I woke up on a couch I didn’t recognize to a smell I did recognize. Coffee was the reason I sat up suddenly. The rum was the reason I put my head back down. I put a pillow over my head as it throbbed. That’s when everything started to slowly come back to me.

Then I realized, again, that I was on a couch I didn’t recognize. I was supposed to be in a sleeping bag. In a tent. In the woods.

I tossed the pillow to the floor and sat up again. My stomach did a backflip. I took a deep breath. On the table in front of me was a glass of water. Two white pills next to that.

I looked back and didn’t see anyone.

I looked around the cabin.

It was a beautiful cabin. Definitely cozy and warm. It was so simple, yet it was so perfect. Not many decorations or anything in the place, but that was fine, because the wood was so rich. I was directly across from a big brick fireplace, but there was no fire lit. Just a stack of wood next to the hearth.

The smell of coffee hit me again.

I knew I needed to get up and figure out what happened to me last night. Part of me didn’t want to know. Then again…how did I go from a campsite to a cabin?

Was everyone else here with me?

Maybe it started to rain or something.

Or…wait…

The fire. The firewood.

That’s right. We had trouble starting a fire. Well, not me. I didn’t give a shit at the time. The guys didn’t bring enough firewood. But Alex had found some in the woods.

I leaned forward and rubbed my aching forehead.

“You should drink that water,” a deep voice said.

I jumped and jumped up to my feet from the couch. I turned and the room started to spin. I put my hands out for balance but found none. My eyes focused for a quick second, and I was looking at a tall and wide man. A lumberjack-looking guy with a scruffy beard and a black and white checkered flannel with the sleeves rolled up. His arms, shoulders, and chest filled the flannel to the max. My hands touched his chest for balance. Fucking rock-hard chest.

He grabbed my arms, an insane strength pouring off him.

“Hey, whoa,” he said. “You need to sit down, Lara.”

Oh, fuck.

He knew my name.

What else did he know about me?

My mind wondered if he and I…not that it would have been a bad thing. He was built like a monster, and he was sexy. Like no man I had ever seen in my life. Like he had never been anywhere but up in these woods.

He slowly lowered me to the couch. Such brute force, but I kind of liked it. He put me on my back, my head on a pillow. He hovered over me, leaving me wondering what he was going to do to me next.

I expected him to keep lowering himself down, but he didn’t. Instead, he moved away.

He pointed to the table. “Drink the water. Those pills are for your head. I’m sure you’re feeling it.”

“Wait,” I said. “How did you…where am I?”

“You’re in the woods, sugar,” he said. “Not far from where you’re supposed to be, but far enough away that you have me shocked. I’ll be right back with coffee.”

He knew I was camping? If so, where was everyone else?

I sat back up, slower this time. I looked around one more time. There was no sign of anyone else.

I reached for the water. I sipped it and looked at the pills.

What if this guy was some crazed killer and wanted to drug me?

I grabbed for the pills but didn’t take them. I slid them into my pocket, just in case.

He came back, as he said he would, carrying two coffee mugs. Big, black mugs.

“Here,” he said.

I looked at the coffee.

I looked up at him.

Fuck, he was tall. And big. Strong big. Super strong-big.

“Okay,” he said. He slowly sat down on the coffee table. I thought the thing was going to explode under him. He raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m not here to hurt you, sugar. You’re in my cabin. Don’t forget that. That’s coffee in the mug. With some sugar and milk. And the pills you stuffed in your pocket are not poisonous.”

I felt my face turn bright red. I reached into my pocket and took the pills out.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“I’m just trying to help. Did your friends call you yet?”

Shit. My phone.

I reached for my phone in my pocket.

The screen was black. I pressed the button and the little charger icon blinked.

“It’s dead,” I said. “Do you have a charger up here?”

“Up here?” he asked. “Like I’m living in the last century?”

“No, not like that. I didn’t mean…”

“Give me the phone,” he said.

When I handed him my phone, his hand brushed against mine. So rough and strong. Everything about him was rough and strong.

He plugged my phone in as I chugged the water and took the pills. My head was killing me. My mouth was bone-dry. I was hungry and wanted to throw up at the same time.

I then sipped the coffee, the warmth making me feel more alive by the second.

He just stood there, near my phone, looking at me.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

“Not much,” I said.

“I found you on a bench,” he said. “You…were throwing up.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassment running through me.

“I don’t think you really get it, sugar,” he said. “Right behind that bench there’s a drop off. It goes down I don’t know how many hundreds of feet. You were ten, twenty feet away from killing yourself. Considering how far you walked…”

“How did you know?” I asked. “And how do you know my name? And that I was camping with friends?”

He curled his lip. He suddenly looked evil. So much so that I rose to my feet and moved my eyes left to right, looking for an escape route.

I heard the vibration of my phone next to him. There was finally enough of a charge that it turned on. But he was blocking my phone.

“Look, I saved you,” he said. He looked back. “Now why don’t you-”

I didn’t let him finish what he was going to say. I ran forward, toward the door. I expected him to jump and stop me, but he didn’t. I looked to my right and saw him just standing there, holding his coffee mug.

I grabbed for the doorknob but missed it. My goal was to open the door, run outside, and just start screaming for Kim and everyone else.

Instead, I missed the doorknob and slammed into the door.

Hard.

So hard that I let out a loud umph and stumbled back. My head throbbed even worse and I thought I was going to throw up. I hit the arm of the couch and started to go back even more. I fell back on the couch and rolled to the floor. I jumped up, slammed my side against the coffee table, and cried out in pain.

All this moving and fighting was for no reason whatsoever. Because he didn’t move an inch. He just watched me.

I was standing again, further away from the door than when I had started.

“Feel better?” he asked me.

“Who are you? Why am I here? What did you do to me and my friends?”

He laughed.

The guy laughed at me!

His chuckle was deep enough that I thought it was going to make the cabin rattle.

“This isn’t fucking funny,” I said.

He opened his mouth to say something but there was a knock at the door.

I found another way out of there.

“Help!” I screamed.

“What is wrong with you?” he snapped at me as he walked to the door.

When he opened the door, there was a police officer standing there.

* * *

I ran toward the officer.

“Osiris,” the officer said. “Morning. Sorry to bother…”

I put on the brakes.

I then stood right next to the guy. Osiris? What a name. So beautiful. Yet fitting for him. Something about the name, his physique, his look…

“This is Lara,” he said. “She got herself lost last night in the woods. Drunk. I brought her here to sleep.”

“Ah, so you’re the one we got the call about,” the officer said.

“What?” I asked.

“About an hour ago we got a call for someone missing from a campsite. Do you have your phone?”

Osiris opened the door all the way and waved the officer inside the cabin.

My mind was racing as fast as my heart.

“You need some coffee, Jimmy?” Osiris offered the officer.

“No. I’m good. Thanks. I’m at the end of my shift, actually. I should be home by now.”

The officer glared at me.

I felt like a moron.

Osiris handed me my phone.

Sure enough, there were over a hundred texts. Fifty calls. Forty-five voicemails.

“I fucked up,” I whispered.

“So, let me get this straight,” the officer said. “You got drunk. Wandered away. Syi found you…”

Syi? Can this mountain man get any hotter?

“… and you woke up here?”

“Yes,” I said.

“She was on the stone bench out there,” Osiris said. “I carried her back here. She slept on the couch. Scared as hell this morning. Which I guess makes sense.”

Osiris looked at me.

My face burned red again. “I’m so sorry.”

“You need to contact your friends,” the officer said. “Right now. I’ll call this in that everything’s okay.” He looked at Osiris. “I got nervous. Didn’t need this again…”

I heard the comment and saw the look on Osiris’s face. A deep angry, sad look that spread really fast.

“Come on,” the officer said. “I don’t think you realize how much trouble you made for a lot of people.”

“I feel like an idiot already,” I said.

I stepped forward and then looked back to see Osiris. To thank him for keeping me safe. To apologize for acting like a paranoid fool.

But Osiris was gone.

“Hey, where…”

The officer grabbed my arm. “Come on. Out of there.”

I followed him to his police SUV and climbed into the passenger seat.

As we drove through the woods, I shook my head, realizing how stupid I was for leaving the campsite. But as the night came back to me, I remembered wanting to go home. Wanting to be somewhere else.

“He lives up here all alone?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Wow. And he likes it like that?”

“I don’t know,” the officer said.

He made a turn and I saw all the vehicles from the campsite.

“Why would he live up here if he doesn’t like it?” I asked.

The officer stopped his SUV. “My advice? Go apologize to your friends. Buy them breakfast. Then get your ass home.”

“There was a missing person sign I saw yesterday,” I said. “Was that another camper?”

“No.”

“Did you ever find the missing person?”

The officer turned his head. A few seconds later he answered my questions. “No.”

* * *

Kim dug her nails into my back. And then when the hug broke, she slapped me across the face. Really hard.

“Kim!” Megan yelled.

“I wish I could do that,” Matt said.

“Fuck off,” I snapped at Matt.

“Enough,” Josh growled. “We’re all tired and messed up right now. She’s safe. She’s here. Let’s all call it a trip and go home.”

“Agreed,” Rachel said.

“I’m so pissed at you,” Kim said. “What the hell…”

“Not now,” I whispered. “Please.”

“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth.

Alex didn't even look at me. Which was fine. Megan, Rachel, and Ryan said goodbye to me. The others didn’t.

When we started to drive, it took Kim a good ten minutes to even talk to me.

“What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” I said.

“How…where…”

“I got lucky,” I said. “Someone found me and let me stay on their couch.”

“Someone? Up on the mountain?”

“Yeah.”

“Who was it?”

“Some guy named Osiris.”

“Named what?”

“Osiris.”

“What kind of name of that?”

I didn’t get a chance to respond. Instead, I got the mother talk from Kim.

“Are you crazy? Some strange guy? And you were drunk? You could have been killed, Lara. You could have gone missing for good. That guy could have hurt you. Taken advantage of you. He could’ve…”

“I get it,” I said. “Okay? I get it. That’s why I said I didn’t want to go.”

“Right. So, it’s my fucking fault.”

“I didn’t say that,” I said. I sighed. “I- I’m sorry…”

I watched as the forest slowly changed back into something that resembled reality. Towns popped up, and finally, the city came into sight.

Kim drove right to the flower shop. She parked around back, in between her mother’s giant SUV and her father’s small luxury car.

They were both outside, standing there, watching me as I climbed out of the car.

“Kim…did you call your parents?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I freaked out. They called the police.”

“Right.”

I stared at her parents.

I was too old to be looked at like I was some irresponsible teenager.

Then again, I wished I was one right about now.

Nobody would understand why I walked away from the campsite and why I wanted to get lost.

Well…maybe there was one person.

But I’d probably never see him again.