Chapter Fifteen: The Weekend That Felt Like Forever
1365 Words
Gavin arrived Friday afternoon with enough food for six people.
I stood beside his truck, staring at the bags packed across the back seat.
“You know we’re only staying two nights.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you buy three kinds of cereal?”
“You said you liked options.”
“I said that about restaurants.”
“Same principle.”
He took my bag before I could argue and placed it beside the groceries.
For the entire drive, I waited for his phone to ring.
It didn’t.
No station calls.
No messages he needed to answer outside the truck.
No child asking when he would be home.
I felt guilty for enjoying the silence.
The cabin was smaller than it had looked from outside, with one bedroom, a narrow kitchen, and a stone fireplace beside the living room. The lake stretched behind it, gray-blue beneath the afternoon sky.
Gavin placed the bags on the counter.
“Well?”
“It’s perfect.”
“You said the apartment was only nice.”
“The apartment didn’t have a fireplace.”
“It also had plumbing that didn’t make threatening noises.”
As if summoned, something groaned inside the wall.
I looked at him.
“You brought me somewhere haunted.”
“You’ll be fine. You’re dating a firefighter.”
“I’m dating a man who failed to make pasta.”
“That was one time.”
“During a crisis.”
“There was a power outage.”
“Exactly. You collapsed under pressure.”
Gavin caught me around the waist before I could move away.
“I’ll show you how well I perform under pressure.”
I laughed as he lifted me onto the kitchen counter.
For once, no one could see us.
No one knew his wife.
No one knew my name.
He kissed me slowly, without the urgency of a motel room or the caution he carried at my apartment. His hands moved over me as though we had all the time in the world.
That was what the cabin gave us.
Time.
We unpacked groceries. We walked beside the lake. Gavin tried to build a fire even though the evening wasn’t cold enough to need one.
It took him four attempts.
“You save people from fires,” I said from the couch. “You don’t actually know how to start them?”
“These are completely different skills.”
“Should I call Cole?”
Gavin looked over his shoulder.
The humor disappeared from his face.
“I’m joking.”
“I know.”
He returned to arranging the logs.
I watched him for a moment.
“What did he want?”
“When?”
“The day we drove back from the lake. He called twice.”
“Nothing important.”
“He said you needed to talk.”
“Cole always thinks we need to talk.”
“You’re still friends.”
Gavin struck another match.
“We’ve worked together for years.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He glanced at me.
“Yes. We’re friends.”
“Even though he hates what you’re doing?”
“He doesn’t hate me.”
“He seems close.”
Gavin finally managed to light the fire. He sat back on his heels and watched the flames catch.
“Cole sees people as good or bad,” he said. “He doesn’t understand that someone can make a mess of one part of his life and still be decent everywhere else.”
“Is that what we are?”
“A mess?”
“One part of your life.”
He stood and came toward me.
“No.”
Gavin sat beside me and pulled my legs across his lap.
“You’re the part I’m trying to get right.”
The answer settled warmly inside me.
He kissed my knee.
“Stop thinking about Cole.”
“I’m not thinking about him.”
“You brought him up.”
“Because he called you.”
“And I ignored him.”
“For me?”
“For us.”
He took his phone from his pocket and switched it off.
Then he placed it on the table.
“There. No interruptions.”
I looked at the dark screen.
“What about the children?”
“Natalie has the cabin number for emergencies.”
The mention of her should have changed the evening.
It didn’t.
Not completely.
Gavin had given her a way to reach him.
He had also turned off the device connecting him to everything outside this room.
I decided that counted as choosing me.
---
The next morning, I woke to the smell of burning toast.
I found Gavin in the kitchen, waving a dish towel beneath the smoke detector.
“This is becoming a pattern,” I said.
He looked offended.
“I’m cooking.”
“You’re creating evidence.”
“Sit down.”
There was a plate on the small table with eggs, toast scraped black around the edges, and strawberries cut into uneven pieces.
Two cups of coffee sat beside it.
I lowered myself into the chair.
“You did all this?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’ve seen your previous work.”
He kissed the top of my head.
“Eat.”
The eggs were slightly overcooked.
I finished everything.
After breakfast, we rented a small rowboat from the office. Gavin insisted he knew what he was doing.
He did not.
We spun in a slow circle until I took one of the oars away from him.
“This is humiliating,” he said.
“You’re very brave.”
“I could swim back.”
“You’re wearing jeans.”
“I’ve trained for worse.”
“Then jump.”
He stared at the water.
“I’m responsible for your safety.”
“Convenient.”
We eventually reached the middle of the lake.
The cabin looked tiny from there.
So did everything else.
Gavin rested the oars inside the boat and leaned back.
“I could stay here.”
I smiled. “You’d miss the station.”
“Maybe.”
“The kids.”
His expression softened.
“Yes.”
“You can say it.”
“Say what?”
“That you’d miss them more than me.”
“That isn’t true.”
“They’re your children.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to measure love.”
I looked down at the water.
“Sometimes I think there won’t be enough of you.”
Gavin reached across the narrow space and took my hand.
“There will be.”
“For everyone?”
“Yes.”
It was an impossible answer.
But beneath the open sky, with no one there to contradict him, it felt possible.
He pulled something from his jacket pocket.
A folded piece of paper.
“What’s that?”
“The cabin reservation for next year.”
I unfolded it.
The same weekend.
The same cabin.
My name was written beside his.
“You booked it again?”
“I wanted you to know this isn’t the only weekend I’m promising you.”
My eyes burned.
“Next year is a long time.”
“We’ll come back from our apartment.”
“With the yellow curtains?”
“Obviously.”
I leaned across the boat and kissed him.
It was awkward. The boat shifted beneath us, and Gavin grabbed the side before we tipped into the water.
I started laughing against his mouth.
He laughed too.
For one perfect moment, I forgot that he belonged to another life.
That night, we sat beside the fire wrapped in the same blanket.
Gavin fell asleep with his head against the couch and one hand resting over mine.
I stayed awake longer.
I listened to the fire crackle and watched his face in the shifting light.
He looked peaceful.
Not divided.
Not guilty.
Simply mine.
I memorized everything without knowing why.
The shape of his hand.
The silver at his temples.
The faint scar near his chin.
The way his breathing changed when I moved closer.
I felt asleep dreaming of yellow courtins.
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