Page 66 of Seale the Deal

I’m not a wedding guy, I admit.

But you’re excited for a wife, right? Walter asks, tone light but eyes sharp. He’s watching me too closely, and that makes me nervous because he’s always been able to cut through surface-level bullshit.

I keep my face steady and my voice even. Of course. That’s the only part of all this I want.

The words leave my mouth before I can really think about them, and they feel a little too true for comfort.

For fourteen years, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid relationships becoming complicated. I never promised permanence, and I always managed to keep my life separate from any woman who entered it. But living with Wrenley has blurred something in my brain. Suddenly, I’m leaving coffee for someone in the mornings and coming home to someone sitting on my couch and, during the time in between, living in my house like they belong there.

Maybe I’m just confusing proximity with attachment. Either way, I know I need to keep Walter convinced of this relationship.

Walter loves love. Married over thirty years and still leaves flowers on his kitchen counter every Tuesday like it’s a holy ritual. He’s the guy who got ordained just so he could marry off half of Alpine Harbor himself. If I’m not wearing the right level of giddy fiancé energy, it probably rubs him the wrong way. If anyone is going to sniff out that this whole engagement is built on a stack of shaky half-truths, it’ll be Walter. At the very least, he was there for the coffee fiasco, after all. I’m surprised I didn’t leave a puddle on the floor with how much sweat formed on my body while I tried to guess how Wrenley took her coffee.

Brandt, on the other hand, probably doesn’t think twice about any of this. He’s a summer guy—drifts in from Montana when the tourists come, works the season, and then goes back to whatever version of normal he has the rest of the year. We talk more about trail conditions than relationships.

And sex! Brandt cuts in suddenly, snapping me out of my spiral.

What?

He grins. A wife and sex. Those are the two big selling points.

I bark out a laugh because on the one hand, it’s such a single, twenty-six-year-old guy thing to say. On the other hand, if only he knew just how little sex I’d be having.

Marriage doesn’t guarantee sex, Walter chimes in, circling the table. Trust me. I’ve got carpal tunnel.

Brandt’s eyebrows shoot up. He hasn’t known Walter long, but it doesn’t take years to figure the guy out. One conversation is enough to know Walter’s filter broke sometime in the early 2000s and never got fixed.

I hear you, I say, falling back into the role I’ve agreed to play. Long distance isn’t any better.

There’s phone sex, though, Brandt tosses out like it’s a solution, taking a pull from his beer. That’s gotta be decent.

I lift a shoulder. Get yourself a Montana girlfriend and find out.

You know, I come to Alaska to get away from that kind of talk, he says, waving the idea off. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my mom: no one wants to talk dirty or get naked on the phone with a guy in a cabin surrounded by other unwashed men.

I make a face. You tell your mom that?

I might’ve embellished a little for your sake, Brandt says with a sly smile.

Plus, the real thing is better, Walter slides in nonchalantly.

Brandt and I nod in agreement because he’s not wrong.

You staying on next season? Brandt asks.

My brow furrows. Why wouldn’t I?

Brandt shrugs. Just saying… not many partners can handle this lifestyle. You’re off grid for two seasons.

I nod and add that to the list of reasons I can’t let myself get this confused. She could never be happy with a life where she’s staring at four walls, waiting for me for weeks at a time.

How does it feel working for the wildlife office this time of year? Brandt asks, changing the subject.

I shrug. Different.

The end of the cruise ship season always gives the town a weird kind of energy. Half the businesses are trying to squeeze out the last tourist dollars before winter hits, and the other half are already mentally hibernating. Tourists bring problems I hate dealing with, like the idiot feeding the bear. Thankfully, I miss it when guiding. By the time I’m back for good, the ships are gone, and most of the town has hunkered down for winter. My days are mostly patrolling, with the odd response to wildlife conflict.

But I’m only picking up shifts. Covering vacations. That kind of thing, I say.