Lumbersexual (Novella) Read Online Free Page B

something to announce that the sunset had finished, but so slowly that it was imperceptible, it became fading shadows and darkening sky.  And I realized I’d just sat for a long time with this hunky stranger without saying anything at all.
    But that silence was companionable, not uncomfortable.  Since it wasn’t going to happen with him, I didn’t feel like I had to chatter and impress him.  Sitting next to him in the mountains just felt right.  I let out a breath and it broke the spell.  Momentarily lost in the beautiful Sierra sunset, I’d forgotten I was at a party.  But the music and the laughter of the party swelled and returned, and I awoke from the trance I’d been in.
    He looked up to the now-dark sky and then over to me.  “Want me to start a fire now?”
    I nodded.  We used to have bonfires where I grew up, and I loved feeling the warmth of flames outside.  “Too bad we don’t have stuff for s’mores.”
    “We’ll do that next time,” he assured me.  Was that a promise or just something nice he was saying?
    Now I was over-analyzing everything he did.  I needed to just accept that it was over before it started and not try to wiggle my way out of it.
    I really wanted to wiggle against him, though.  Even if it was just for one night.
    Stop it, Maggie.
    I helped him to gather up more kindling and tinder, and like a Boy Scout, he built a fire, a small log cabin of sticks covering pine needles, with a teepee over it.  Striking only one match, he lit it.
    Show off.  It always took me a cup of lighter fluid and a book of matches to light a fire back home.  Guess that’s what happened when you were as hot as Court.  Spontaneous combustion.
    Shaking my head at his utter backwoodsman competence, I sat back down on my part of the log, and he sat down next to me.  Legs spread.  Almost touching me.  Again.
    Damn.  I liked it.
    Gesturing at my beer sitting next to me on a stump, he asked, “Another sip?”
    “No thanks.”
    “It’s good to linger a while,” he mused, almost to himself.  “By the fire.  In the forest.”
    “Yeah.”
    Again, we sat in silence while the fire crackled and bigger logs caught flame.  Sitting next to anyone at a campfire made me feel like I knew him better than I really did.  Being outside, watching the flames lick the sky and smelling the wood smoke brought us closer together.
    “I know you gave me shit about not seeing the Valley, but I can’t wait to go.  From the pictures, it looks just stunning.  I can imagine that it’s even more impressive to experience it.”
    I could see his mouth tilt into a half-grin in the dark, lit up by the flames from the fire.  “You can’t imagine it, babe.  You just have to see it.”
    Again with the babe.
    Stop over-analyzing.
    He continued, “Though it’s best just to get into the backcountry after you check the Valley off your list.  It’s too much like Disneyland.”
    “Really?  Why?”  For someone who was giving me crap about not seeing the most famous parts of Yosemite, that was a strange admission.
    “People love Yosemite to death.”
    The fire had now caught for real, and as the logs burned, they fell, sending momentary sparks into the sky.
    I raised my eyebrows.  “Guess that’s why I’m restoring meadows.”
    He raised his eyebrows back at me and his cheek twitched.  “That your job?”
    “Yup.”  Or it would be, once I got started.
    “That’s cool.  I like that.”
    The wind shifted and the ashy smoke blew in my face and I coughed, my eyes burning from the sudden assault.  Just as suddenly, it shifted again, and the cool mountain breeze came back.
    “I’m always the one to get the smoke in my eyes at a bonfire,” I complained.
    “They say smoke follows beauties,” he rumbled.
    Okay.
    That was a flirty thing to say.
    I stared at him, not sure how to react to that one.
    Idly, I wished that I could research new people on the internet, but for real.  Learn everything about him