Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76647 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Giving the dog one last pat, I rose and opened the shades. The sun was actually out, but it didn’t seem to have much effect on the ice. Every branch, every fallen log, still glistened with it. But maybe after a few more hours some of it might melt? I wasn’t sure—I hadn’t seen a weather report in a while.
Once it was lighter in the room, I spotted some clothes on a storage chest by the door. On top of the pile was a pair of warm winter socks. Thank god. I still had on what I’d been wearing yesterday, and clean clothes were a very welcome gift.
I sat back by the dog to pull the socks on my cold feet. There were some sweats, too, and I changed into them. They were big, but not humongous, so I figured they were probably Drew’s.
By the time I redid my ponytail, there weren't any other stalling tactics left. At the very least, I owed those men my thanks. I wasn’t sure how long it would take the cabin company to extract me, but I figured it might take the better part of the day, so I couldn’t hide out in here forever.
Slowly, I opened the door about a foot wide. My plan was to peek out and see who was around, but the dog nixed that idea. He hopped off the bed, stuck his nose between my leg and the door, and pushed his way out.
“There you are,” a familiar voice said. Drew was standing in front of a long, bar-height table, a laptop open in front of him. Another man was seated across from him, also working on a computer. He was the medium-sized one, though he was probably only a few inches taller than Drew and an inch or two shorter than the tall one, who was nowhere to be seen.
“Morning.” My voice was rusty. I’d slept deeply, that much was for sure. Ever since childhood, I’d had a habit of waking at two o’clock in the morning. My mom used to say she could set her clock by it, but apparently, last night it hadn’t happened.
The dog trotted over to Drew, who bent to pet him. “Sorry about the unannounced roommate,” Drew said to me. “He slipped in when I set the clothes in there.”
I stiffened, not liking the thought of Drew in there while I slept, even though I’d been so buried under the covers. “But I’m sure Zeus didn’t cause any trouble, did he?” Drew rubbed both of the collie’s ears while the dog’s tail wagged.
Zeus. All right, now I knew two out of four names. While Drew was occupied petting the dog, I took a moment to look around the cabin. It was a lot larger than mine. I could’ve gotten a bigger one, but it hadn’t seemed necessary for just myself. Being up here with few distractions was kind of the point.
Still, now that I saw how nice theirs was, I wished I’d gotten one of the more deluxe ones, if for no other reason than it might’ve stood up better under a fallen tree. We were in a large living room, and there was an L-shaped couch in front of a huge fireplace with a stone hearth. An old but cozy-looking rug covered most of the floor in the living room. A hallway with a few doors ended in a staircase that led upward. An island counter separated the living room from the kitchen. A skylight was directly over the table where the men worked, but it seemed to be covered by snow at the moment.
“How did you sleep?” the other man asked. He had light brown hair with a slight wave to it that made it look casually tousled. The stubble that lined his jaw was a bit lighter, nearly blond. His incredibly vivid blue eyes looked like they would go well with blond hair, and I guessed his hair had been lighter when he was a child.
He had on a gray sweater and jeans, and looked to be in work mode, unlike Drew, who seemed happy for a distraction.
“I slept like a log,” I said. “Now I’m all stiff.”
“Understandable, after that climb we made yesterday,” the taller man said. “We did stretches for a half hour this morning to work out some of the stiffness.”
Somehow, I could imagine what this man was like when he exercised. He struck me as a dedicated and disciplined type. There were a lot like that in LA.
Drew rolled his eyes in a playful way. “It was only ten minutes for me,” he said with a wink. “But Tristan’s almost thirty.” He said that last part in a whisper, as if revealing something shameful.
But Tristan—now I knew another one of their names—didn’t even look up from his typing. “I’m twenty-eight.”