The Hot Guy in the Woods

by London Casey

  At the sliding glass door to a small metal deck, I opened the door, reminding myself there was no fucking chance. It was all over. It had been over for a long time.

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, looking out at the other apartment buildings, the cars parked everywhere, the lights across the parking lot, dumpsters in the corner. If I looked far enough I could see more lights. Streetlights. Traffic lights turning red to green to yellow back to red. Brake lights of cars. Headlights of cars. The glow of fast food restaurants still open hoping to get those midnight (or later) customers.

  So far from what I was used to.

  My hands slipped over the metal railing and I thought about what it all meant. I went to help Lara in the bar. Without even thinking, I went to help her. To save her from starting a fight she’d regret. And now I was in her apartment, knowing I was going to spend the night to make sure she didn’t get sick.

  And the really fucked-up part?

  I was already thinking about what I could make her for breakfast.

  I made coffee.

  I had a cup without her.

  I sat at her dining room table. The table where she sat with another guy and had who knows how many breakfasts, lunches, conversations. Shit, maybe he fucked her right here on the table.

  For whatever reason, it all bothered me.

  I took out my phone and did something I hadn’t done in a while. I looked at pictures. Everyone told me I needed to upgrade my phone and join the current century, but why? I had no use for a fucking phone. The only reason I kept the one I had was because of her. So I could look at pictures. At texts. Of a time when I thought I had it all figured out. When my phone was as important as breathing. I’d hold the damn thing tight, protecting it like it was my dick.

  My thumb moved down the screen and pictures flew right by. I turned the screen off before I could see her face.

  I wasn’t going down that fucking road right now.

  I dropped the phone on the table and went to the kitchen. I opened the fridge and it was slim pickings. I laughed. I figured women would keep their fridges stocked. Not Lara. She had half a dozen eggs in a built-in tray on the door. A bottle of ketchup. Some barbecue sauce, a half empty jar of pickles, and a bottle of aloe vera. There was a container of orange juice, some milk, some almond milk (why the fuck would she drink that shit for?), and a few containers of old takeout food. The crisper drawers had some lettuce and tomatoes, and the one on the right had a package of bacon.

  I grabbed for the eggs and the bacon.

  I navigated the small apartment kitchen and found a pan big enough to cook the eggs and bacon together. That was the trick. Cook the eggs in the bacon grease. It made the whites crispy and made the yolks even creamier.

  A little mountain man knowledge.

  As I cooked breakfast for a woman I didn’t really know, standing in her fucking apartment, too far from my cabin for my own good, that woman appeared a few feet away. Her hair was a hot mess of uncomfortable sleep and there was regret in her eyes.

  She held out her hand. “Can you open this?”

  A bottle of pills.

  I smiled.

  “If I touch these are you going to accuse me of poisoning you?”

  “Funny,” she said.

  “Have some coffee. Grease is next. It’ll help.”

  She looked at the stove and swallowed hard.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “This… this is a first for me.”

  “What? A stranger making you breakfast after a one night stand?”

  Her eyes went wide. “We…”

  “No,” I said.

  “But I told you…”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded.

  I opened the childproof lid of the pills.

  “Lara, what’s a first for you?” I asked.

  She dumped a handful of pills on the counter. I carefully watched as she put all but two back into the container.

  “A guy making me breakfast,” she said.

  “Really?”

  She looked back. “Really.”

  I didn’t say anything else.

  I held my comments in.

  What kind of man didn’t have the fucking balls to make his woman breakfast once in a while? Shit, if I could have just one more day with her, I’d cook every fucking meal she’d ever want.

  I turned the burner off and started opening cabinets, looking for plates.

  “To the right,” Lara said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She sat at the table with black coffee and white pills.

  “He posted a picture of him making her breakfast in bed,” Lara said. “More than once. When she was so tired from being up with the baby.”

  I looked at Lara. “I’m really sorry. You know there’s nothing else I can say but that.”

  “I know,” Lara said. “But you sort of get it, Syi. You don’t judge me. You don’t have that look in your eyes.”

  “What look is that?”

  “That I’m pathetic,” Lara said. “That I’m a fucked-up mess. That I fucked up my life because a guy left me.”

  I walked a plate of food to the table. “I have my own fucked-up problems to deal with. Your life is yours, sugar. I shouldn’t even fucking be here right now.”

  Lara grabbed for my hand. “But you’re here. Why?”

  I didn’t quite have an answer, and anything I said to Lara would play into a set of emotions inside her that were already most beaten down.

  I pulled my hand away.

  I walked away and went into the bathroom.

  I splashed water on my face, trying to calm myself down a little. Lara wanted a story that she wasn’t ready to deal with. We’d bumped into each other a few times and that was it. I couldn’t save her from herself for the way she handled her feelings for that guy. And Lara would never help me with what I was going through.

  Looking in the mirror, the stranger looked like even more of a stranger. That’s what each day did to me. It was another day away from her.

  Curling my lip, I decided to get the hell out of there. Go back up the mountain. Call Jerry. Go do some work. I needed to work off the pent up feelings inside me.

  Because if I stayed too close to Lara, something was going to happen.

  I opened the bathroom door and turned to find Lara sitting at the table where I left her.

  Only she was holding my phone in her hand…

  “What the fuck?” I growled.

  Lara dropped my phone and looked back. “Sorry. Your phone went off like three times in a row. Someone named Michelle text you. About Adley?”

  “That’s not your fucking business, sugar,” I growled.

  I ran to the table and grabbed the phone. I pressed a button and the screen unlocked. Instead of going to the text messages, it opened what I had open last. Pictures. A picture of her. Sitting on a rock in the woods. Wind pulling her hair across her face. She was smiling, that big ass smile that made everything okay in my dark world.

  I looked at Lara. “Who do you think you are?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean… it was habit, Syi. I swear. I wasn’t snooping.”

  “You don’t get to do this,” I said. “Ever.”

  I saw the look in her eyes.

  Who was Michelle? Who was Adley?

  Another message popped up.

  It was from Michelle.

  Adley made you something. She’s asking about you, Syi. I don’t know what to tell her. Dane will kill me if he knows I’m texting you.

  I turned the screen off and slipped the phone into my pocket.

  The messages never stopped.

  They never fucking stopped.

  Everyday I’d get messages. Asking how I was. Where I was. If someone could come visit. If I was ready to get back to the grind. Asking for advice on a project. Wanting to talk about pricing, contracts, whatever.

  Nobody understood it.

  I wasn’t the same Osiris. I wishe
d I could peel the ink off my arms and off my chest. Strip myself of that old life and have some new skin. No ink. No scars. No pain.

  “Shit, Syi,” Lara said. “I’m really sorry. I’ll pretend I didn’t see a thing. Okay? I’m not going to ask a thing. I’m not going to judge you. I promise.”

  I looked down at her.

  I didn’t say a word. Anything I said then would have been venomous. Something I wouldn’t have been able to take back.

  After a few seconds, I leaned down. “You think you’re the only one, Lara?”

  That was all I had to say.

  “Syi, please,” Lara said. “I didn’t mean…”

  I stopped at her door. “You did mean. You want to know about me because you want to know I’m just like you. You want to know that I’m in pain. You want to know. You want to know if my heart has been shattered. Because looking at yourself in the mirror pisses you off.”

  Silence.

  I looked back at her as she stood just a few feet away. Tears filling her pretty eyes.

  But they weren’t my tears. I didn’t cause them. And as pretty as her eyes were, they weren’t my responsibility. All I had been doing was walking in the woods to find what I lost. Except I found her. I found Lara.

  I opened the door and left her apartment without another word.

  Finding Lara wasn’t the goddamn problem.

  Getting her out of my goddamn mind - and heart - was.

  16

  The Rearview Mirror

  (OSIRIS)

  I drove in a way that was a little too unfamiliar to me. Another little reminder of days gone by. Sitting there at a stop sign for two seconds when there was no other traffic coming. Looking up at a light, waiting for it to turn red. Up around the mountain, it was just roads. At crossroads you had to be smart enough to watch and make sure nobody was coming so you didn’t get your ass hit.

  There were apartments that gave way to houses. And nestled in the housing developments were big parking lots with grocery stores, cell phone stores, and other random shit people needed. Gas stations that doubled as convenience stores. Places to grab a coffee on the go, the smell of sweat and grease mixing in the air, making my mouth almost water.

  But I had to get out of there.

  And I did.

  The town faded into my rearview mirror and the horizon swallowed it all up.

  I was back on the main road that connected the two counties. Off that main road, however, were several back roads. Only a couple mattered to me. One road lead to the bar from last night. Another took me home to my cabin in the woods.

  I didn’t know what I was thinking staying there with Lara. Letting her tell me her shit. Spending the night. Waking up and making her breakfast.

  And why the fuck did my phone have to go off with her there? Of all people… Michelle texting me about Adley. Like I needed those demons kicked up. It wasn't my fault she was afraid of Dane and if she wanted me to come kick the guy’s ass, I certainly would. But everyone made it very clear years ago what it all meant. What my position was. What I had done wrong. That it was all my fucking fault that she was gone. They were all quick to just jump to conclusions and take the word of those who claimed to have done everything they could.

  Not me.

  That’s why I was on that mountain. That’s why I sat at her desk with a map.

  I was going to find her and fix everything. I shouldn’t have missed last night up on the mountain.

  Something could have happened.

  She could have passed through while I wasn’t there.

  My hands pulled at the steering wheel.

  Anger wasn’t good enough of a word.

  Lara wanted to know about her. That was the next logical step in whatever was happening between me and Lara. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t have another person tell me how I was wrong. How I was crazy. How I gave up a good life for something else.

  I gritted my teeth and focused on the road.

  I only looked in the mirror one time, five minutes later.

  Someone was behind me.

  It was Lara…

  I had two choices. I could keep driving and have her follow me to the cabin. Or I could pull over and say everything I had been holding back.

  Cutting the wheel to the right, I made my fucking decision.

  I understood it. Lara had her heart broken. The guy who did it was a total asshole, sure. Getting someone pregnant on the side was a dirty thing to do. I wouldn’t tell Lara to get over it because some things you don’t get over.

  But me?

  She needed to get over me. Right now.

  I didn’t want to hear her say my name again.

  Not Osiris. Not Syi. Nothing.

  She needed to go cut flowers and I needed to go cut down trees.

  I got out of my truck with the engine still running. Lara got out of her car, leaving the door open. She ran toward me as I walked slowly, my hands balled up tight into fists. A little wind slapped us both across the face. It grabbed a few strands of her hair and made it look even messier.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  “This,” she said.

  She killed the distance between us and grabbed at my flannel shirt. She pulled at me, unable to move me, but that wasn’t her goal. Pulling hard enough, Lara jumped and damn near climbed up my body to get to my lips. Her lips touched mine and I felt an angry fire burning even hotter.

  I grabbed her by the waist and held her, turning, pinning her against the side of my truck. I broke the kiss and backed away from her.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “Whatever you think…”

  “You have your own demons to hide,” Lara said. “I’m sorry if I crossed the line. I swear to you, Syi, I wasn’t trying to do anything to you. I wanted to thank you.”

  “Again with the ‘thank you’ bullshit.”

  “No,” she said. She grabbed my shirt. “I’m thanking you for not telling me what to do when I told you what happened. Just because I’m lost doesn’t mean I want to be found.”

  “Same goes for me,” I growled. “I don’t want to be found.”

  “But we found each other, Syi. That means something.”

  “You got drunk and got lucky. More than once.”

  “That’s called fate.”

  “That’s called a drinking problem. That’s called me being far too nice.”

  “Don’t be like that,” she said. “Don’t push it away. I’m not going to ask you a question. I am going to wonder. And maybe I’ll get lucky again and you’ll tell me.”

  “Or maybe fate will,” I said, knowing I was being a smart ass to her.

  She was fragile and I was kicking her feelings around. Only because I was in the same position and I wanted to project on her.

  I grabbed for her hand and made her release her hold on my shirt.

  “What do you think this is?” I asked. “A game? A joke? You want me to tell you everything I lost in my life? Why? So you could not feel so alone?”

  “Is that wrong?” she asked. “If we’re both lost, Syi, then we can be lost together. And fuck everyone else.”

  “Fuck everyone else,” I whispered. “Right.”

  “I loved him, Syi. I loved him in a dangerous way. A way that left me blind and left my heart exposed. He’s with her right now. He’s with her and their baby right now. The baby is probably having her first bottle of the morning while he’s making her breakfast. Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it. Other times… no… you. You, Syi, you.”

  “Me?” I asked.

  She put her hand on my chest. She spread her small fingers wide, no match for all the long hours up on that mountain moving logs by hand. I had been built before, thanks to a gym membership but now I was a monster, thanks to real work.

  “You,” she said. “When I’m with you, I don’t think about it. And if I do, it’s a passing thought. It’s the only hope I’ve had that it’ll go away for good. I just wondered if you felt the
same with me.”

  Shit.

  Slowly, my head moved left to right. “No, sugar. It’s not that way for me at all. I see you and I see this beautiful woman. Your messy hair right now drives me a little crazy. Your eyes are clear and show maybe today will be a good day. When you put your hand on my chest it reminds me that my heart is still beating. So I get all that shit, sugar. But what you want from me is not going to happen.”

  “You have no idea what I really want, Syi,” Lara said.

  She was sexy. Damn, my heart and mind were punching at each other like two weak fighters just trying to survive another round. She was vulnerable, too. Capable of making decisions that would end up being very fucking wrong.

  I was that decision.

  I walked away from Lara to the back of my truck. I opened the bed and stood there, staring at it.

  “Syi, I don’t know what made you go up there,” she said. “Whatever it is, I respect it. I’m sorry for what I saw on your phone, but if there are people out there who hurt you like I got hurt… is it that wrong to want to share it?”

  “You don’t know a thing,” I said. “Trust me, Lara, you don’t know a fucking thing.”

  She moved toward me again.

  “Then tell me something.”

  I curled my lip.

  The way I saw it was this… you find a rattlesnake in the woods. The damn thing warns you by rattling. Your job is to walk away. You don’t. You get closer. The rattlesnake gives you a warning snap at the air. Then you get closer again. You’re the dumb one… the snake has warned you, sugar. And if you keep fucking with the snake you’re going to get bit.

  I grabbed Lara by the waist and pulled her close to me. I lifted her and put her on the bed of the truck. My hands slid around to her lower back and pulled her tight against my body. Her hands touched my chest again. Her lips parted with a silent sigh.

  I kissed her.

  Right there on the side of the road.

  Because I was pissed off at myself. Because everything she said about herself and me was how I felt, too. Most of what I said and felt was a complete fucking lie. My search for her would never end, but having something more than comfort with me wasn’t such a bad thing.