The Hot Guy in the Woods

by London Casey

  “Sugar, you need to take a breath before you end up in trouble,” he said to me.

  I was standing in the parking lot of the bar, near his truck.

  I saw Kim and Rachel standing a little bit away.

  He looked back at them. Then he looked at me.

  “I should have stayed home,” I said, dead drunk. “I should have…”

  “Okay, okay,” Osiris said. “Let me take you home then. Stay away from whatever is here. Got it?”

  I looked up at him. “Why? You’re helping me again? Why? So you could tell me nothing about yourself?”

  “This isn’t about me,” he growled. “This is about you. Those are your friends.”

  Kim started walking toward us.

  I curled my lip.

  Jealousy was a raw thing to feel. It wasn’t a good fit, but it had a hold on me.

  “You’re the guy from the mountain?” Kim asked. “Osiris?”

  “I am who I am,” Osiris said, being mysterious and sexy, as always.

  “Well, whoever you are, are you drunk?”

  “No.”

  “You’re good to drive?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Good. Get her home. Before she ruins everything else in her life.”

  “I’ll slap you again,” I yelled and jumped forward.

  I crashed into Osiris’s hard chest and let out an oomph sound as I lost my breath for a second.

  “Christ,” Osiris said. “Both of you shut up. You go back in the bar.” He nodded to Kim. “Stop running your mouth at Lara. You're both drunk and upset over something. Stop adding to it.”

  “Fine,” Kim said. “Have a good night.”

  “Yeah, way to leave me with a stranger!” I yelled to Kim. “So when I wind up missing and dead, it’s on you!”

  “Jesus,” Osiris said. “You think I’m going to hurt you?”

  I swallowed hard. “No. I’m just so…”

  My bottom lip started to quiver.

  Osiris opened the passenger door to his truck. “Get inside.”

  He pushed me into the truck and I tried to kick him.

  Then he just stood there. The crazy sexy lumberjack guy from the woods looking down at me.

  “Sugar, whatever is going on here, I want you to know… I’m on your side. Whatever was said to make you want to fight your friend must have been pretty shitty. So let me help you get the hell out of here.”

  I grabbed for his shirt.

  He grabbed my hand and pulled it away.

  I fucking wanted him so bad.

  That’s why I was angry.

  Every fantasy Kim wanted me to have, I wanted it, too. I wanted it with Osiris.

  And he was about to take me home.

  And I was about to ruin another night again.

  14

  Here, Take the Story

  (LARA)

  I pointed and said the directions. Drunk enough to fight my best friend but not too drunk that I couldn’t figure out where I lived.

  Once we got there, Osiris helped me up to my door. I dug around in my small bag for my keys and finally gave up and threw the bag at him.

  “Take it,” I said. “Find the keys.”

  Osiris curled his lip. He wasn’t going to take it. He slowly handed the bag back to me, shaking his head.

  “I’m not your puppet, sugar,” he said. “Find your damn keys. Go inside.”

  “You’re coming in, too, right?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Syi… please…”

  “Find your keys,” he said.

  I dug through the bag one last time and found the keys. I still had a couple key rings from the places Thad and I went on vacation together. And there was a key on the ring to his old apartment in the city.

  I opened the door and stumbled inside. I reached for the light switch on the wall but got nothing but air because I was nowhere near the wall. Osiris turned on the light for me.

  The apartment was small, cozy, suitable for me. Osiris looked way out of place being in town, in a building with other people inside it. Not to mention his sheer size made the apartment seem so much smaller. He looked uncomfortable and unsure that he wanted to be there.

  “A drink,” I said, slurring my words. “You and me need a drink.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” he said.

  I waved a hand. “Fuck that. Right now.”

  I turned and the room kept spinning. I thought I could be sexy and cool, walk to the kitchen and get us each a beer. Instead, I fell into the dining room table. My hands spread across the table and I ended up on the floor. On my back.

  Osiris then appeared over me. He put a massive hand out for me to take.

  He pulled me to my feet like I was nothing.

  The strength of this man… ohmygod.

  He held me, staring at me.

  There was something in his eyes…

  “What are you doing?” he whispered to me. “Huh? First time I met you, you were dead drunk. Almost killing yourself. And now you want to fight your friend? You’re trying to play cool with me? Newsflash, sugar, some guys might be into the whole drunk-girl thing. An easy fuck. Whatever. I’m not. I’m not here for that at all. You need to get your ass in bed and sleep this off. And tomorrow morning you need to think really hard about what the hell you’re trying to do.”

  I swallowed hard. I felt my head wanting to quickly sober up. I didn’t want to be drunk anymore. Not near Osiris. I wanted to be sober with him. I wanted him to be my comfort, my booze, my everything.

  “Wait,” I whispered. “What were you doing there? Huh? Were you following me?”

  Osiris laughed. A deep laugh that shook my entire body.

  “Sugar, those are the guys I work with. Believe it or not I go out once in a while. The husky-looking guy is my boss. We were talking about some work stuff. Then I saw you ready to start a fight.”

  Shit.

  I swallowed even harder. I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed of myself.

  I wiggled out of Osiris’s hold and backed away.

  “My bedroom is the second door on the right,” I said. “I’ll just go to bed. I’m sorry for what I did tonight. I’m sorry for everything I do. I’m a fucked-up mess, Syi. And you shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be near each other.”

  I turned and started to walk away. I knew he wasn’t going to chase after me. That wasn’t his style. And that in some weird way made him even hotter.

  In the small hallway I paused. There were six picture frames in the hallway, each one of myself and Thad. I still hadn’t taken those pictures down. I hadn’t broken them, burned them, thrown them out. Or maybe keep the pictures for memories and put something else in the frames.

  It was just a cruel reminder of how pathetic I had become. And, yes, that was the word. Pathetic. No wonder Kim was mad at me. I kept…

  I grabbed one of the frames off the wall.

  A picture of Thad with his arm around me. We were in the woods somewhere, probably on some dumb camping trip with our friends. I don’t think anyone really liked Thad but they played along. He was a total douche with everything. If you said you were six feet tall, Thad would say he was six-one. If you caught a ten-inch fish, Thad caught a twelve-inch fish. I always chalked it up to a super awareness of his confidence. But it wasn’t that. He was an asshole.

  I threw the picture over my shoulder, purposely, hoping Osiris would look at it.

  Then maybe he’d join me in my bedroom.

  I was cuddled up tight in the covers. I made a fist and held it to my chin, blankets over my head, the only part of me exposed were my eyes, nose, and mouth. And that was only so I could properly breathe.

  I wanted to hide away for a few days. A week. The rest of my life.

  My eyes closed but I couldn’t fall asleep.

  Not with Osiris in my apartment.

  Unless he was gone.

  Back in his truck, driving all the way back up the mountain to his private cabin in the woods where
he hid and lived.

  But why? What happened to make him like that?

  I heard the squeak of my door and opened my eyes to see a sliver of light mostly blocked out by the massive silhouette.

  “Lara?” Osiris’s voice asked.

  “I’m awake,” I whispered.

  “You feeling okay?”

  “Not at all.”

  He came into the room and crouched down at the bed. Even with his knees bent he was still a fucking massive man. In his right hand was the picture I threw to the floor. He put it on the nightstand and then turned on the small lamp. The low wattage light felt like I was six inches from the sun.

  My eyes hurt as I squinted until I got used to the light.

  “You have my attention,” he whispered. “You have pictures of you and this guy. Yet this guy is nowhere to be found. And he wasn’t camping that night in the woods.”

  “You’re observant,” I said.

  “Doubt that,” Osiris said. “Just noticed you that night, sugar. Couldn’t take my eyes away from you. And he wasn’t in sight. Just some other guy hanging on you.”

  “He broke my heart, Syi,” I said.

  “The guy in the picture?”

  “Yeah. His name is Thad.”

  “What happened, sugar?”

  Was I really going to confess everything to a man who was more stranger than anything else? My mind said fuck no but my heart screamed do it.

  Because I could tell me telling him would somehow help him.

  “He was my real first love,” I said. “And he decided this wasn’t the life he wanted. After years of lying to me.”

  “Lying how?”

  I reached for my cell phone on the nightstand. I pressed a few buttons without looking at the phone. Shame pouring through my veins like a sick poison. It was sad how fast I could pull up his pictures online.

  “There,” I whispered.

  I saw the look on Osiris’s face.

  The picture was Thad on one knee next to a beautiful woman named Lenore, who was on her right side. Her right arm held a tiny baby. Baby Olive.

  “What the fuck is this?” Osiris asked.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not some crazy stalker going after a taken man. I see the look in your eye.”

  “So then tell me what this is.”

  “Thad works for a company that helps fund start ups. A lot of tech stuff. I worked in finance, too. Mostly investments and banking. But we meshed together. Okay? We could talk business for hours. I’d give him advice. He’d run with it. He was moving up in his company really fast. We had this place together. Sort of together. He kept an apartment in the city.”

  “Right,” Osiris said. “For those long nights?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But that’s not the worst, Syi. He was actually working there. The problem was when he had to go to the west coast for a trip. He stayed there a month. There was talk of him going there permanently. We were supposed to buy a house but held off because of the possible promotion. But during that month out there, he met her. Lenore.”

  “Lenore?” Osiris asked. “What kind of name is that?”

  “Asks the man named Osiris,” I said with a grin.

  He grinned too.

  Fuck, I felt comforted right then.

  “She’s beautiful, Syi.”

  “So are you,” he said.

  He touched my cheek.

  I shivered head to toe.

  “He came back here and was different. Then he confessed he slept with her. He said it was a fling. A one-time thing. A slip-up. That was what he called it. Slipping up.”

  “Fuck,” Osiris growled.

  “I was stupid enough to believe it. My heart was overpowering my head. Like it always does. So we went back to normal. Even though nothing was normal. He worked. I worked. We stopped looking at houses. It was just… almost empty. What I didn’t know was that Lenore got pregnant.”

  “Oh, shit,” Osiris said. He looked at my phone again. Studying the features of baby Olive. “Oh… shit…”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Whatever they had out there, it was real. She could have called me and ruined his life. But they kept their thing a secret. He flew out west once a month telling me he was closing deals. I’m sure there were times he was doing that. But most of the time he was there to go to the doctor with Lenore. To be with her. To help design the nursery. Pick out furniture. Paint the room. Buy the fucking car seat for the fucking baby. Living a whole other life knowing eventually he would just crush me.” I blinked fast and caught my breath. “Then he did it. His boss came through on the promotion. Thad was going west for good. He came here, to this place, and knocked on the door like he was a guest. He was scared. A big pussy. And he told me everything. Then he left.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “Just like that,” I said. “Before I could comprehend it all, Lenore went into labor early. Baby Olive came a month early. But she was healthy, which was good. I would never wish harm on an innocent child. But… we had talked about a family more than once, Syi. He promised he didn’t want any kids. Not now. He never wanted to ruin what we had. But he did. He ruined everything.”

  Osiris took the phone from my hand as a tear fell from my eye.

  He turned the phone’s screen off ande wiped the tear off my cheek.

  He moved over the bed a little, putting me on my back.

  This hunk of a lumberjack just inches from me.

  “I’m sorry, sugar,” he whispered. “That guy is a real prick for doing that. Nobody deserves that.”

  I nodded. “I spun, Syi. I lost everything. I gave up my job. Kim was there to help me. Always there. She got me a job at her parents flower shop. Making probably a quarter of what I used to make. But I don’t care. That’s the thing. I don’t give a shit, Syi. I’m just going with the motions but I don’t know where it’s going to take me. And not that my friends aren’t there for me, but they don’t get it. Kim could get over a guy in a twenty minutes.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Osiris said. “Doesn’t mean she should treat you differently.”

  “I didn’t want to really fight her,” I said. “I was jealous of her. Her life. Her family. I was always the third wheel with her. The poor loser best friend. She means well with what she says and does but I just need someone to listen once in a while.”

  “I’m listening, sugar,” Osiris whispered.

  “I know,” I whispered back.

  I touched his scruffy woodsman beard. My body was warm everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

  “Syi, I’m lost. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself that night in the woods. I just wanted to escape. I wanted to find a place to hide. Do you get that?”

  “I get it, sugar,” he said. “Fuck, I get it.”

  “Please don’t go,” I said. “I don’t want to wake up alone.”

  Syi lowered himself down just enough. I felt the pressure of his body against mine. So hard. So strong. So protecting.

  The tip of his nose touched mine. I could smell everything on him. His sweat. His work. The beer he had at the bar. A hint of his cabin lingering on his clothes. A wood musk type smell that made my nose tingle. His facial hair tickling my face a little.

  Then he kissed me and chased away everything I was thinking and feeling.

  A man like Osiris in my bed. Kissing me.

  Yes. Please.

  His lips commanded mine. I was a lost prisoner, my hands opened and reached for his boulder-round shoulders, wishing I had the power to pull him tighter to me.

  The kiss became another and another. Those soft, little flirty kisses that make your heart flutter, stomach do backflips. But it always made other things happen. I caught myself trying to turn my hips a little, my heels pressing against the bed, lifting and desperately needing to rock and thrust against him.

  The tip of his tongue teased my lips. Our tongues managed to touch for a portion of a second before he pulled away. He put both of his massive hands to my bed and pushed. He l
ocked his elbows, keeping distance between us. He was so strong the mattress gave way and I started to rock left to right.

  He just stared down at me.

  His nostrils flared. His eyes were regretful, lonely. His lip curled a little with an anger he wanted to project on me but he could only be angry at himself.

  “I’ll stay,” he whispered. “But not here. And only to make sure you don’t end up sick or something. Goodnight, sugar.”

  He pushed from the bed and I bounced on it.

  I watched him walk away, the sexy monster of a man, leaving my room, leaving the door open, leaving my lips quivering and my inner thighs quivering the same.

  I clutched the sheets and gritted my teeth as I curled my toes so hard they hurt.

  He was the only person that made me forget about what happened.

  My body felt enraged… but I was smiling.

  In some weird fucked-up way Osiris had made me feel alive and made me feel happy.

  15

  Forget What You Know

  (OSIRIS)

  I held the picture and studied it, no idea why. No idea why I was in the fucking apartment and no idea why I gave a shit about Lara and the drama in her life. Then again, this wasn’t just some bullshit drama, was it? The fucking guy cheated on Lara and got the other woman pregnant. Then he fell in love with the woman and took off to be with her.

  That was nasty.

  I flipped the picture upside down and left it on the table. I didn’t look back at the hallway or the bedroom door. I didn’t need to see the rest of the pictures of Lara and the guy who crushed her heart. Her friends probably didn’t get why she kept the pictures up. They didn’t get why she couldn’t just move on. But I got it. I totally fucking got it. Because one day someone you love is there and the next they aren’t. It’s not a breakdown of a relationship, feelings crumbling, burning into ash, and then walking away. It’s the sudden jolt of someone ripped away.

  The apartment was dark and quiet. Sort of like the cabin. Except I wasn’t on the mountain. I wasn’t near the woods. I wasn’t near the spot. It left me jittery, feeling like I was going to miss my chance.