Page 13 of Honeymoon Phase
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about lumberjacks, Luke!” She scurries back over to me and perches on the open stool, legs spread wide in that laid-back rough and tumble swagger she has about her. “Think about it. They’re simple creatures who work long hours and make shit money, so getting free rent for a year just to marry me on paper would be a no-brainer for them. I’ve been around enough to know they barely even come home. They’re usually out in logger towns for two to three weeks a month.”
“So, then what? You’re just going to live with one of them for one week a month? Here?” I look around like a second bedroom is going to materialize any second.
“Yeah.” She shrugs and glances into her living room. “I know it’s only one bedroom, but I can take the couch. It’s not like my insomnia lets me sleep much anyways. It still counts as living together but we’d barely have to live together. Isn’t this great?”
She shoves me playfully, almost knocking me off my stool. The girl seriously doesn’t know her own strength. I shake my head, still processing everything she just said. “So, for one week a month, you’re going to let a stranger come stay here with you?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re making it sound worse than it is.”
“I really don’t think I am,” I reply, shocked that this idea feels even worse than her online dating for a husband.
“Maybe he won’t be a stranger.” She gets a coy look in her eyes and walks back into the kitchen.
I shoot daggers into her back. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I’ve maybe hooked up with a couple lumberjacks that I’ve met at this competition in the past, so I might as well marry one I can possibly reap some fringe benefits from. After so many weeks out in the forest, it turns out they areverygrateful in the bedroom.”
My hand tightens around my beer bottle so hard I think it could break in my hand. I knew Roe did casual sex. Hell, so do I, so I’m not judging. We’re young, unattached people. Sex is normal. I’m not trying to be a dick about this.
But we haven’t really spoken about our conquests to each other. We’ve sort of tiptoed around it in all the years we’ve been friends. We exist in this safe space where our intimate lives cease to cross over each other. Hearing about her fucking lumberjacks does not feel like a safe place for me. I feel very unsafe!
“Is there one in particular you want to reconnect with?” I ask, knowing I will probably hate the answer to this question.
“Not necessarily. I mean, I know a lot of them from all the years we’ve sponsored it. But we don’t exactly exchange numbers.” She winks at me, and I feel a sudden urge to punch a wall. Or a tree. Or a logger.
I swallow the knot in my throat and pitch my voice to be casual, as heat crawls up my neck. “You find one to fuck every year?”
“No,” she laughs and wrinkles her nose. “My game isn’t that good. But the loggers are kind of perfect. They’re only in town for the competition so it’s an easy no-strings sort of thing.”
“Last year?”
“Last year what?”
“Did you hook up with someone last year?” The year that I finally started admitting my feelings for you because I realized my brothers and I were no longer on the same anti-woman page.
She frowns and pinches her face as she thinks. “I don’t think so.”
“The year before that?”
Her face twists with amusement. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“Seems like something you should remember, isn’t it?” My tone is clipped, and my mouth is dry, so I guzzle the rest of my beer and waste no time cracking open another.
“When was the last time you slept with someone?” she asks, eyeing me with a challenging glint.
I lick my lips and shrug, not really wanting to answer this question but knowing I have to because I got so damn nosey with her. “It’s been a while. Usually my brothers and I would go out in Denver together and it was easier when we wing-manned each other, but since they’ve all wife’d up, things are different.”
“Dry spell,” Roe peals and strolls over to prop her elbows on the counter across from me. She rests her chin on her knuckles and gazes deeply into my eyes before she presses her finger between my brows. “Maybe that’s why you seem so grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy,” I huff and lean away from her to drink more beer. Beer is my only friend right now. Beer will save me from this sweet hell I find myself in.
“Then stop scowling.” She turns around to start dishing up our food. “I think this lumberjack plan is genius. And if I find someone I can hook up with during this whole stupid yearlong cohabitation, that’s a double bonus. Casual sex with my husband sounds just crazy enough to work. Bring on the loggers!”
She draws out the last sentence in a growly singsongy voice, so I down the rest of my second beer and reach for number three. I’m going to have to crash on Roe’s couch or call my brothers for a ride home tonight at this rate.
We sit side by side at the counter eating and my mind races so much I barely taste the food. I know I’m eating it though, because the spice is causing my forehead to dampen withsweat. No wonder Roe only ever sees me as a friend. She’s used to hulked-out lumberjacks in the bedroom. They probably wouldn’t even react to spicy food. I am weak compared to them. A mere mortal.
