“I did. All your stuff is in the car. You’ll be okay?”
“Yes.”
“Lock the doors.”
His concern is touching. I nod and watch as he pulls his head out of the thing that doesn’t really pass as a tent anymore. I listen for a few minutes to the sound of his footsteps crunching over wet gravel. He must have found his boots too.
I manage to pull my wet, soggy self out of the wet, soggy tent. The rain is really getting through now that it caved in on itself. The car’s heat is blasting when I slip inside and close the door behind me. I do lock the doors even though I feel silly doing it.
I lean back in the chair, slightly worried about getting a car this expensive this wet. Will it wreck the seats? Are they leather or just something that could pass for it because they’re so high end that they don’t believe in using leather because it’s passé? Is there something of a higher grade than leather?
I close my eyes and let the heat flow over me, working out the chill of the rain. My hair is so damp that there is still water dripping a
ll over me, including down my face.
God, that cabin is going to feel close to heaven.
Heaven.
Speaking of heaven, something else felt close to it tonight—something I didn’t expect. Wait, no, not something but someone. Wilderness Adam. My boss, Adam. The very Adam who is supposed to be off-limits because I’ve always thought he wasn’t available. Now I know he kind of is. I mean, he told me he was, and we had that conversation. But even if he’s not out to get his ex-wife back, he does have hang-ups, reasons he can’t and shouldn’t date, according to him. There’s the company to be worried about, and the fact that he probably has a hard time trusting anyone after his heart was ripped out and stomped all over, and when his best efforts weren’t actually good enough. That stings. That’s literally like someone pouring lemon juice or salt into an open wound.
My mind wanders from that to thinking about the huge list of reasons I shouldn’t have done what I did in the tent. You know those lists that very eager young children write for Santa after listening to a month of Christmas advertising on TV and seeing toys every single time they open their parent’s phones or tablets? Yeah. My list of reasons is longer than that list of Christmas wishes.
First, there’s the obvious fact that Adam is my boss. Second, he’s rich and way out of my league. I know this isn’t the eighteen hundreds, and classes aren’t a thing anymore, but we just come from different backgrounds, and sometimes, that’s a lot to get past. Plus, there’s the company. And what everyone would say because of who I am and who he is. I don’t exactly want to be labeled a gold digger. Minus the “exactly” because there wouldn’t be any “exactly” about it. That’s exactly how people would see me. Plus, there’s the fact that we were both buzzed tonight, and I’m sure what happened was just a really amazing fluke—yet another item on the list—the fact that I’m here because Adam’s paying me.
I know. The list is pretty gross.
I need to stop thinking about it.
Thank goodness Adam knocks on the foggy window over at the driver's side. Once I recover from the mini-heart attack of seeing his face pressed up against the glass, horror movie killer style, I hit the lock, and he slides in.
He’s soaked since the rain is still falling steadily.
“We’re going to have to walk to the cabin, aren’t we? Since you won’t drive? That’s okay. I can handle that. We’ll just leave everything in the car and come back and get that in the morning too. That’s fine. We’ll dry off once we’re inside—”
“I couldn’t get one,” Adam interrupts me. He flinches like I’m going to unleash a new form of violent assistant hell on him.
But I’ve never once been angry with Adam. I’ve never even raised my voice. I’ve been frustrated, yes. Anxious, sometimes. All in all, he’s a good boss, and we’ve always gotten along. He has no reason to flinch. It’s not like I’m going to take my shoe off and throw it at him. I’m not even wearing shoes. That’s how far downhill this whole thing has gone.
“Hey,” I say softly. “What do you mean, you couldn’t get one?”
“The office is closed for the night already. I tried calling since I had my phone, but of course, no one answered. We’re not going to be able to get anything until they open, and even then, I can’t promise that things won’t be booked up.”
I feel like breaking down and weeping, but no. I’m not going to do that. I’m Stephanie. I’m tough. I can do this. I can get through this. I can do it because, at the end of it, I’ll have a new roof. I can get through this night. I can, because in the morning, everything will be better.
“Stephanie…”
“It’s okay,” I say between clenched teeth. I’m clenching them because I need to in order to stop myself from screaming. Not at Adam. Not at anything. Just because I seriously wanted a bed and now I’m not getting a bed, and we don’t even have a tent left, and I’m soaked to the skin, and a warm shower would have been nice, and now I can’t even have that.
But hey, I’ve been through worse, so much worse. And at least we have the car. It’s warm and dry, and we’re safe.
“Are you okay? Is your head hurting?” I deflect because that’s what I do best. Also, not talking about the shittiness of this might make it less shitty because we won’t be thinking about how shitty it is.
“I’m alright. It does hurt, but it’s fine. I’m worried about you, though. I dragged you out here. I thought of this whole stupid thing, and I had something to prove. I must have been listening to my ego and my man balls because, yeah. We’re here, and look at it.”
“Man balls. Hmm, what other balls are there?”
“Trust me. There are a lot.”