Lumbersexual (Novella) Read Online Free Page A

myself on making up my own mind—like my decision to study botany—even if currently I was stuck in a bit of a now what do I do?  I didn’t like being ordered around.  Especially not by a guy who’d been with everyone.
    But this guy?  The gruff way he talked?  I liked it.  I immediately liked him.  
    He seemed older than he was, because of the confident way he held himself and his ready command of the room.  Even though he came off as the classic loner, he was at ease with the party and everyone around us.  Popular, too, with people trying to catch his eye.  
    But he focused on me, ignoring them and reading me with his clear eyes.
    I really liked the attention.
    Even if it was for just a beer.
    “It stays light so late now, this time of year,” I said aloud, but to myself.  “Almost sunset.”
    Holding the kitchen door open for me, he said, “That’s what I want you to see.”  I stepped past him, and resisted the urge to brush against him, to feel how his flannel felt against my cheek.  Or that beard.
    Bad idea.
    We stepped outside to a cleared area under the trees with a fire pit surrounded by felled logs.  I picked the most comfortable looking one to sit on.  He wandered over to a pile of wood and started pulling small sticks for kindling and stacking them by the fire circle.
    “Want a drink?” he asked.  “Play by the rules?”
    “Sure.”
    He dusted off his hands and took the bottle out of mine.  
    Here we go again.
    Gently, looking me in the eyes, he tilted the bottle, gauging my reaction so I didn’t get too much.
    Wow.  That worked.  He didn’t spill it all over my chin like Emma.
    How come beer tasted better when a good-looking guy gave it to you?
    He flashed me a half-grin and then stepped back to gather more wood.
    Late in the evening though it was, the cloudless sky remained a clear blue, framed by an opening of tall trees.  Off to one side, Wawona Dome, a whitish granite-topped peak, lorded over the landscape.
    “Maybe we’ll see the alpenglow,” he said as he now hoisted bigger logs alongside the pit.
    I totally noticed his biceps, and I tried not to think about wood, logs, or how he was about to set something on fire.  Maybe me.
    That didn’t work so well given how he looked carrying firewood.  So I focused on the word “alpenglow” and tried to calm my thoughts and use my brain.
    “I don’t know what that is,” I admitted, realizing that it was easier to talk to him now that I knew what category I was in.
    Holding a stack of firewood, he stopped, shook his head, and rolled his eyes.  “You gotta learn how it is in the mountains, babe.  When the sun sets, it turns the peaks pink at the top.  Watch for it.”  He dropped the wood, came over, and sat down next to me, so close that I felt his warmth through his clothes and got a whiff of that delicious woodsy body wash.  
    I also got a better look at his crazy tattoos.  
    Ink covered both of his arms.  The left arm seemed to have a single interlocking design, and I wondered who the figures were and what it all meant.  The right arm, all swirling pattern, color, and words, had so many designs, I couldn’t tell where one began and another ended.  Maybe that was the point.  What I wouldn’t give for him to take me on a personalized tour of his body.
    But I guess we weren’t doing the tour guide thing, either on his body or of the park.
    “It’s starting,” he said, and pointed at the dome.  His jean-clad legs spread next to mine, his knee so close I could touch it.  I noticed his work-rough fingernails, the way his lower lip was chapped, the perfect shape of his ears, and then I tried to pay attention to the sunset.  The rosy pink color wasn’t just on the mountain, but permeated the very atmosphere between us, turning the clear mountain air thick and hazy with pastel color.  We sat in silence for a few moments as the sky slowly changed colors and made the mountain glow.
    I waited for a pop, for