“Because. You won’t let go.” I say it real slow so the words can get through his thick skull.
He frowns and then releases my arm. My brain likes that, but my body doesn’t. It wants that SOS, and my skin still tingles where he was touching me.
Gavin clears his throat and rubs at his nose. Yeah, yeah, I smell bad. Deal with it.
It’s time to take charge. I stand as tall as I can, which isn’t much compared to Gavin, who’s more than six foot. I stick out my jaw and try to look as professional as I can, then I hold out my hand.
“Jamie Sutton. You’re Gavin Williams?”
Apparently, this is too much for him to handle. “How do you know my name?”
I roll my eyes. “You hired me.”
“I hard you?”
Oh my word.
This is probably the worst pseudo-conversation I’ve ever had in my life.
“You hired me to create glass art. The wave you commissioned. I dropped it off, like you instructed in your email.” I point to the wave, sitting in its place of honor on the art table.
Gavin looks from me to the wave then back to me again.
I lick my dry lips and wait for him to connect the dots.
Before, I thought this cabin was expansive, but now it feels claustrophobic. Gavin’s standing entirely too close. Studying me too carefully.
A slow, trickling flame licks over me, and I try to turn it off.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want it.”
Well, that does it. The flame is off. It’s completely off.
“What do you mean you don’t want it? You commissioned it. You can’t just—”
“She keeps talking and I keep not understanding a word. Is it fair to say I hate this place? I’ve been to the depths of the Cambodian jungle, the heights of Machu Pichu, the isolation of Antarctica, I’ve galloped on horseback across Mongolia, I’ve been to remote islands in Oceania, but never, never have I been confronted with so much…” He waves his hands at me. Speechless.
“So much what?” I ask, crossing my arms.
“You realize you’re covered in chicken poop? And feathers?”
“Yes?”
He shakes his head, then a trapped-in-a-corner sort of look enters his eyes, and he says, “I have to ask, have you ever left West Virginia?”
I purse my lips.
“I’ll be generous. Have you ever left this part of the state?”
I refuse to answer.
“This mountain?”
I look away from him. What does he want me to say? No. No I haven’t. I’ve dreamed of it. My heart has left. My dreams have left. But my body hasn’t. What of it? What does that have to do with anything and why does he think he has the right to ask?
He scrubs a hand down his face, and if possible his expression is even more horrified once he realizes I’ve never left this mountain. I cross my arms over my chest.
“We have a contract. I’ve delivered. I’ve upheld my end of things.” He looks slightly ill, so I gesture at the door and say, “Sorry about your fiancée getting cold feet, bad luck there, but that doesn’t mean—”