I couldn’t breathe in the bathroom. I couldn’t breathe anywhere, actually. When Syi got within a few feet’s radius it was like all my air was stolen. Not to mention how close we’d been to kissing. That was crazy. Too crazy.

I put a bandage on the cut on my head and forced myself to step into the pajama bottoms he gave me. Bad enough I was wearing his shirt which was so huge on me. Luckily for me my bra and panties didn’t get soaked when I was in the rain. I had my clothes hung over the shower curtain rod.

I managed to get the drawstring of the pants tied semi-tightly. I looked like a total fool as I walked through the cabin with these baggy clothes hanging from me. Not to mention they smelled like him. And every time I took a breath and smelled Syi, my heart raced a little.

He had pillows and blankets on the couch. And two mugs of tea.

Syi appeared from the porch, holding a bottle of whiskey. He twisted off the cap and poured quite a bit into his tea.

“Helps me sleep,” he said.

“You don’t sleep much?”

“How’d you guess? By my midnight walk that saved your life?”

“Right.”

“You want some?” he asked. “Or maybe not. Don’t need you wandering around out there.”

“That was the rum. Plus, I want to be here.”

I cringed at my horrible attempt to flirt. That was definitely not a strong suit of mine. I was too honest, my heart too easily available.

“Please pour some,” I said. “I need it.”

Syi topped off my mug with whiskey and then grabbed his and sat down in a chair. He put his feet up on the coffee table. They were huge. Just like the rest of him. I’d never seen feet so big in my life.

“So what do you do up here?” I asked. “I mean, for a living.”

“Work for a lumber company,” he said.

“Fitting.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“Just… I guess there’s nothing else to do.”

“You could write books,” he said. “Have a cozy little cabin. Nobody to bother you. Shit, I have electricity, heat, and internet. What else would I need?”

“Do you write books?”

“No,” he said.

But he didn’t smile as though he was joking or something.

I glanced up and saw the second floor loft. And a desk right against the open railing.

“Is this your only place?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I mean, do you have a normal house? Or, a house in a town or something?”

“Why the questions?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Just trying to make conversation.”

“Why don’t you cut the small talk and get to the good stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Who hurt you, sugar?”

I felt like an elephant had stepped on my chest. “Uh…”

“Where do you work?” he asked.

“A flower shop.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. My friend Kim, her parents own it. Easy job.”

“That’s what you like?”

“No.”

“But you do it anyway.”

“Do you like chopping down trees?” I asked.

“No,” Syi said. For the first time that night, he grinned a little. “But I do it anyway.”

“I used to have a job in finance,” I said. “A good job. A great career path ahead of me.”

“What happened?”

“I let it slip away.”

“Because of the person that hurt you,” Syi said.

“Yeah.”

“Shit,” he said.

He didn’t apologize. Or say anything else.

He asked me, “Was it your boss?”

“What?”

“You and your boss. Were you dating him or something?”

“Wow. That’s a personal question.”

“I thought we were having a conversation?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

There we were, dancing around each other.

“I’m getting a little tired here,” he said. “I’ll keep the fire going but I’m going to get some shut eye.”

“Right there?” I asked.

“Chair is comfy as hell,” he said. “You okay on the couch? You can have the bed if you want.”

Will you be in it?

I didn’t have the nerve to ask the question, but maybe I would have if I drank a few more cups of the tea with the whiskey in it. Each sip made my eyes water. But I suddenly started to feel very relaxed.

I watched as Syi faced the fire and just sat there. Thinking. His mind totally somewhere else. I put my head down and pulled the blanket up to my shoulder. I was comfortable. So comfortable. Hiding from the world.

Kim sent me a text a little bit later.

Where are you?

I looked at Syi and thought about everything that had happened.

He looked back, his face so scruffy, his eyes so dark. He looked like a madman, but the kind you’d meet in a sexy dream.

“Boyfriend?” he asked.

“No.”

He nodded and looked forward again.

I wrote back to Kim.

At a ‘sleepover’ … with a guy. Stop texting.

It was true, but I’m sure what Kim thought was happening and what was actually happening were two different things.

She text me back, proving my point.

Whore! ;)

I left it at that.

She thought I was finally with a guy, blowing off steam, getting over what happened with Thad. Instead Syi was across the room in a chair.

He stood up and grabbed a log and tossed it onto the fire. Sparks flew and he stepped back and sat back down.

The silence was so intense.

I was comfortable on the couch, under the blanket, in front of the fire, but I almost felt uncomfortable in his presence.

“We were supposed to spend our life together,” I said.

“Who? Thad?”

I gasped. “How do…”

Syi looked back again. “When I picked you up that night, you said his name.”

“Shit,” I whispered. I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Well, that’s… yeah. It was all planned out.”

“What happened?”

“He took a job offer across the country.”

“You didn’t want to go?”

“I was told not to join,” I said, leaving out a few very important details.

“And you listened?”

“I’m not going somewhere I’m not wanted.”

“You’re here,” Syi said with a grin.

“Funny. Way to make me feel more like a loser.”

“Just saying.”

“I wasn’t going to chase someone who didn’t love me.”

“Which meant you didn’t love him,” Syi said.

“Not necessarily.”

“Definitely,” Syi said. “You have love and you believe in it? You chase that shit until your last breath. That realness, when it hits you, it’s worth dying for.”

Syi stared at me with a set of eyes so honest, it made me shiver.

We didn’t speak another word for the rest of the night.

* * *

I couldn’t get comfortable in my mind. I fought against dreams that were always going to win the battle. When I finally opened my eyes, I looked around and remembered where I was. It was dark all around me. The fireplace was glowing a soft orange color from the embers dying. I pulled the blanket tighter to me and took a deep breath, smelling Syi.

There was a small light above me, spreading across the ceiling of the cabin, which was made up of wood beams that ran end to end. I turned and propped myself up for a second before I sat up. I looked up and realized Syi was sitting at the desk up in the loft.

Was he a writer or something?

That would have been crazy. This huge lumberjack guy living in the woods, living in this cabin, writing novels in the middle of the night.

I stood from the couch and slowly crept toward the steps. I took them one by one, trying not to make any noise. I still had about three steps to go when I was able to see Syi. He sat there at the desk with his two hands to the desk. Staring down at it. He was writing. He had no notebook, pen, pencil. No laptop either. Instead, it looked like a map.

A map?

That’s when Syi looked up,right at me.

I froze and put my back to the wall.

The look in his eyes…

“Sorry,” I whispered. “The light woke me. Wasn’t sure what it was. If you needed something. Or maybe…”

Syi reached forward and pulled the string on a lamp on the desk.

Darkness was everywhere then.

I saw his silhouette rise up from the desk and walk toward me. I had a chill going through me as though I was in a horror movie. But at the same time, the closer Syi walked to me, the hotter my body felt.

He started to walk down the steps and stopped when he was about eye-level with me. He was down a few steps to make that happen.

We stared at each other in the darkness of his cabin.

He didn’t say a word to me.

I didn’t say a word to him.

Instead, I took my chance as I reached up and touched his face. My fingers curling into the beard on his face. I could smell him. I could feel his presence so intensely overwhelming. It was like I had no air. But I liked it. Like he could blanket me. Like he could give me the chance to figure it all out.

If I could just stay in this cabin until I was ready to face the world again.

I think he understood that, too.

Syi touched my face, just like he had done in the bathroom. His heavily-calloused thumb sliding under my bottom lip. Making my toes curl against the wood step. Making my knees feel like they were nonexistent.

I let out a breath slowly but it came out as a quiet, shuddering sigh.

Syi leaned in a little more, close enough that I could taste his breath. My lips parted, wanting more. I needed more. He had no idea how badly I needed…

He turned and continued his walk down the stairs.

I watched his silhouette walk from the stairs toward the fireplace. I heard some noise and then there was the scattering of sparks. Syi put some logs into the fireplace, on the embers. I smelled the wood as it started to catch fire.

Within a few minutes, the fire was back alive. The light spread across the cabin, making the color and shadows dance as the flames flickered.

I went down the stairs, slowly, and walked to the couch.

For a few seconds I felt like I was in a dream.

I got back on the couch, under the blanket, and looked at Syi as he sat there, staring at the fire.

“Lara?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you think you know about me or you think you’ve seen, forget about it. After tonight, your job is to forget about me. I don’t want you up here ever again. Stay away.”

I didn’t respond.

I shut my eyes with a heavy sigh.

But I knew one thing.

I was never going to forget Syi.