He looks me up and down and smiles when he sees me in his shirt. I shake my head. “I’m going to toss the sheets in the laundry before we leave.” I grab one corner as he watches me. “What are you doing?” I ask, huffing.
“I’m trying to see if you look different.” He smirks at me as I glare at him. “You don’t. You’re just as beautiful as you were last night, or as you were two days ago.” He walks to me, grabbing me, pulling me to him. “Actually, I’m lying, you do look different. You’re more beautiful.” He kisses my nose. “Now let’s go. I want to be on the road by five and it’s four fifty-seven.” He turns and goes back into his closet, coming out with his travel bag. “I packed a couple extra sweaters for you in case you don’t have clothes.”
I nod at him as I grab the sheets and walk all the way across the loft to the laundry room. “Okay, I’m ready,” I say after I toss the sheets in the basket.
“Grab the bag in the fridge,” he says and grabs our jackets. “I started the car, so we don’t need our jackets. You ready?”
I nod as I grab my purse and the food bag and follow him out.
We load up the car, getting in. “Road trip,” I say as I buckle myself in, taking off my UGGs and tucking my feet under me. “We didn’t even pack coffee,” I tell him, looking at the streets that are deserted.
We drive away from the city as the sun comes up and I look out the window. “Where are we going?”
“I own a house right over the border, a log house. It was the first thing I bought when I got my contract. I use it as my summer home. It’s right on a lake, buried almost in the woods. It has a cabin, but it’s iffy and the Wi-Fi is a crap shot.” He smiles at me. “No one but Denise knows about this house. It’s the basics: kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. I did have it gutted three years ago and updated.”
I nod at him and then lean my head on the window, watching the grass go from green to white. We pass the border in record time. It’s so small there is only one guy for both sides. “I called the guy to make sure everything is shoveled before we get there,” he says as I look around as he pulls off at an exit. I look down and see my phone go from four bars to three to one. “Told you Wi-Fi is iffy.”
I shrug my shoulder. “I don’t care. I’m with the only person who matters right now.”
He smiles at me and takes turn after turn, going higher and higher as my ears start to block. You don’t see any houses anywhere; just pine trees. We pass a store, a gas station, what looks like a diner, and then he turns left into what looks like a driveway. “Are we here?” I ask as he zigzags till it opens up to a stunning house. “This isn’t a freaking log cabin, it’s a fort.”
I take in two wooden garage doors, with the stairs right to the side. The house is sitting on two levels. He parks the car, turning it off as I put my UGGs back on and follow him up the stairs. The right side of me is a sitting area, being held up by stilts. He opens the door and I take it in. It’s an open concept like his loft. There is a little room right off the entrance that is where he stores all his jackets and there is a bench. He takes off his shoes and hangs our jackets. A door in the corner shows me it’s a bathroom. “Come, I’ll show you around,” he says as he takes my hand in his. We walk into the house right into a hallway with three doors, but we go to the left that leads up to an open area. Right away, there is the kitchen. The cabinets are a dark brown, lining the whole wall in an L-shape. The sink is facing a window that shows you more trees. But what gets me the most is the windows on the back of the house.
I look up and see that everything looks like logs are holding everything together. As we walk into the middle of the house I look around and the only thing I see is the back wall of the house is just huge windows. All held together with wood logs, the sunlight coming in to the whole house. A two-person table sits right in front of it with a fireplace to the right hand side all in bricks to the ceiling. The rustic leather couch sits in front of the fireplace that has a television hanging on top of it. There is a door to the side with a deer head hanging from the top. “Please tell me that isn’t real.”