Page 3 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

My apartment was exactly as I’d left it that morning: small, warm, and decorated in what Dollie called “Pinterest on a budget.” A secondhand couch with too many throw pillows. String lights draped across the bookshelf. A kitchen that was really just a counter, a stove, and a prayer. But it was mine, and it was clean, and right now it was approximately ten thousand times better than a frozen sidewalk.

Getting him from the car to the front door took another small eternity. He’d regained enough consciousness to move his feet, which helped, but his coordination was somewhere between “newborn deer” and “no.” I guided him through the door, down the short hallway, and into the spare room, which was really just a glorified closet with a twin bed and a nightstand.

He collapsed onto the bed like gravity had been waiting for this moment. I pulled off his boots, which took an unreasonable amount of effort, and draped the spare blanket over him. His breathing evened out almost immediately, deep and slow, the sleep of the completely and utterly gone.

I stood in the doorway and looked at him. A total stranger, passed out in my guest room, smelling like a distillery and crying about someone named Jimmy.

“What are you doing, Chloe?” I whispered to myself.

I didn’t have an answer. But I went to the kitchen anyway, set a glass of water and two aspirin on the nightstand next to him, and left the door open a crack. Then I sat on my couch, pulled a throw blanket around my shoulders, and listened to the sound of a stranger sleeping in my spare room until my own eyes grew heavy.

The glitter in my hair caught the string lights and scattered tiny stars across the ceiling.

I fell asleep watching them.

2

SAWYER

The first thing I noticed was that the ceiling was wrong.

My ceiling was wood. Dark, rough-hewn planks I’d installed myself three winters ago when the old drywall had started to crack. I knew every knot, every grain, every imperfection. I could trace them with my eyes closed.

This ceiling was white. Smooth. There was a crack in the far corner that looked like a river on a map, and someone had hung a small paper lantern over the light fixture, the kind you’d buy at one of those craft stores in town.

This was not my ceiling. Which meant this was not my house.

I sat up too fast. The world tilted sideways, and my skull split open from the inside, or at least that’s what it felt like. Pain hammered behind my eyes, thick and relentless, and my stomach rolled with the kind of nausea that made you reconsider every choice that had led to this moment.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and breathed. In. Out. In. Out. The room smelled like lavender and something else. Vanilla, maybe. Something warm and clean that had no business being anywhere near me.

I dropped my hands and looked around.

Small room. Twin bed, which explained why my feet were hanging off the end. Nightstand with a glass of water and two white pills. A bookshelf in the corner crammed with paperbacks, their spines cracked and worn. A window with yellow curtains pulled shut, thin enough to let the morning light through in a golden haze.

The glass of water sat there, patient as a saint. I stared at it like it might explain how I’d gotten here. It didn’t.

What I could piece together was this: Josh’s birthday. The bar. Rounds of whiskey that I shouldn’t have said yes to but did because it was easier than explaining why I didn’t feel like celebrating. The way the noise had gotten louder and louder until I couldn’t hear myself think, which had been the whole point, until even the noise wasn’t enough and everything I’d been trying to drown had come flooding back in.

After that, nothing. A black wall where memory should have been.

I looked down. I was still in yesterday’s flannel shirt, wrinkled and smelling like a bar floor. My boots were sitting neatly by the door, lined up side by side like someone had placed them there carefully. Someone had taken off my boots. Someone had covered me with a blanket that had small embroidered flowers along the edge.

My jaw tightened.

The door was open a crack. I could hear sounds from somewhere beyond it. A kettle. Footsteps. Humming. Someone was humming, soft and low, a melody I didn’t recognize.

I grabbed the pills, swallowed them dry, then drained the water in three long gulps. My head screamed in protest at the movement. I ignored it and swung my legs off the bed, my socked feet hitting a worn rug.

The hallway was short. Five steps and I was standing at the edge of a living room that opened into a kitchen so small you could probably touch both walls if you stretched your arms out. The couch had more throw pillows than any piece of furniture needed, and there were string lights, actual string lights, draped over a bookshelf. The whole place looked like something out of a magazine for people who found joy in small things.

She was standing at the stove with her back to me.

She was shorter than I expected, though I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. Her hair was pulled up in a messy knot on top of her head, dark blonde with streaks that caught the light from the window. She was wearing an oversized sweater that hung off one shoulder and a pair of socks with what appeared to be cartoon cats on them. She was stirring something in a pot, still humming, completely unaware that I was standing there.

I cleared my throat.

She turned, and her face broke into a smile so immediate and so bright that it actually made my headache worse. Nobody should be capable of that kind of wattage before eight in the morning.