their package. She loved it, even though it was a hundred different kinds of roulette. She was on the pill but she knew so many girls who got pregnant on the pill.

The trees swayed and sighed, as he breathed deeply, lying on top of her.

What was that thing? Forest bathing. The soothing power of nature. Yeah, maybe she could see it now, from this angle. For a moment, she got this floating feeling like she was one with the trees, their silence. That it was just her and Joshua and that they would stay just like this—sated, at peace. Every dark and shitty thing about modern life, every bad memory, or daily aggravation left behind for good. Her work in public relations which had become a joyless slog, his in technology which had him pulling all-nighters for this outage or that glitch. Maybe they could just leave it behind, come out to the woods, live off the land. People did that.

Yeah, right.

He buried his face in her neck as she closed her arms around his broad back. I love you, she thought but of course didn’t say.

“You are an angel,” he whispered. She was hardly that. She was so far from that. But she kissed his cheek, relishing the smell and taste of him.

Definitely too good to be true.

No, Hannah had said when Cricket had told her best friend about Joshua, about her fears that he was just too wonderful. Don’t do that. It’s okay to be happy, to be in love. Enjoy it and stop waiting for something to be bad about it.

Cricket didn’t say, But something bad always happens. Because they both knew that was true, or often true, or could be true. Especially when you were a bad girl like Cricket was, or could be. It didn’t need saying. And it wasn’t helpful. It didn’t serve them, as Liza would surely put it. Liza, who she liked as a person (even though she had married Mako, Cricket’s first—everything—kiss, love, fuck), and whom she also followed on Instagram, and took her morning yoga class with via livestream on Thursday mornings. Yoga with Liza. Everyday Zen. Wellness and calm are within reach of everyone, no matter how imperfect. Cricket liked that idea. Hoped fervently that it was true.

Joshua climbed off her with a farewell kiss. The back seat was a little cramped for two tall people, and he awkwardly pulled up his jeans and backed out of the door, grinning at her in that way that she loved. Like he was a man who was fully satisfied by just the sight of her.

“Wow,” he said from outside. “This is beautiful.”

She shimmied into her discarded panties, pulled down her skirt and joined him. It was beautiful. The air smelled—green. Fresh and moist, clean and clear. She took it into her lungs.

There were a lot of things about this trip that might not be ideal, but now that they were here, or almost, it seemed like just what they needed. A moment to unplug, to be in “nature,” and with each other—her friends, the man she maybe loved. Okay, she definitely loved him. Maybe he loved her, too. Maybe she was about to be the one with the ring on her finger, the wedding to plan, the sash that said “Bride” on the bridal party weekend. Hannah would be her maid of honor. Mako would be the one sulking in the corner, drinking too much.

She heard Joshua’s phone buzz.

“You have service!” she said, stupidly thrilled.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. What he saw there made his face darken, brow furrow, eyes go a little dull.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Ugh,” he said, glancing up at her. He suddenly looked stressed, eyebrows meeting in the middle. “Just work stuff. Figures we can’t get service to find our way, but she can always find me.”

She. His boss.

Something about the way he said it caused a little flutter of worry in her stomach. He was such an easygoing, lighthearted guy, but he really seemed to hate his IT job at a big cybersecurity firm. Apparently, his boss was a bit of a tyrant. She was probably some not-hot-anymore middle-aged cougar who wanted Joshua under her thumb because she was secretly into him. But Cricket was just making that up.

Cricket didn’t know much about his work because he didn’t like talking about it. Which she loved because most of the men she’d dated talked about little else. But she knew he was an engineer, that he was responsible for the hardware, that he got called away at all hours when this or that went down with long rides out to a big data center in the middle of nowhere.

I’m basically a computer mechanic, he’d said. Did it seem like he was purposely vague about his work sometimes, changed the subject quickly when it came up? Maybe.

“Don’t answer,” she said. “You’re on vacation.”

He nodded, some of the brightness returning. “You’re right. Yeah, I’ll get back to her in the morning.”

“Or not.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist, glanced up at him. “We were going to unplug, right? Everybody is entitled to some actual vacation time. Time not thinking about work.”

He nodded, smiling. “Right. You’re right.”

And then her mouth was on his, soft, gentle.

He pulled away, put a soft hand on her cheek.

“Cricket,” he started, voice throaty. Oh my god. Was he going to say it? She definitely wasn’t going to say it first. She held his gaze, trying to look encouraging. “I think—”