Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Thank you,
Ripley Brewer
“Aren’t you afraid someone is going to get a hold of this and extort you?” I ask.
He laughs. “Extort me for what?”
“I don’t know. The possibilities are endless. Don’t you watch television?”
“Ironically, no.”
“Not to freak you out or anything, but they could burn this place down and then charge you with arson,” I say. “They could break everything in here and say you did it and demand you refurnish the place. They could kill someone, drop the dead body here, and say you’re the prime suspect.”
“First of all, who is this they you’re talking about?”
“Whoever owns this place.”
“Second,” he says, as if he wasn’t expecting an answer to the first question, “someone would have to be very diabolical to burn their own cabin down just to blame it on me.”
“It happens.”
He nods like I’m the diabolical one. “Third, DNA would clear me on murder, so I’m not worried about that. And if they say I broke everything, I’ll pay for it and move on. Or, I’ll have my attorneys fight them. Either way, the karma of not leaving a note is worse than taking my chances.”
I roll my eyes. “You have such a rich person’s perspective on stuff.”
“Well, probably. But am I wrong?”
“I mean, no. Not technically.” I wander to the window and peer out. “It’s just interesting how you think about things that other people don’t.” I face him. “I’d be terrified to leave my contact information just laying out for the public. What if the wrong person found it and tracked me down?”
His features darken.
“What if I walk out my front door one day and there’s a man with a handlebar mustache in a beat-up white van with tinted windows sitting across the street?”
“So specific.”
“Little girls grow up painting pictures of who the ‘bad guy’ might be,” I say. “That was mine. His name was Gilbert. He smelled like cigarettes and wore sunglasses.”
Ripley cocks his head to the side. “I have so many questions.”
“The point is that as a female and as a person who couldn’t just hire an attorney to defend myself in court, I’d never leave my information like that. Maybe I’d call in after I got home or something. But that?” I point at the letter. “That’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”
His brows tug together as if he’s never once contemplated something like this. It blows my mind. How has he made it thirty years and not considered these types of things?
He scoots over on the couch. “Why don’t you sit with me until the rain stops?”
“Oh, do you want to cuddle? Heads-up—I’m not much of a cuddler.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“You’re a smart man … sometimes.”
I sit beside him, leaning against his side and drawing my knees up to my chest. He wraps an arm around me and rests the side of his head against mine.
I wait for the weirdness to settle in, for the moment where we realize that we might not hate each other anymore, but we also aren’t friends. Now that we’ve had sex, things are forever changed. And no heart-to-hearts, no arguments, no truths will ever fix it.
But nothing happens. Huh.
“What are you thinking?” he asks softly.
“That we didn’t film at all today.”
“That’s not what you were thinking,” he says, chuckling.
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
I take a long breath and wonder if I should broach this topic. It makes me nervous to go there, but we’ll have to do it sooner or later. And he did bring it up, which is a green flag.
“I’m wondering when things get uncomfortable,” I say.
“Why do they have to get uncomfortable?”
He strokes my arm gently, his even breathing lulling me into a trance. I forget he’s asked me a question. Instead, I close my eyes and let his presence bleed into me and make me feel protected in a way I can’t remember feeling before.
“I don’t want you to feel pressured by this,” he says, hesitantly.
“By what?”
“When we walked up this mountain, you felt one way about me. Now that we’ve had sex, I don’t want you to think there’s pressure there.”
Oh. “So you’re saying that as far as you’re concerned, what happens in the cabin stays in the cabin?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then what did you say?”
I hold my breath and wait for his explanation.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions, although I guess I already did. I suppose I just don’t want to assume that this was anything more to him than a fuck. Because I don’t know what it was and I’m afraid to think about it too much.
My chest tightens at the silence.
“You know, I believe you didn’t plan this,” I say, leaning off him. “I don’t think you expected this to happen any more than I did.”
He places a hand on my shoulder and gently guides me back into him.