Chapter 1 – Raven

“Yes, Wil, I should be there shortly.”

“Good! You know, Raven, traveling during all of this...mess. The virus... and I mean, at this time. So close to the holidays.”

“I know...”

“And I know you need to work. You want to work...” 

“Exactly,” I answer distractedly, reassuring my editor for what must be the hundredth time since I decided to get away from the city, that no I don’t mind traveling during the pandemic, and two, working, writing, is exactly what I need right now. It’s all I have left anyway.

Remembering that I wanted to nail down a few last-minute details, I momentarily take my eyes off the road and direct them to the passenger seat to flip between the pages of the moleskin journal I use to keep notes. “Wil, just to clarify before I arrive, your assistant did make the reservation for a no contact check in. Right?” I question, wanting to be certain that I follow the stern guidance I received from my sister, a doctor at New York Presbyterian Hospital, when I told her about my impromptu, escape from the city, plan to get away and finally finish my book. These few utterings are the last full, non-curse words to leave my lips, as my attention is immediately snatched back to the snowy windshield by what I can make out from the corner of my eye is the swift dash of a deer across the road. Gloved hands gripping the steering wheel at 10 and 2, fear grips me, my breath literally stolen from me in the puffs of my shrieking gasp. It’s right before I witness the wayward skate of my car on a slick patch of ice, as though I’m not living this, and instead witnessing the impending doom on the flat screen of my apartment. My body jerks with the sudden whip of the vehicle as my foot stomps heavily down on the break. I futilely attempt to turn into the skid of the rental car over the slippery asphalt at the side of the road, drifting, headlights first into a ditch. 

XXXX

God my head hurts. And my...my mouth is so...dry. I could use a drink I think to myself, slowly turning my head to the left, then even more slowly to the right. Each turn seeming to grind the pain deeper into my brain and down behind my eyes. Eyes that I can’t seem to fully open. It’s like a weight is forcing them closed, and even as I attempt to will them open against their stubborn clench, I chuckle internally thinking that this is exactly what I mean when I have written in one of my books that someone was heavy lidded. Literally, I surmise as the first few sharp jabs of stark fluorescent light make their way past my lashes, and the protection of my lids. Immediately I wince, blinking and shuddering against the bright assault. 

Where am I? My thumb and index finger find their way to my eyes, their soft massage a jerky flit, delivering only slight comfort. While my muscles are sore and stiff, unwieldly in my staggered command of them, their lethargic movements provide just enough agitation for me to venture to open my eyes again, especially as my interest piques at what feels like wires or tubes tangling against my arm. 

The throbbing pain in my head is not subsiding, but curiosity moves me as I am finally able to take stock of my situation. Tubes in my arm. An IV. Tubes in my nose. Oxygen. Bandages on my forehead. An injury? That would explain the pain in my head, my arms, legs. White blankets, monitors, and the quiet din of voices uttering quick commands, among the hustling squeak of shoes swiftly carrying nurses and doctors, all seemingly too busy to notice me. And I suppose, even as I try to summon my voice from the quiet corner where I seem to have been stashed away in what appears to be an emergency room, their focus being elsewhere is warranted. While I don’t feel great, my thoughts are trying to gather around, and I do recall that we are in the middle of a pandemic. One that has stolen most of this year from us, and seems insistent on carrying away the few weeks that are left. 

For a moment I wonder if that’s why I’m here. Do I have Covid? Almost as quickly as I begin noodling on this, the bandage on my head, and the soft, blurry memory of me deciding on a last-minute trip that sent me on an early morning flight from New York City, to Maine, confirm that I probably don’t have Covid. Since my sister, who I share an apartment with, has been working on the front lines as an ICU doctor, I have been testing for the virus almost as constantly as she has. As a part of our deal for her to not physically restrain me from trying to leave, a move that my bossy older sister would absolutely make good on, I took a test right before I left. I didn’t have it when I tested. Despite my voyage on a nearly empty flight, I don’t think I have contracted the virus. I can’t make out the symptoms of achy breathlessness, or a cough. It’s a comforting conclusion, but does little to help me make sense of what has happened to land me in a hospital bed and not at the small family owned hotel and café that I chose from a few very brief photos on a blog that highlights many of the country’s out of the way spots to quietly explore.

Exploration is exactly what I need right now. Something new. A change of pace. All of the catchphrases I threw out to my sister as I tried to explain why I couldn’t just hunker down and quarantine in our chic Chelsea apartment to finish working on my latest novel over the holiday. Despite being a writer, a pretty good one to boot, I couldn’t find the words past a few banal platitudes to plead away my need for seclusion. How could I confess to her that yet another of my romantic relationships had failed? A romance writer who can’t do romance is more of a paradox than I can get my logic-fixated, super doctor, sister to make sense of. Regardless of our closeness, I didn’t really try. I blamed it all on being weary of the walls of my quarantine palace and needing inspiration to help me over the finish line. To achieve my goal and finish my new book. That she understood. 

Wil, my editor seemed to get it without much explanation, and even offered up his assistant to make the arrangements. He gets why I need to finish this book before the new year, remembering all of that advance money that needs to be recouped. The publicity that has surrounded my meteoric rise in the literature world as a writer whose books are romantic in nature, but are more visceral in their exploration of the nature of love. A Black writer at that, which shouldn’t be a thing, but, for some reason is a big thing. 

Add into it that I’m not a writer by training or education. I’m a writer by accident. Everything about me is sort of an accident if I’m being honest. My parents love to tell the story that my actual existence was an accident, as my mother had her tubes tied after my sister was born, and yet I’m here. By accident. I went to Howard University and obtained a business and accounting degree, and worked a few corporate jobs trying to find my footing. Little joy was to be found in that though. Math is something logical, that makes sense to me. It is complex to some, but its rules are certain. They provide an expected comfort that few of the unpredictables of life can truly offer. But joyous? No, I never found joy in being an accountant. 

Books. Words. That’s where I found love and adventure. In the pages of books, fictional stories, I could find a way to safely experience the tumult of passionate love affairs I would never have in real life. Of tempestuous arguments, making up and breaking up, falling in and out of love, in a way that would never truly risk the quiet comfort of my logical, structured life. Books and words were my escape. My way to be... more than just me. 

Eventually, my love of books, and my lack of love with my chosen career, as well as a wave of corporate downsizing, sent me back to New York, the city of my birth, jobless. Back with my parents, to the Brooklyn brownstone they’ve lived in for as long as I’ve been alive, I felt like a failure. Directionless. The discomfort from that pushed me inward. I’d retreated into books again, which also pushed me to acknowledge a growing frustration with the literary world’s lack of romance and adventure written for and by Black women. There weren’t enough Octavia Butlers or Brenda Jacksons to satiate my need for more. 

On a whim, I took Toni Morrison’s advice to the world, and decided to try and write the book that I wanted to read. Living off my severance and savings, I sequestered myself in my childhood bedroom, Macbook at the ready, and I began to write. Fanfiction. Short stories. Free stories. Whatever I could. I became obsessed, and the comfort of twisting and combining words became formulaic to me, creating a sort of mathematical beauty much the same way that numbers had once done. 

On the suggestion of my parents, who encouraged me to be thankful for the career interruption to actually explore this writing thing, I invested in a few creative writing courses.  Joined a few writing groups. And completely by accident, I found success when one of my classmates who had just procured an editor for themselves, offered to forward to them some of my writing that they had helped critique for me. That’s how Wilton and I found each other. He believed in me just enough to get my work out there when every other editor I had contacted dismissed me saying they weren’t looking for another Terry McMillan, and as though in a dream, my first book was so popular that HBO is turning it into a limited series, with a first look option to do the same with my next book. 

If I can ever complete my next book. Hence the urgency, and why Wil understands my desire to finally finish it. 2020 and Covid have completely drained me of inspiration. Both romantic and otherwise. While readers are clamoring for something to take their minds off of the dreary state of the world, my flailing romantic entanglements in a few non-committal relationships, have dried up the words that once flowed through me. Right now...I got nothing. 

Which is why I needed this time to clear my head, and after seeing the pictures of this small New England inn online, I was hoping that the romantic setting would be just the jumpstart I needed.  

Collecting myself, observing my surroundings, thoughts drift on these details, memories of who I am, anchoring me in a comforting way that the sea of white, and the antiseptic fragrance of the hospital don’t afford, I’m wondering if once again I’ve gotten things all wrong. I’m trying to find my voice and maybe get some help from one of the fast walking nurses, whose faces are obscured by plastic coverings and masks, hands protected in gloves, swishy plastic gowns draped over their scrubs. As my right hand is fumbling at my side for what I hope will be a buzzer to alert someone at the nurses’ station, a smallish man in a white doctor’s jacket rounds the corner towards the dead end of the hall where my bed is pushed into a corner. His voice is high pitched, nervous almost as the cadence of his New England accent tries to keep up with the fast-moving figure at his side. 

Swiping his hand over the few wisps of hair left at the crown of his balding head, the smaller man, the doctor, dwarfed in presence by nearly a foot, ushers his short legs to keep stride with his companion. “Like I was saying, Ashe, she’s pretty banged up.”

“Hm.”

“So, I’m really glad you came to collect her. We just don’t have the space for head wounds, when we have so many on the vent.”

“Hm.”

Halting abruptly at my bedside, the doctor fairly close, while the other at least the prescribed six feet away, the pair seem shocked to find me awake. The doctor probably more so as his eyes widen, but the other man. The tall man. The one, probably well over six feet, who smells of the very same sooty, wooden ash, that his companion called him by? His eyes barely betray him, only narrowing, crinkling slightly at the corners. Sucking in a long breath, this man, Ashe, brings with him the masculine musk of pine and snow, dusky and fragrant on his heavy brown coat. That’s another clue I don’t have Covid. My sense of smell is definitely intact as my nose savors the scent of him. This tall man, bringing with him the very essence of a New England winter. Inching my head back ever so gently, sweeping my eyes up, then back down, I take him in. His head dons a wool beanie, pulled low, protecting his forehead and ears, though a few wayward wispy curls, dark in color, have escaped along the sides. A thick beard peeks from behind the mask that covers his lips and jaws, matching his hair’s dark chestnut color. The obscuring of his face and the continuity of the warm browns of his coat, hair, and beard forces me to take note of the sharp, coolness of his sapphire blue eyes.

“Ma’am.” The doctor greets me, nodding his head as he pushes his foggy glasses up his long nose that is also covered by a white mask. 

“Hello.”

“Ma’am, Ms. Baines, I’m Dr. Dennis. I’m glad you are finally awake.” Continuing to nod, excitability colors the quickness of the small doctor’s words as his bushy eyebrows move up and down with each word. 

Focusing in on the doctor, I can’t help but let my gaze swiftly drift back to the man with him, if only for a minute. His presence is confusing, but there is something about him that continues to magnetically draw my attention back to him, despite the doctor addressing me, and the man’s watchful silence. He doesn’t fit in here with his stoic, wide stance. His hands deep in his jacket pockets. 

Licking at my lips, even though my mouth is dry, I compel them to say something. “Ok.” Ok? That’s it? Immediately I feel... I don’t know, stupid, I guess. I’m a writer. Words are my life, and the best I could come up with is...ok? 

“And you’re talking now. That’s very good. We were a little worried about you. You had a nasty accident out there on Vaughn Road. Down by the Piscataquls River. Emergency squad found your car in a ditch. You hit your head pretty good on the driver’s side window.” Gesturing towards the bandage on the left side of my forehead.

“Ok.” 

Tilting his head at my use of the brief one-word response, Dr. Dennis continues, “Gathered you’re not from around here?”

“Ok.”

“This here is Ashe.” The doctor points towards the man with him, whose dark gaze has not once wavered from his unnerving study of my face. As though he’s also trying to make sense of me, the same way I’m doing to him. Except, his consumption of me makes me self-conscious. Shy, almost embarrassed by what this stranger might be thinking of me, my predicament. On the other hand, he seems to be perfectly fine with my brief glances his way. Perhaps he’s used to the inspection of people, given his height and size? “The police found your purse with your identification, and a printout for a reservation at his hotel. The King’s Mill Inn?”

“Ok.”

Narrowing his eyes at me, Dr. Dennis’s posture softens as he pulls on a pair of latex gloves that seem to have materialized from thin air. He leans a little closer and uses that light thing all doctors seem to have on them at any given time, to stare into my eyes. Blinking rapidly at the bright intrusion, I can’t help but feel irritated at his less than hospitable approach. 

Presumably Dr. Dennis senses my displeasure, and apologizes. “Sorry about that. Your answers made me wonder if you didn’t still have a slight concussion.”

“Charles, what’s the plan here?” A deep grumbled question finally comes from the quiet stranger. 

Standing erect, and crossing his arms, Dr. Dennis takes a moment to gather his thoughts. “Well...Ashe, like I said, she does have a reservation. So, if you can collect her. Let her rest a bit at the inn, that would help us out down here. Resources are real tight with Covid using up all we have.”

“Hm.”

“That alright with you, Ms. Baines? You might have some body soreness, headache, some cognitive delay. I suspect you do still have a concussion, but there’s not a lot more we can do for you here.”

Clearing my throat, my voice finally comes to me a bit more fully. “Where is here?”

“Northern Light Mayo Hospital. In Maine.”

“I’m still in Maine?”

“What are you doing here? In Maine?” Again, the man named Ashe breaks through the discussion with his terse grumbles, rattling off his brusque questions.

“Ashe...” Dr. Dennis mutters, an admonishing grimace turned his way.

“Uh...”

Patting at my hand, the rubbery latex of the doctor’s glove isn’t nearly as comforting as I’m sure he intended it to be. “Everything will be ok. You just need some time to rest. A heavy snowstorm is here, projected to last through Thanksgiving. Makes sense for you to use that reservation you had at The King’s Mill Inn and get yourself well before heading back home. You can safely quarantine there until then, since you have to stay put for fourteen days anyway.”

Stone still, a slight tilt of his head his only movement, the man named Ashe enters the conversation again. “Where is that? Home?”

“Now, Ashe, your mother assured me that your family would honor Ms. Baines’s reservation and welcome her for the full two weeks of her reservation. Welcome her, Ashe. Welcome. Got that?” Pointing his finger his way, I can tell, as probably can Ashe, that Dr. Dennis will not allow any further argument. And at that moment, as some mild confusion still clouds my brain, and stills my tongue, I am thankful for the small doctor. For his kind, round face, and his brief scolding of the tall man who seems to be taking me with him, but who also seems quite unhappy about it. 

“Hm.” Is all Ashe gives him in response, just as he turns on his heels and begins walking back up the hallway and out of sight. 

Swiveling back to face me, Dr. Dennis offers a few final words. “Him and his mother have been recently tested for Covid, as have you. And don’t worry, Ashe’s bark is much worse than his bite. You’ll be safe and well cared for at the inn. And appreciated. There haven’t been many tourists this year. The inn can use a paying guest.”

“Ok.” I smile, still a little unsure, but feeling more at ease at the doctor’s soft-spoken assurance. 

“Good. Now let’s get you discharged.”

XXXX

“Here is her purse, laptop bag, and the suitcase the police found in her car. Ms. Baines, you call and ask for me if you have any problems, and before you head back home, you stop in here and let me take a look at you. Two weeks. No flying or traveling until I clear you first. Fair enough?” Dr. Dennis asks as he hands my things off to Ashe, and helps me from the wheelchair and up into the pickup truck that Ashe has pulled up to the front of the small hospital. 

“Yes.”

“Well alright. Ashe, take it easy, and have your mother call me, please. Got that?”

“Mmhm.”

“Fair enough.” Dr. Dennis adds with finality, giving a small pat to the passenger side door as he secures it closed. Something in me, a melancholy that I don’t quite understand, makes me nervous about my departure. About leaving behind the kind, excitability of Dr. Dennis, for the gruff, brooding of Ashe. Trading one stranger for another. 

Ashe frowns through the window at the doctor, and gives him a brief wave as he pulls away from the curb. Wordless, his face is still hidden from me behind the white mask, same as mine as I made my way being wheeled through the hospital in a pair of scratchy, oversized sweats, to be discharged from the only safety I’ve known since waking. Dr. Dennis swears I will be ok going with him, but the distrust evident in his questions and stoic presence make me feel unwelcome. Regardless, as the good doctor said, I have few choices as the hospital needs their resources for their swelling number of sick Covid patients. My little concussion seems minor in comparison to the virus that has thrown the whole world into chaos. 

With only the dusting of thick, white snowflakes brushing against the pickup truck’s windshield, and crunching beneath its tires, Ashe directs the vehicle with its heated leather seats, and warmed air, only a few short minutes through the center of the small New England town. Bringing the truck to a stop in the parking lot of a large white building with numerous, rectangular paned windows, directly around the corner from the hospital, Ashe shifts to park then turns to face me. Neither of us speak at first. I don’t know why he doesn’t, but I simply cannot. I’m not even sure what to say to break the thick metaphorical ice that my very presence seems to have built between us. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. And yet here we are. So, if I’m going to be stuck here for a few weeks, I guess I should try...something. 

Searching for words, I settle on something innocuous, safe. “So, uh, Dr. Dennis said this place used to be an actual mill?” I swallow my nerves and send up a thankful prayer for the ibuprofen the doctor gave me at the hospital before I left, numbing some of the pain in my head, allowing me to think a little straighter now. Form a few more words. 

Those eyes of his, a blue so dark, they almost seem black, focus on me, angling his eyebrows over the mask that still dons his face. “What are you doing here?” If I didn’t know better, if his eyes weren’t covering my face, assessing me, the flat tone of his heavy voice would make him seem disinterested. His words on the other hand, make it very clear that he is interested. 

Taken aback, his question borders on rude and I can’t help but pull my whole body back slightly, clinging to the armrest on the door. “What?”

Just as he seems to be raring up to continue his line of questioning, I take notice of a figure hurriedly trying to pull open my car door. After a flurry of knocks on the window, Ashe unlocks the doors, and immediately I’m smacked by the cold blustery punch of the snow and wind. 

“Oh Lord! Look at you! I was wondering what was taking you so long to get her back here.”  Gloved hands reach for me, pulling me into the cold puff of a winter coat. “Come on, honey. It’s too cold for you to be out here in this snow in your condition! Ashe, get her things!” Gently ordering both Ashe and me, this tall woman, swaddled in layers, throws a thick blanket over me and grasps my hand, walking me up a few steps and into the warmth of the inn.

Blowing out a long breath, my head once again spinning a little, probably from the onslaught of cold and movement from one place to the next, I run my hand over the trim curls of my hair. 

“Here, sit here. I have some hot chocolate for you. And soup! I just made the afternoon lunch. You like beer and cheddar soup?” she nods encouragingly at me, as though it’s purely inconceivable that I wouldn’t like beer and cheddar soup.

Pulling the coat tightly around my form, clasping it in the front, I allow myself the sensation of a few shivers to try and knock off the remnant of the chilling cold. “I- I’ve never had it.”

She tosses her coat and hat on to a rack back by the front door, and pulls her mask from her face, just as Ashe enters, carrying my purse, laptop bag, and suitcase in one large gloved hand, easily as though they weigh nothing. “Ashe, take those upstairs to 202.”

“202? Why 202?” he questions, incredulity coloring his hard-spoken words. This man and his questions, I think to myself, curious of why he has a problem with me being in room 202. 

“Cause I said so.” Turning to face him head on, she tucks her long arms at her side, fists pressing into her lean hips. “That’s the only guestroom with a fireplace. She’s gonna need it. You see this storm.”

“But-”

“Don’t question me, boy. 202. Then come back and get you some lunch. Thaw your bones.” She lightly scolds with a bright smile, the lilt of a New England accent heavy in her commands, twisting all of her ‘a’ sounds into ‘ahs’ with a rising inflection so different from the New York accent I’m used to. Instantly, I decide that not only do I find her accent cute, but her command of Ashe’s surliness, and her motherly softness towards me, endears me to her. 

Taking his light reprimand with the same dour grumble that he seems to approach everything, Ashe snatches his hat from his head, and rustles off his coat, dropping them both onto the same rack by the door. He kicks his large booted feet onto the rug at the door a few times, then takes off towards the stairs. Without the armor of his coat and hat, the hulking presence of Ashe is almost overwhelming. Not in a bad way though. Not at all. In a truly disarming way, I decide that the man is gorgeous. Even though I can’t fully get a good look at him just yet, what I can make out in the distance between us, is more than I expected.

Those few curls of hair I could make out from the edges of his hat, now cover his head in wild swaths of medium length silk across his forehead and over his ears. The brush of his beard, full and thick, enticingly frames his lips. Pinkish lips, that curl with a churlish smirk at one corner, tugging at the plushness of his bottom lip. And god help me, his body, tall, wide and thick, reminds me of the towering bulk of the tree he’s named after. 

Watching his ascent, the woman, who I assume is his mother that the doctor spoke of, allows a grin to pull at the corners of her own mouth in a less petulant way than her son’s. I can only try my hardest not to stare in full appreciation at her handsome son, permitting my eyes to dart back to follow the stomp of his large feet up the stairs, and dash away hoping to not be caught ogling. 

Swiveling her gaze from where Ashe has disappeared, she turns her eyes back towards where I’m seated in the lounge area, just off to the right of what I can see is the kitchen. Without her large coat and hat on, I can now get a better look at her. She’s tall as well, willowy even as her thin body, with its long limbs, moves fluidly, easily about this space as though she has it memorized. Has glided many times across these dark cherry wood floors, traversed the plush white coach, and classic red and blue wingback chairs. Warmed innumerable hours by the crackling flames of the fireplace, and welcomed plenty of guests to the coziness of the traditionally designed inn, that screams New England. Her hair is graying at the roots, betraying the brunette locks that she brushes back and away from her face. As she approaches me, her smile grows, its genuine kindness apparent in the way it reaches the corners of her blue eyes, much in the same way displeasure seems to crinkle those same lines on her son’s face.

“Come with me.” Tilting her head towards the kitchen, she moves past me, beckoning me to follow. 

Raising from the comfort of the couch, I leave behind the heat of the front room for the cozy warmth of the kitchen and café portion of the inn, taking in the welcoming scent of fresh baked bread and coffee. Taking a seat at the pub height table by one of the many windows facing the street, I breathe in the grand bowl of soup, and steaming mug of hot chocolate placed neatly in front of me. Not until this very moment, when my stomach grumbles at the thought of eating, and the sight of the food and drink, did I realize how hungry I was. 

Setting down her own bowl, and mug, my companion rests on the stool across the table. We eat in silence. My gaze scans the café, taking note of another fireplace behind me that crackles, and seems to relax the stiffness that has set into my muscles, probably from my stay in the hospital. To the right of me, on the other side of the two rows of tables like the one I’m seated at, there is a bar of sorts with a top that matches the whitewashed wood that decorates much of the small eatery, from the exposed beams above, to the trim of the numerous windows. Behind the bar is a spacious open kitchen with a couple of ovens embedded in the walls. At the end of the bar, and towards the very front, is a case full of baked goods, wired stands with numerous knick-knacks and souvenirs, and the cash register. Like my lunch companion, I decide that I like this place, and the food even better. As that thought settles in my brain, and I sip down another spoonful of soup, I offer a contented smile of gratitude across the table. 

Setting the wide mouthed mug she drinks from down on the table, she easily breaks the silence that has colored our lunch until now, “Concussion, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Eva, honey.”

“Eva.” I offer in response, swallowing down my nerves. “Yes, a concussion.”

“From a car accident. Right?”

“That’s what the doctor said. I don’t- I don’t quite remember all of it. He said it’s been a few days since they brought me in.” I answer, self-consciously pressing my fingers lightly to the bandages sheltering the wounds on my forehead, then attempting to smooth my short-cropped curls. Barely daring to catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror while I dressed in the clothes offered to me by the hospital to replace my gown, which the nurse told me took the place of the clothes cut from my battered body upon arrival in the emergency room, I know I look a mess. 

Her gaze softens in a motherly way as she watches me for a bit, then allows what appears to be a somewhat sad smile to overcome her lips, barely raising her cheeks. Cheeks that don’t hold the round fullness that my mother’s do, but that do showcase stunning bone structure in a heart shaped face, that calls to mind a dark-haired supermodel I’ve seen in old magazines. Eva’s still beautiful, and I can see in the brilliant blue of her eyes, exactly where her son gets his almost pretty, good looks. 

Reaching her hand across the table to gently pat my own, she tilts her head, and on a nod offers, “I see. Well it seems you had a reservation here for two weeks. Expected you two days ago, but I’ll honor the two weeks to allow for the quarantine.”

“Thank you,” I nod, agreeing to her terms. 

“And though this is all somewhat odd, we’re happy to have you.”

Angling my head a bit at her use of the word ‘odd’, I decide to ignore it and try to keep our lunch conversation even keeled. Even though the writer in me wants to dig. To understand. That word triggers something deeper, a bigger story than how everything seems on the surface. But, sometimes when I’m writing a story, it doesn’t pay to tell everything upfront. It’s more interesting to let it play itself out. Holds the reader’s attention. And so, employing a bit of my own literary strategy, I will allow this story to unfold organically and I won’t push for that something deeper. At least not yet. 

“I appreciate your hospitality.” Edging down to take in another spoonful of the soup, my mouth is instantly warmed with the delicious cheesy goodness. On an uncontrollable moan of appreciation, I offer a verbal compliment, “It’s good.”

“Thank you,” That same pallid smile barely graces her thin lips, as she blinks at me, working her mouth in a way that seems to hint at her unwillingness to allow my dismissal of her observation of me being here as odd. Eva appears to be struggling with following my lead on how to proceed. Slouching back in her chair, then leaning forward, her dark eyebrows angle, then lift high on her forehead as what are probably a million unasked questions dance across her face. Finally, she threads her fingers together on the table in front of her, and delicately forms her words, “I don’t want to pry, but... we aren’t usually open this late in the season. Only staying open this year to hopefully get a few holiday guests looking for a kind of secluded getaway, to tide us over till spring. Till hopefully this awful virus is gone, or there’s a vaccine. Something. And well, we don’t get a lot of Black visitors-”

“Oh!”

At attention by my response to her reference of my skin color, her back goes ramrod straight, hands waiving frantically about, features alarmed by the offense she’s caused. “I’m sorry! I don’t mean nothing by it, just, curious about how you come to be here is all.”

“Well...”

“At this time of the year. In Maine. Right?”

“Right...” Gulping a swallow of the warm chocolate, steeped in a white mug, accompanied by miniature marshmallows, for some reason I struggle to put together the practiced words of a writer that would explain my presence here. Of course, this is odd to Eva and Ashe. I’m so used to New York and occasionally LA. My bi-coastal life as a writer, often taking me back and forth between the two multicultural enclaves. My world is usually filled with faces and features of a multitude of shades and shapes. I suppose even as I asked Wilton and his assistant to schedule my getaway, and I boarded a plane with my itinerary and destination for Maine in mind, my spoiled brain didn’t really conceive of my presence being odd. Even in a pandemic. And I guess that also shows how absorbed in my own personal drama with Preston I had become. Did I really think me showing up in lily-white Maine during a pandemic wouldn’t be considered ‘odd’?

Some unknown thing, perhaps an entitled stubbornness that us New Yorkers have, often thinking we set the tone for the world, stills my brain from grasping the words and phrases I have employed many times over my career. Words that should come, but that my recent bout of writer’s block should tell me different. Maybe it’s her mention of my color that throws me off my game? And even as I want to say something my brain won’t stop clicking through the maze of things I could say. Should say. I can’t put my finger on what causes the puzzle in my brain, but I do know that it’s not like me to leave a question, a challenge, unanswered, so I try to give her something. “I-”

Shaking her head quickly, as though she has realized that my silence may signal that she has offended me more deeply than her apology would account for, Eva reaches out to me again, this time gripping my hand softly. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. We’re thankful you’re here. And that we can share this time together. It’s such an odd time for everyone, isn’t it? Quarantine.”

“Yes, I think so.” I answer, finding it easy to give her the truth of that response, and feeling encouraged in her use of the word ‘thankful’. You don’t hear it often right now, with things so crazy, turbulent. The pandemic. Politics. This car accident that has injured my body and somewhat derailed my vacation. Everything seems to be upside down, and it’s difficult to find a speck of happiness. Of something, anything, to be thankful for. Her use of the word humbles me, reminds me of where we all are right now and pulls me into myself, and away from the off handed challenge of her mentioning my color.

“We’re doing everything we can here. Social distancing from everyone but a few friends and suppliers for the inn. Dr. Dennis makes sure we are tested frequently. No other visitors here. You’ll have the place to yourself outside of Ashe and me. This is a good place for you to get well. We’ll see to it.” She nods in that reassuring, motherly way she did earlier, confirming what must be a foregone agreement on my part, and a final affirmation to end our chat.

Eva returns to sipping from her mug and doesn’t try to foster much more conversation. Instead of more polite chit chat, she gives me a little space, and simply the comfort of food and company, as we both watch the snow fall, covering the world in white.

XXXX

Gently I climb the stairs, key that Eva gave me in hand, stopping at the wooden door with ‘202’ adorned across it in small brass numbers. Just as I reach for the knob, the door rushes open. Caught off guard but pushing forward with my palms out in front of me as though to ward off whatever is coming from the room, I’m met with the scent of pine and snow again. And now I can even make out, with my hands resting on his wide, firm chest, the accompanying scent of sandalwood. 

“Oh! I’m sorry.” The apology falls from my lips, stark surprise at the warmth of him under my palms, pushing me in an awkward jerk backwards, tripping over my own feet. Losing my footing, I’m bracing for the expected impact of finding my bruised body on the floor, instead, I’m instantly steadied. Ashe circles both of my closely crossed wrists in one hand, his other hand spread across my back, ushering me securely against him and saving me from a certain crash onto the hard wood floors. 

“Don’t fall! Have my mother and the doctor cross at me for no reason. Let me help you.” Ashe’s deep voice booms, commanding me to stay close to him. An order that I’m more than willing to follow as he gently pulls me into the guestroom.

Closing my eyes, I can’t help but take a moment. This is the closest I have been to Ashe since our stilted ride from the hospital. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of catching my appraisal of his good looks, but it’s hard to hide, even with me being probably a half a foot shorter than he is. I cannot help myself, but I do try to hide it and jut my eyes away from his as he’s studying me, blue gaze softly dancing over my face. My body. Creating a warmth in my core that has nothing to do with the fireplace I notice already ablaze in the guest room. I admit to myself, even if I don’t want to, that this discourteous, grumbly, bear of a man is more than just handsome. Or even pretty. He’s sexy. 

It’s in the stretch of his cream-colored Henley expanding across his chest, while tufts of dark hair escape at the collar, and drift across his heavily veined forearms that peek out from the upward push of his shirtsleeves. It’s the thick, chocolate locks that are probably used to being a little shorter, but escape the brush of them behind his ears, untamed and flirting with his thick eyebrows. And that beard. It’s a bramble, a thicket of brown hair, that rakishly covers his jaws, making me want to live in this moment a little longer. Nestle into his manliness. 

But the pull of his sexiness is brief, disappearing in the short clearing of his throat, and the release of his mighty hands from my body. I can feel myself almost wilt under his release, the separation so sudden. 

“This is your room. I started the fire. I’ve brought your things.” Nodding behind me to the fireplace, then with his thumb, Ashe gestures over his shoulder and towards the considerable four poster, brass bed where my things rest on a bench near the footboard. His voice loses some of the prickly churning it held in his earlier inquisition of me. Now its lowered to a rolling bass that oozes thick like honey. Blinking slowly, his sooty eyelashes, unnecessarily long, sweep along the tops of his cheeks. “You should rest. You’re still unsteady. Probably from the uh... the concussion.”

Wiping my hands over my heated face, a no-no these days, I appreciate the respite it provides. A moment to collect myself, as I thank my parents for gifting me with the darkness of my skin that shelters me from the embarrassment of turning red right now. “Ah, yeah. Yes. Thank you, for bringing them up.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Baines. If you need anything press 1 on the phone, that will get you to the phone downstairs. I’m also at the other end of the hall. I’ll take care of whatever you need.” 

Side stepping me, his heavy booted footsteps causing the wooden floorboards to creak under his muscular body, Ashe turns away from me, leaving me behind as he heads out of the door and towards the stairs. For some reason, though he hasn’t been the most welcoming until now, his mother’s words as well as his offer to take care of what I need settle into my brain.

Taking a few steps, careful to remember his direction to remain steady on my feet, I follow after him, stopping him before his foot hits the stairs. 

“Hey, Ashe. Um, you can call me Raven.”

“Raven?”

“Yeah.”

“Raven.” He repeats, my name tumbling in a heavy rumble that seems to start deep in his chest. Dragging his bottom lip between his teeth, Ashe blinks a few times, then travels his gaze over my form. From my face to my feet then back. “Very pretty.” He compliments, a pleased grin arching those pink lips of his. Without another word, he turns back to head down the steps. 

Chapter 2 – Ashe

“Heard you guys finally got a guest over at the inn?”

“Yep.”

“This late in the season? That’s odd.”

“Yep.”

“Real talkative tonight huh?”

“Well what do you want me to say, Oliver?” I bark, already tiring of his questions. Taking a long, and much needed drag of my cigarette, I allow my eyes to drop in frustration and try to gather some calm from the rush of nicotine. Calm doesn’t come. Only agitation remains. 

She’s been here two days, and I have only gotten a slight glimpse of her a few times. Once as she ambled slowly, her round bottom and hips rhythmically swaying her form down the hallway to her room, as I was heading out for the day. Not even noticing me coming up from behind her, she was on the phone, her voice lowered. Standing in front of her room door, I could glimpse her profile, her pretty features distorted into a frown, seemingly concentrated on the frenetic cadence of her words. She appeared to be having a tense conversation with someone whose bass heavy voice I could sort of hear coming through the phone as I approached. I wanted to stop her before she offered up the briefest of smiles and ushered her way into her room. I wanted to say... something. Everything about her rigid posturing in that short moment warned me off of interrupting her though. 

I saw her once more this morning, a colorful scarf twisted into some sort of elegant knot atop her head. One of my mother’s knitted blankets swaddling her thick form as she typed away on her laptop, perched in one of the wingback chairs by the large picture window in the front room. Nose balancing a pair of cat-eyed black glasses, head bent towards the screen, fingers flying across the keys, she definitely didn’t notice me standing on the stairs watching her. Observing the way the sun’s beams framed her face in a halo of light, and kissed her dark skin with a glow that made her seem like she wasn’t, couldn’t be real. Shouldn’t be sitting here in the front room of this small inn, a place too mild, too tame for her brilliance. 

It’s what I realized about her the moment I saw her at the hospital. She doesn’t fit in here. Not in a bad way. Just in a very real way. The same way Melanie didn’t, and made sure to constantly remind me, that this isn’t the life she ever saw for herself. I suppose she was right. Luxurious trappings of that past life that I lived with Melanie, that I see mark Raven’s as well, the Macbooks and thousand-dollar purses, simply don’t mesh with this. With who I really am. Where in the end, I find myself. 

When my mother called over to my office and asked me to retrieve a guest, the only guest we’ve had in months, from the hospital, I was not only reluctant, I was pissed. The whole idea to keep the inn open for the full year to try and get more customers, was my mother’s. At first, I went along with it, thinking maybe she needed the distraction, something to pull her away from the grief we’d experienced this year. But, then as I discovered that keeping the inn open for as long as we could was more of a necessity, I was even more frustrated and agitated. Again, not really at my mother, just at the circumstance of things. My legal practice is small, the brewery stuff is minimal, and my nest egg left over from my time in the league is just enough for me.  Those things are not really sufficient to keep an entire inn going for who knows how long. Or to pay off the mountain of hospital bills 2020 has delivered. We needed the money that guests would bring in. 

So, as I pulled on my hat and coat, and stomped out to my truck to retrieve this guest, who for some reason had been in the hospital, I attempted to swallow my agitation at bringing in strangers, potential virus spreaders, and followed my mother’s orders. I was not on board with this plan, regardless of the necessity of it, and that disgruntlement carried itself in my bones right up until I saw her in that hospital bed. Wide dark eyes. Angelic round face. Sexy full lips. Even with tubes in her arms, and bandages on her forehead, she was breathtaking. In that moment, that very first glimpse of her, all I wanted to do was to get her out of there. Not to the inn. I wanted to regift her back to whatever world a beauty like her belonged in. Which fairly or not, made me even more upset that this beautiful woman would come into my life like this. At a time when my family and I are experiencing such hardship. When our lives are covered by the remnants of heartache and mourning. Weak. 

Because of this realization, I had to admit to myself, that the sourness of our first meeting rested solely on my shoulders, weighted by a melancholy series of memories and things. Things that have driven me back to smoking. A habit that I quit my first year playing hockey in college, but with the stress of the last two years, I find myself back under the thrall of the bad vice. 

Even my own mother, the woman who literally loves everyone was somewhat caught off guard by Raven. Yet, despite all of her initial curiosity, they seem to have surmounted that in one short lunch. My mother has commented more than once at how sweet our guest is. Me on the other hand? I haven’t quite had a chance to work through her being here. Perhaps she hasn’t quite settled on me either, and that’s why I have seen so little of her. 

Sucking the cancerous toxins of my cigarette deep into my lungs again, I squeeze my eyes shut against the image of her that seems to materialize in the curves of the smoke. Rubbing at my chin, I make a silent promise to myself to rectify my position with our pretty guest. She may feel familiar, but she isn’t. Ms. Baines is a dream that feels real but isn’t. Just like most of my life has been up until last year. And that fact, her coming and her eventual going, are not a harbinger of things to come. This is just like everything else for me. Things come. Things definitely go. 

Laying his palm on the glass carboy used in the fermentation phase of our small brewery, Oliver turns his head to give me a look over his shoulder. “I’m just asking questions, Murph. It’s the only news around here lately. Other than whose got the ‘Rona, and no one wants to talk about that anymore.” He complains, using the nickname that most of my friends call me by.

 “Yeah well,” I add, blowing smoke from my lips again, watching it billow up past my eyes. “It’s not news.”

“Not news? Black lady, car takes a dive off of Vaughn into a ditch, staying at the inn? Right before Thanksgiving? During a pandemic? How is that not news?”

“Cause it’s not. Tourists come and go. Nothing special about this one.”

“If you say so. But, my sister said she was her nurse when they brought her in, and she was pretty banged up. Said her car is totaled. And the lady, her head bloody. But, she also said she’s pretty. Total smoke show!”

Cutting my eyes his way, I take a moment to consider his words. Pretty. It’s the same word I used when she gave me her name. When she stood at the top of the steps of the inn, in front of the room Melanie and I used to stay in. Her thick, curvaceous body donning the too small, gray sweats from the hospital. Short and tight black curls framing her face like a baby doll. Pretty. The word isn’t even enough, but in all honesty, I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her what I really thought of her. Of her name, the same name of one of my favorite short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. It suited this beautiful, mysterious woman perfectly. Her out of nowhere presence striking a desire that hadn’t been inspired in me in quite some time. Her smooth dark skin and eyes the color of espresso. A body that seemed to belong in the possession of my large hands that saved her from clumsily taking a spill onto the floor that first day of her arrival.  

“How could your sister tell she was hot if her head was bloody?” I protest, ready to be done with this conversation. 

“Well, I don’t know. But, I mean...that’s what Sarah said.”

“Right.”

“She’s staying at the inn, what do you think?” Oliver asks, doing an about face. Arms crossed, he tilts his head and squints, focusing his green eyes in question. “She pretty?”

“Is who pretty? Your sister?”

“No, dipshit, not my sister. The Black lady.”

“She’s alright.”

“Alright period? Alright for a Black chick? What?”

“She’s...alright.”

“That’s it? Alright?”

Alright. That’s the only word I allow myself to use with my best friend. None of these words are enough. They’re not even close. But there is a niggling, an itch in my chest at Oliver asking about her. Questioning me about her out of nowhere presence here. Inquiring about her looks. With a hard fist, I grind out a rub against my sweatered chest, cough a little, an attempt to dispatch with whatever it is that has me irritated at Oliver’s usual nosiness, and me wanting to retreat back upstairs to my office, and away from this discussion of Raven. 

We’ve been friends for over 20 years, Oliver and I, and I know he’s not going to let this go until he finds out what he wants to know. It’s who he is. In a town that numbers barely four thousand, you find your friends, and stick with them. As such, Oliver and I have been friends since kindergarten. Since he and I got in a fight because I accidentally knocked down his twin sister Sarah at recess while playing football. After he pushed me, and I pushed him back, the teacher stuck us both in time out and from there, a grudging friendship between the three of us bloomed. Which actually made a lot of sense because Oliver and Sarah’s parents had been friendly acquaintances of my own, often running ads for the inn in the newspaper they ran. 

Over time, our friendship maintained, even while I went off to Boston College on a hockey scholarship, that led to a very short stint playing for the Bruins, terminating after a career ending knee injury. A hit to my fledgling sports career that instead of sending me to the stratosphere of famous hockey defensemen, sent me to law school. On the other side of that was Oliver, heading into the Navy, and Sarah going off to Standish, Maine enrolling in Saint Joseph’s College of Maine to study in their nursing program. 

And even after that, when our fates inconceivably brought us all back to our little town. 

Oliver returned after years in the Navy, yearning for the quiet life he said the larger world simply wouldn’t give a man like him. A man whose curiosity wanted to find whatever else was out there. But who mentioned that what he found in the Navy was not at all what he was looking for, nor what he expected. Little more than a pacifist at heart, the truth about my best friend is that under all of the curiosity and adventure, is a man in love with the possibility of things, and not so much with the reality of it. The Navy was a practice in being constantly at the ready for war. Not adventure. I suppose it was the juxtaposition of the calm of Oliver, against the battle minded world of the military that eventually didn’t equal a long-term career for him. He came home and eventually settled on something that was a better fit. Now he has his own company as a fisherman, finally finding what his heart always wanted anyway. The adventure of the sea. The quiet of familiarity. 

Sarah only recently returned earlier this year, recruited by Dr. Dennis to help out at the hospital in the early days of Covid, back in the Spring when the first wave was so bad in places like New York, that even our small town experienced our share of death of and disease. Though our hospital is small, the addition of Sarah and a few other medical professionals has done a lot to keep resources from hitting the precipice of chaos. Imminent danger has stayed just outside of our reach, and I suppose if a lack of tourism has done anything positive for us, it just might be that. It hasn’t totally insulated us though, and Sarah’s presence here has been invaluable to my mother and I especially, as she was the last and only person allowed to be with my father until the end.

Then there’s me. After a few years working in a large Boston law firm, living a faster life than small town me could imagine, but not quite that of an NHL superstar, a stroke stealing my father’s mobility on his left side, brought me back home periodically throughout last year. It was only supposed to be temporary, my back and forth. Boston’s not far from here, and it was simply to keep tabs on my father while he was in physical therapy, trying to regain some mobility. But of course, nothing works like we expect. We make plans and the world laughs. 

I unexpectedly lost my job in April when the firm was challenged with cutting costs, and finding employment making the same salary I was accustomed to was proving difficult. Add to that, my father passed away shortly thereafter in late May, contracting Covid while he was in the nursing facility that helped with his rehabilitation care. 

It was big news for a while, small town New England inn keeper succumbs to killer virus. But as the surprise died down over the summer, and life with the virus remained constantly looming, a dark specter watching over our lives, the pain of a difficult 2020 has lessened. Somewhat.

Though we had all tried to purposefully move away, get on with our lives, this little nook of Maine eventually pulled us all back into the fray of small-town life. And maybe even into small town habits. Habits that cause you to find most of your entertainment in the drama to be found in other peoples’ business. And Oliver, like a lot of the residents here, loves to gossip about other peoples’ business. Hence why I shouldn’t have been surprised that his nosy ass was going to ask a million questions about Raven. And even though she’s not my business, I do feel responsible for her, I guess. Protective? None of which makes any sense but...

Inching my shoulders up in a dismissive shrug, I try for some unexplainable reason to get my friend to move away from his digging into the story of Raven. Again, I don’t know why. Can’t quite put my finger on the reason that his questions and prodding about her, his interest in her, makes me uncomfortable. It just does, I accept, as my mind’s eye catches a flash of her perfect face staring up at me questioningly from her hospital bed. Nervously, as she clung to the door of my truck as though I was the virus itself. 

“She’s alright.” I add again, shuffling from one foot to the other, cracking my neck on each side. Dusting off the frustration of a situation that just doesn’t add up.

“I’m gonna stop over for dinner and see for myself then. Ain’t shit else going on. Your ma make dinner?”

“She always makes dinner.”

“Then let’s head over.”

“Wait, what about this batch?”

“Oh yeah, it’s gonna be good. Best blueberry beer around.”

“Nice. That’s what I needed to hear. The brewery shipments and my work are what’s keeping the inn afloat right now. So...yeah.”

“I hear ya. I guess even in a pandemic folks wanna get drunk.”

“Damn right about that.” Stubbing out my cigarette in the ashtray that only I use because according to Oliver, no one in their right mind smokes anymore, I say a quiet prayer of thanks that the brewery is still successful. What started as a side hobby for Oliver and I, a little something to do when I wasn’t helping my mother at the inn, or taking small cases on the side, has turned into the last thing in the midst of everything to keep me sane. To keep things afloat. To keep me alive.

Zipping up his plaid, wool coat, and pulling his beanie down on top of his mop of wild red curls, Oliver pats me on the back as he walks towards the door. “Let’s go. I wanna see this pretty guest, who’s just alright, for myself.”

XXXXX

“Oh yes, I did a little bit of modeling in my day. Just a little something before I had Ashe.”

“I knew it. I could tell.”

“How’s that?” I hear my mother ask as Oliver and I come around from the front door of the inn, following the voices to the café. 

A beat passes, then the breathy twinkle of Raven’s voice answers, and I immediately sense my feet moving me more quickly towards her. I want to see her full lips form her words. 

“You have these graceful movements. And the bone structure of your face is just...really striking.” She pauses momentarily, as though she’s giving her next few words serious thought before she speaks them. “Your son, has the same kind of face.” Nervous laughter follows, as she cuts off her words. Did she just say my face is striking? Is that what she meant?

I’m unable to figure it out before Oliver outpaces me, striding into the café, and immediately dropping down into one of the barstools just a few seats away from Raven. With a rap of his knuckles to the bar top, he catches the attention of both Raven and my mother. From the shadows of the doorway I watch her face, the way her features animate as they rise and fall at catching sight of Oliver seated near her. There is an interest there, a warming flicker and a flutter of her long eyelashes, a sign of what I assume is attraction. 

Oliver removes his coat and knit hat and begins with very little fanfare to engage her and my mother in conversation. Introducing himself to Raven. Complimenting my mother on the smell of whatever she’s baking. He’s been thinking of her cooking all day. But then, his focus is back on her. With relative ease he begins talking to her. To Raven. Asking her all of the questions I wanted to ask her myself. Where is she from? New York. What does she do? She’s a writer. What is she doing here? Taking a break from the city to finish her most recent novel. In between his questions she laughs at his easy candor, her fingers often teasing with her lips, skimming delicately down the column of her swanlike neck. Not in a fidgety way. A flirty way.

What is it that allows him to approach her, arrest her with such affability? Where has my own relaxed quietude retreated to? I’m a good-looking man. I know this, and I don’t admit it in a conceited way at all. My mother was a model. I inherited her patrician features, her hair once so dark it almost seemed blue. Her stark blue gaze, never quite as ocean clear as what my father’s were. Always bordering more on a near violet azure. 

As I growl and frustratedly yank my wool hat off my head, and tangle my fingers in the mass of hair I’ve allowed to grow overly long, I struggle with the admission that I guess I don’t feel the same about a lot of things anymore. About myself perhaps. The urges of a man pursuing, sensing the hunger to go after something he wants. There was a time that felt innate. That certain romantic ease with women. Like when I first met and fell in love with Melanie. Reluctantly, I confess to myself, even if only in quiet, introspective moments alone, my divorce stole much of that from me. Scribbled blue ink that carried my signature, and finalized the demise of my marriage, also absconded with more of me than the simple legal agreement would suggest. Love was dead.

My own parents’ love story was nothing like mine. Their’s, though it ended tragically, was the story of a beautiful woman who wanted the life of a world-renowned supermodel but fell in love with a roughneck working as a logger, just like her father. He brought the young guy home for dinner one night after a long day of work, and as both of my parents told it, my mother took one look at the tall, burly man, four years her senior, and decided right then and there, he was for her. 

My mother is charismatic that way. It’s what makes her a perfect innkeeper. Loquacious and kind in personality, attractive and engaging in personage. It’s what persuaded my lovesick father to take his wife and only child, leave the small coastal town of their birth, purchase a run-down mill that had been closed for years, and use their life savings to open an inn. Eva’s ability to persuade and convince, to put others at ease, and overall optimism no longer genetically extends to me. 

It’s probably for that reason that though I’m clearly attracted to Raven, I’m watching her and Oliver joke and banter together, instead of engaging her myself. Why I have been stuck in second gear, while he’s tossing his head back and pushing his coppery red curls back from his face, grinning at her. “So, tell me, Raven. Wait, I can call you Raven right? You like that?”

As I move, ambling around the kitchen, gathering a plate, stacking it high with food, I take note from a sideways glance, of her giggling at his question and rolling her eyes playfully. 

“Of course, I like it. It’s my name. Please, call me Raven.”

“Raven.” He winks, her name rolling off his tongue, the last syllable drawn out, lingering into a sly grin. “What are you writing about? Tell me. I love a good story.”

A sudden rush of excitement seems to enliven her as her spine stiffens at his request. “Are you a writer also, Oliver?”

“Not really. My parents do run the local newspaper so I’m familiar with the power of words.” He leans closer to her, not too close as to lessen their six feet of distance, but just enough that she can probably make out the devilish gleam of his green eyes as his red hair tumbles over his brow. “But, I’ve got plenty of good ones of my own to tell. I’m happy to share any time, Raven.”

Scoffing, not even slightly amused by their interplay, I thank my mother for the food and retreat with my plate. Settling in at one of the tables on the opposite side of the bar, closer to the fireplace, I watch their back and forth like a romantic comedy. A stage play performed for my pleasure. Or my displeasure, I grouse to myself as I tear through the roast my mother has prepared for dinner. It stings that they have taken to each other. That over the last two days of going back and forth in my mind on how to approach her, or even if I should, I may have missed out on something. 

Strategically, I focus my concern elsewhere. Thumbing through my phone, feigning interest in checking my emails as I eat. 

“What about you, Ashe? You got any good stories?” Raven asks, purposefully swiveling my way on her stool, her raised tone addressing me, instantly snatching my attention from my phone. I raise my gaze to witness her tilting her head just a tad, a tiny, almost impish smile curves her full lips, seemingly growing with interest as she awaits my answer. 

Clearing my throat, I’m trying to swallow the chewy mouthful of roast so I can answer her, but immediately I’m interrupted by Oliver. 

“Ashe isn’t a storyteller, Raven.” Angling his form even closer to hers as he moves out of his seat, he puts his hand up to cup his mouth as though hiding his words from me, and whispers near the arch of her ear. “He’s a bit of a grouch. You’re not gonna get much out of him.” Chuckling he drops down on a bar stool that is one seat closer to her then raises his voice to address me, but maintains his focus on Raven. “Right, Ashe?”

Only briefly dashing her eyes over to scrutinize Oliver’s closer proximity to her, Raven centers her sights on me again. “You’re not really a grouch are you, Ashe? Even if you are, everyone has a story to tell. Even a grouch. Right?” She asks, crossing one leg over the other, pushing her thick hips and bottom to one side of her stool. She’s wearing black leggings, and a gray t-shirt that hugs the inward curve of her waist and seems to lift her heavy breasts in a way that steals my focus away from every single one of her words. 

“Ashe?”  

Shaking my head, blinking, I wipe my hand over my lips with my napkin. “I don’t know. Nothing to say I guess.” Raising my eyes to hers, hoping she completely, somehow missed my lustful stare, I muster a slightly embarrassed smile. I’m sure I’m blushing though, especially when she tortures me by tugging at her tiny t-shirt, pulling it to snugly hug at her frame, and I can’t not look. I can’t not feel some unexpected thrill at her including me in what seemed to be a conversation that Oliver was intent to keep between just the two of them. 

“Raven, honey, Ashe used to be a hockey player. Professional for a while. Now he’s a lawyer.” My mother interjects over her shoulder, as though she is not really involved, but was paying attention just enough to save me from my own lascivious thoughts. 

Hopping off of her stool, bottle of beer in hand, Raven walks over to my table, easily gliding into the seat in front of me. Making me jealous of that lucky ass chair. Taking a sip of the cool liquid, she focuses her eyes on me, her lips forming a perfectly full cupid’s bow. “That’s what I thought. Everyone’s got a story in them.”

“Not me.” I rebut, leaning back in my chair, intent on taking her in. She’s so fucking cute. I know some guys like long hair but... she doesn’t need the busy distraction of it. I like how easy it is to see her without it.

Again, my mother interjects, this time her tone carries a hint of surprise and censure at my response. “Ashe! That’s not true. Tell Raven-”

“Not me.”

Turning her attention back to me from my mother, Raven’s shaking her head. Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, she kisses her tongue to her teeth. She’s killing me. I suspect she knows it. 

“Oh...I don’t believe that, Ashe. Maybe you just don’t trust me enough to share it yet?”

“Well, we’re strangers so.” My shoulders inch up towards my ears in a shrug. I’m not trying to be dismissive but despite my mother’s insistence, my life of failure is not something I want to discuss with this woman who seems to ooze confidence. “Nothing to share.”

“We’ll see about that. Maybe we won’t be strangers for long?”

Silence hangs in the air for a moment. Raven studies me, her sexy dark eyes never halting their focus. It should make me unnerved, her seeming fascination with me, my story. But instead, her persistence secretly shivers through me. From my head to my fucking toes, my senses enliven with a creeping shiver. Shit.

Clearing her throat my mother comes from behind the bar. “Well, I’m gonna leave y’all young people to it then. I’m going to bed. Your aunt Angela and I are going to try and get over to talk to someone at the bank tomorrow. Probably gonna be a long day. You all have a good night.” She offers, bidding us all a waving farewell as she turns towards the front of the inn to probably lock up on her way to bed. 

“Good night, Mrs. Murphy.” Oliver nods her way, then helps himself to a plate of food and a beer in the refrigerator. Joining Raven and I at the table, he begins to dig into his food. “What are we getting ourselves into tonight, young people?” 

Stretching, her arms long and lean over her head, her back arched, Raven tosses her head back and rolls her neck, drawing the attention of both Oliver and I. “I should probably head to bed as well.” Releasing a long, satisfied breath, almost a moan, she continues, “Getting kinda tired. I’ve been chatting your mother up all day. Trying to get some inspiration to write. She’s a very funny lady.”

Around a mouthful of food, Oliver mumbles, “Oh yeah, Mrs. Murphy has a sharp wit for sure. Now Mr. Murphy though? Ashe’s dad was one for like uh, dry humor. He was always the straight man to her funny man.”

“I could imagine that. She’s got a way of seeing things that is quite comical even though it’s very unexpected coming from her. I can only imagine what your father was like.” Raven unexpectedly eases her hand across the table, her fingers lightly glancing my own as she mentions my father. “I’m sorry to hear you lost him to Covid this year. Your mother told me.”

Her mention of my loss hits me a little. The sincerity in this stranger’s voice for some reason striking me as genuine. Swallowing down the thick lump that forms in my throat, I inch out a response to her kind words. “Hm. Thank you.” 

It’s quiet again, the three of us awkwardly at a standstill at the mention of my father’s passing, until Raven begins to rise from her chair. 

“I’m gonna go.”

“You don’t have to.” I mutter.

“I don’t want to intrude. You two probably have guy stuff to do.”

Reaching out towards her, his fingers gripping the very tips of hers, Oliver shakes his head and pleads, “No! Stick around. You play cards?”

“Uh... yeah...” Raven answers, dropping slowly back down into her seat. “What you have in mind?”

“Little poker. Little beer. What else is there to do?” he shrugs, offering her the reasoning to stay that I hadn’t quite gathered yet.

“Sure. I play poker. We’ve got three here, we can get a game of Texas Hold ‘em going. Where are the cards?”

“Drawer in the sofa table in the front room. Behind the couch.” I point my finger towards the front room, directing her already moving form. As she leaves the room, her little t-shirt continues to torture me and has now bunched around her waist, and both Oliver and I can’t help but to crane our necks to follow and witness her swinging hips and ass, hypnotically carrying her thick body away from us. 

“Daaaamn! You fucking liar!” Oliver whispers, punching me in the arm.

“What the fuck?”

“You said she’s just alright? Just alright? Do you have fucking eyes or what?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You know she’s fucking hot. You didn’t want me to see her. Did you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I deny his accusations, sitting back in my chair, crossing my arms defensively across my chest. Hell no I didn’t want him to see her. Oliver has slept with almost all of the single women in town, why would I want him sniffing around Raven too?

“Well I don’t care. I’m gonna fuck.”

“What?”

“She likes me, dude. I’m gonna fuck.” Oliver announces with finality and all of the confidence of a man who has made good on that kind of promise before. “Never been with a Black chick before.”

I’m unnerved by his declaration, but it’s not a part of the man code to cock block. Instead I simply toss out a dismissive grunt, “Whatever.”

Returning with a deck of cards in her hands, Raven edges back into her chair, and begins shuffling the cards. “Let’s play!”

XXXXX

“Damn, you’re cute and you’re good at cards? What can’t you do?” Oliver asks, his words holding a hint of a slurring quality. He’s drunk. We’re all probably a little drunk after about four or five beers and three shots of tequila a piece. I’m feeling unsteady, my face getting that numb thing going on that lets me know I’m definitely going to feel this in the morning. 

“Can’t you read my shirt, man? It says ‘Phenomenal Woman’. That means I can do everything.” Raven adds, a smirk twisting her full lips as she gathers the cards and deposits them back into their box. 

“I see that.” Oliver mumbles, his body sluggishly angling to his left where she’s seated primly, no signs of intoxication slumping her body or her pleasant features. “What’s next?”

“For who?”

“For us.”

“Oh, I think you’re probably gonna need to head home and sleep this little poker ass whipping I just gave you off.” Patting his shoulder, Raven instantly rises from her chair, her movements only a little less graceful than before. The woman can hold her liquor. “I had a great time, guys. Thanks for letting me join you.” 

Just as she’s about to walk away, Oliver grabs at her hand like he did earlier, but this time drunkenly jerking her towards him with what I’m sure is more force than he actually intended. He’s clearly inebriated, so I’m not going to hold it against him, and it seems she doesn’t either. Her eyes drop to where he’s holding her hand, and with ease, she removes it from his grip.

“I’m sorry-”

“Oliver, why don’t you go ahead and get going? I’ll walk you over to your house.” Immediately I’m helping his tall lanky form up from his chair, grabbing his elbow to steady him on his departure. 

Waiting on Raven to safely make it upstairs first, I grab Oliver’s hat and coat, help him with them, then begin the quick walk a block over, to his house. 

Head swaying a bit, jutted forward, Oliver slurs, “I fucked it up, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Fuuuuck! Imma havta...havta talk to her tomorrow.”

“Yep, you do that.”

“Her lips man...”

“I know.”

“Fucking lips... Like- like...”

“Here’s your house, Ol.”

“Youse a good dude, Murph.”

“Yep.” I agree, helping him with key to unlock his front door. Easing his long arms out of his coat, I decide that he’s too heavy and I’m too drunk to assist with much more, and I simply deposit him on the couch for him to sleep it off. “Take it easy, man. Get some rest.” I order, then close his front door behind me, steeling myself for the short walk back home.

XXXXX

Making the rounds, I click off the lights in the kitchen, and throw away the last of the beer bottles and shot glasses we left on the table in the café. In the dampened darkness, I catch a glimpse of her curvy form entering the kitchen, feet skipping across the floor, the dramatic hem of her robe dancing behind her like the train of a wedding dress. 

“Oh!”

“Hey! I didn’t mean to startle you. Cleaning up.”

Palm flat to her chest, Raven is breathing heavily, chest heaving, probably caught off guard by my presence. Her robe is a silky material, a subtle rose color, that even under the muted light of the dark kitchen, kisses and clings to her dusky skin perfectly. Flitting open across her chest, the fabric leaves nothing to the imagination as she drops her hand to her side, leaving apparent full supple cleavage. The shock of running into me has enlivened her. Her thick nipples poke against the robe, firm and turgid atop the round heaviness of her large breasts.

Sucking at her lips in that way that I have come to notice during our night of drinking and card playing is her thinking face, she haltingly breaks the silence. “I wanted a drink.”

Chuckling, I grin at her, incredulous by her admission. “You want another drink? Of tequila?”

“Ah! No! I meant water. You gotta hydrate if you’re gonna drink, dude.” She laughs, the sound music to my ears. 

I’m intoxicated. Not just from the beers and shots. From her. For the last four hours, I’ve learned quite a bit more about Raven than that she’s a romance writer from New York. She’s twenty-eight. One sister. Parents still married and living in Brooklyn. No kids. No pets. Allergic to dogs. Never mentioned a boyfriend or a husband. She’s funny. She’s nosy.  Quick to ask a question, but easy to follow it up with a qualifier that it’s just her nature as a writer. She likes to know what makes people tick, I think. It makes her characters more realistic she says, which is probably true because in every single story she told of getting into trouble during her college days, or growing up in Brooklyn, her words drew a vivid picture that made it seem like I was watching these people and their adventures unfold right in front of me. 

And, last but not least, she’s a flirt. Not as an artificial affectation. It’s her nature. The glittery softness of her voice that holds a certain husky melody to it, in that way many New Yorkers, or as she corrected, Brooklynites have. Her tongue and lips rolling the word water into ‘watta’ and river into ‘rivaa’ as she tells a story about how she and her friends got stuck on the Verrazano Bridge coming from a concert in Pennsylvania on a Fourth of July weekend. Raven is direct, but not sharp. Quick with a smile, a delicate twist of those fucking lips more than anything. Expressive with her hands, flying in the air when she’s excited. Body fully engaged, joining with the interplay of her hands and her face, a dramatic symphony to accompany every articulate word.

All of it is arousing, and what catches me, captures me under her spell more than anything is that she doesn’t seem to have a clue that she’s doing it. Or maybe she does?

Like right now. Standing in front of me. Presented in the dark, her loveliness almost fanciful, illusory, she doesn’t seem to realize that my fingers twitch against themselves, electrified with the need to touch her. Sweeping over her with my eyes, I lean against the bar and try to grasp through the fog of lust, beer and tequila to control myself, find restraint. 

“Yeah, water will help with that.” I agree, running my hands over my face, dragging my nails against my skin to clutch at sobriety. Regain myself. 

“Don’t do that! Don’t touch your face!” Reaching out, Raven uses both of her hands to pull mine away from my face. “The virus.” She reminds me, still not letting go of my hands, but maintaining her hold of them. Her fingers tightly clasp mine, the nearly electric jolt of chemistry they stir at their joining, drawing my attention. 

Almost instantly, as though she’s been zapped by our kinetic connection, she drops them, drawing herself away from me, mumbling something about hand sanitizer and walking a few paces backwards. 

But, now that we’ve touched, that I’ve gotten just a hint of the velvety softness of Raven, I can’t stop wanting more of it. It’s the same energizing jolt that hit me when I caught her in my arms the other day and prevented her from falling. She fits so perfectly in my hands, how could I not want her there?

Balancing her weight in a fluid shift from one hip to the other, seemingly uncertain about what to do next, she asks, “Do you think your mother will mind if I grab a few bottled waters? Take them to my room?”

Shaking my head, I walk closer towards her, my steps slow, measured. My destination certain. “No. She won’t mind.” I don’t get too close, keep a few steps between us. I don’t want to startle her with our proximity. We have had too many encounters already that began that way. Me startling her. My brusque questions freezing her. That Raven, the startled little bird isn’t the one I want right now. It’s the fast-talking, energetic Raven. The confident card playing woman, with the pretty round face, and sexy lips who made my acquittance this evening that draws entices me. 

“Cool. Um, I’m gonna-”

“You wanna sit for a sec?”

Smiling, that tiny moue pouts her lips as she asks with a slight tilt of her head, “What?”

Dragging in a slow-paced breath, in through my nose, I calm the racing of blood through my veins, and grin right back. “Sit with me for a second, Raven?” Turning my palm upwards, extended to her, I offer her direction to close the space between us. 

Without another word, she willingly takes my hand. Thin, long fingers are swallowed by my larger and even longer ones, as I grasp her palm lightly, guiding her. Our movement together creates a billowy whisper of her perfumed scent to hit my nose. A powder soft fragrance of something faint but alluring. I noticed it earlier, but with her so much closer to me now, it’s overwhelming my senses. Raven permits me to lead her to a table against the wall of the wide windows, gracefully taking the chair I pull out for her. 

With any agility I can muster, I turn back around and weave through the tables and chairs to head back into the kitchen where I gather a few bottles of water and take my time to make her a cup of tea. Coming back to the table I set the bottles down, then more gently place the hot mug of tea in front of Raven. 

Retreating from where she had set her sights on the snow-covered world outside of the windows, Raven drops her eyes to take stock of the items I’ve laid before her. 

“Tea?”

“Thought you might like it.”

“You have honey?”

“And lemon if you want it.” I nod, already raising from my seat across from her to gather the items. 

Draping her palm fully over mine, halting my escape, she rushes towards the kitchen before I can, and digs around until she finds what she’s looking for. As well as another mug of tea that she places in front of me. Which automatically makes me smile at the thoughtful gesture. 

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. I actually love tea, and this smells amazing. What kind is this?”

“Lavender. It’s my mother’s. Mel- My mother got it as a gift for her migraines.” I answer, adding two teaspoons of honey to my mug, wincing at almost unwittingly dropping my ex-wife’s name into our conversation. 

“I’m sure this mixed with the alcohol is gonna knock me out. That’s good though cause I have had a little trouble sleeping since I got here. It’s too quiet, ya know? I’m used to the city. To the sounds of cars and people, and the world being alive around me. Here it’s like...nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yeah.” Stopping to take a short sip of her tea, and dropping her lashes to her cheeks as she moans in satisfaction, she gestures towards the window. “Look out there. Not a thing moving. No energy. No life. Nothing, Ashe.”

I was stirring my tea when she moaned and said my name, and well... it abruptly stops me. My movement. My heart. There is something about the breathy, exasperated, lilt of playfulness in how she said it. In how she expresses her satisfaction. My face grows warm. My pants grow tighter in the groin. Shit.

Turning away from her I stare out of the window for a bit, gathering myself and considering her observation. “Maybe you just don’t know how to find comfort in the quiet of life?”

“What do you mean?”

“When I left here and moved to Boston, it was hard to sleep. I felt crowded by the noise and bustle. By how many people there always seemed to be...just around. When I came back, I felt at ease again. Like...I had space to breathe.”

“To exist?”

“You’re a writer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You feel alone in the quiet. That’s your perspective. I feel welcomed to know that under the stillness of the snow are mice and smaller mammals burrowed in for the winter, still alive. Surviving. Making lemons of lemonade. There are some birds that are still here, flocked up together to wait out the winter. They don’t need hustle and noise to still be alive. Summer will come and they will be different. But even though they retreat right now, there is still life. But their lives don’t crowd into my survival.”

“Surviving. Ok. There is life in survival.”

“Survival is life. Sometimes it’s all we have left when everything we thought we had just...leaves.” I mutter, sensing a particular sting at that truth. 

“Is that what you’re doing here, Ashe? Surviving?”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I mean right now. Is that what your mother is doing?”

“Probably.”

“You don’t talk a lot. I noticed that tonight with your friend Oliver. You watch. Wait.”

“He likes to talk. Mostly about himself.”

Laughing, Raven nods her head in agreement. “Yes he does. But not you.”

“Not me.”

“You know what I think?”

“Tell me.”

“I think you don’t trust, and that’s why you don’t give of yourself. Life has hurt you. That’s why you watch.”

Hitting a little too close with the honesty of her observation, I immediately try to change the subject. “Maybe I watch because I like what I see.”

Dipping her head, and quirking one eyebrow, Raven allows the redirection. “Is that right?” Possibly intrigued by this new avenue of discussion, she begins toying with a thin gold necklace that delicately rests in the hollow of her throat with fingernails painted a glittery silver. “What do you see, Ashe?”

“A beautiful woman who seemingly dropped out of the sky. And I wonder...what is she doing in a place like this?”

“You think I’m beautiful?”

Sweeping her with my gaze, greedily consuming her silhouette against the frosty window, I answer her question with nothing but truth. “I know you are.”

“You know? You’re much more charming tonight than you were the first day I met you.”

“I am? Hm.” Leaning back in my chair, I cross my arms over my chest, and ease my legs out in front of me. Carefully, I’m plucking through my words to come up with the right ones to explain myself. “Like I said, you kind of came out of nowhere. We haven’t had a guest in nearly 6 weeks. Thanksgiving is in two weeks, and boom. This Black girl from New York just shows up.”

“What’s so strange about that? Let me guess, it’s the Black part?”

“Somewhat. I don’t think we’ve ever had a Black guest.”

“That’s...that’s a shame.”

“Population of Maine is probably less than 5% Black. So...yeah. And like I said, no one’s been here in a while. Covid pretty much cut us off from the rest of the world.”

We seem to have come to an impasse now, a clearing of the awkwardness of our first meeting. She’s back to staring out of the window, something about the vast openness of the world on the other side of the glass seeming to continually capture her attention. 

On the other hand, she’s all I see. The sepia tone of the room, a romantic hue created by the lone kitchen light battling against the glow of the moon, casts her as the main attraction of my eye. One side of her robe has slouched over her shoulder, revealing a series of dark tattoos. Tiny birds that seem to take flight from their perch at her collarbone, then disappear over shoulder. Her leg is lifted in her chair, foot resting flat on the seat. Absentmindedly her palm drags rhythmically up and down over her shin, and the glimmer of gold rings that adorn her fingers constantly rubbing catches my attention. Lulls me into quiet focus on the plump roundness of her fleshy thighs. I want to replace her hand with my own. I want my palm to divide the folds of her robe and explore the warmth of her winsome form. To ride the rise and fall of each full curve. 

In the dark stillness this woman stokes my arousal with the simplest of gestures. It’s a sensation that I’m not sure what to do with. Habitually, I have never found a thicker woman as alluring and distracting as Raven is to me. I’ve never been with a Black woman. I suppose up until now I would say I have a type. Thin, short, brunette. Perhaps that is why this uncompromising attraction to Raven is so surprising for me. And intoxicating.

As though she can hear my thoughts, Raven finally returns her eyes to mine. “My head hurts a little. I think it’s time for bed.” She announces, and just as she lifts from her chair, she sways a bit. Unsteadily grabbing to the edge of the table for stability. “See? It’s definitely bedtime.” She grimaces and tries to laugh away what is clearly discomfort that is distorting her features. 

“I’m going to bed, too. Hop on, I’ll take you up.” I declare, gesturing for her to climb atop my back without really thinking. 

“You’re gonna give me a piggyback ride upstairs?”

“Yeah come on. I got you.”

A short-lived moment of indecision keeps her from immediately following my suggestion, but in the end, Raven can’t resist and as I kneel down in front of her, she hops right on. Instantly the press of her full breasts crushed to my back, her legs around my waist, and her thighs in my palms creates a rush of blood straight to my cock. In this thin robe, every inch of her full body is apparent. Rounded hips and womanly curves. Nightgown hiked around her waist. Probably no panties on. Shit.

The delicate weight of her body against mine is exquisite torture, and pushes me to take my sweet time climbing up the steps with her. My lips may be telling her that I’m taking it easy given her condition, but the raging need building in my groin knows that it’s really to prolong this moment. Especially when she appears to be growing even more tired halfway up the stairs, and inches her face to rest along the back of my neck. Lips brushing against my sensitive flesh as a soft whispered ‘thank you’ kisses my skin. I drop my eyes in a bit of appreciation of my own.

Reaching her room door, I once again kneel low to the ground, and she hops down. Turning, I see Raven in the muted darkness of the still hallway, her silhouette outlined in the door. 

With her palm brushing the bandage still protecting her forehead, she looks up at me, blinking those long, sooty lashes of hers, and offers in that soft, husky tone of hers, “Thank you, Ashe.”

It’s a no-no to touch her face with my hands, but I can’t stop myself from framing her angelic countenance with one hand, as I place the other against the door and lean down to place a kiss on her temple, right over the bandage. 

“Good night, Raven.”

Her cheeks rise slightly, pulling the corner of her lips into a soft smile as she turns and opens her room door. She doesn’t immediately enter though. Instead, she halts, and seems to swallow whatever words are dancing on her tongue, head swiveled slightly to the right. There is some indecision in her unwillingness to enter her room and leave me behind. Maybe, like myself, she doesn’t know what to do with the unexpected energy arching and crackling between us. 

Wanting to ease her mind, I lean in once more, and over her shoulder settle my lips in a gentle press on hers. Her lips are warm, sweetened with the taste of honey and lavender. 

Fire builds in my chest, and in my cock. A serious fight between want, desire and reason, wars in my body. One hand holds me steady pressed to the frame above her head on the doorframe, the other fists and clenches, curling my fingers into my palms instead of clutching at the sleek robe that dances over her skin. I want to gather it in my palms, bunch it as I grip and squeeze the plush flesh of her hips and ass.

Raven smells divine, her honeyed lips like flowers and candy. Like every dulcet and decadent thing I’ve ever wanted in my life, all tucked under the silk of her thin robe, the only thing keeping me from her. Restraint flashes in my brain, a faint charge as I unwittingly moan against her lips as she grazes her lithe fingers against my bearded cheek. Pushing my face into the palm of her hand, I groan at the gentleness in her touch.

Moments pass. Seconds. Minutes. I don’t know. I don’t care. I want this. I miss this feeling. Need it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. But I know I can’t follow her into her that room. Three days ago I didn’t even know she existed, and the memories of a marriage that abandoned me in that very room, is too heavy a burden to succumb. It’s the albatross around my neck that roots me to atonement for a marriage gone bad. A sincere commitment to loneliness.  

Reluctantly, I’m coming to my senses and pulling away from her. Slow and unwilling, the drunken numbness in my face from before has been replaced with a buzzing tingle from where our lips were joined. Where her hand embraced my face. Stuck, rooted to the floor, I can’t move any further away from her. I can’t speak. I can do nothing until she makes a choice for both of us and releases me from her spell. 

Breathing deeply, body shivering with almost visible arousal, Raven gulps down whatever emotion rides her. Without another glance, she crosses the threshold into room 202. 

“Goodnight, Ashe.”

Chapter 3 – Raven

“So, you close to getting your book done?”

“Girl, I’ve been writing like crazy. Like the words are flying.”

“Great! That mean you think you might finish soon?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got tons of inspiration up here.”

“Inspiration? You said it’s been snowing almost non-stop.”

“The snow is beautiful.”

“You hate snow. And you said you’re the only guest there.”

“I am.”

“So, what is so inspiring, Ray?”

Tilting my head backwards, eyes to the ceiling, I allow a grimace to distort my features for a moment at my sister’s interrogation. On a deep sigh, I unfurl my legs from their cross and stretch them out in front of me on the floor, then lean back against the wall. Repositioning my Macbook on my thighs, I fiddle with my necklace for a few moments as I watch a few other doctors and nurses come and go in the break room behind where my sister is seated. 

“Just...being away for a little bit is inspiring. I’m not so...distracted.”

Sitting up a little straighter in her chair, her dark chestnut eyes narrow behind her glasses, her stare studying my face through the screen of her phone as though I am one of her patients suffering from an illness she has yet to diagnose. “Have you been feeling distracted since your accident? Having headaches?”

“What? No!”

“Are you sure? After a concussion you can sometimes experience some confusion, some difficulty focusing.” Counting off symptoms on her fingers Deja seems to be trying to narrow in on some underlying pathology to me simply feeling inspired. 

Sighing, I have to admit, if only to myself that I understand why she’s confused. Inspiration has not been my friend as of late. And though my location has changed from New York to Maine, what could have transpired in the short time since I’ve been here to change my mood other than me getting into an accident that caused a concussion? A tiny smile wants to give me away as I think of last night. Of him. Dropping my lids, I can almost see his blue eyes focused in on me across the table. Feel the warm flush rushing through me at the soft press of his lips to mine. Before my face betrays me, and I can’t fight my body’s reaction to my memories, I blurt out a frustrated dismissal. “I’m fine.”

“That’s what a person with a concussion who is off traveling and trying to write but should be home resting, would probably say.” She responds, shaking her head at me in what is probably disappointment if the purse of her lips, and terseness of her authoritative doctor voice is any indication. Scoffing, Deja adds on a huff, her tone growing sharper with what I can only assume is concern, “Ray, you should take acetaminophen instead of ibuprofen if your head still hurts. Ibuprofen will increase the risk of bleeding. Do you have much bruising? Body aches?”

“A few small bruises on my left side. I guess from the car door.”

“Your vision and mental acuity seem intact, but I am concerned about you feeling distracted. Maybe you need a CT scan.” Deja rattles off, taking charge in full doctor mode, and I’m sure racking me up in her virtual chart with plenty of tests and assessments to diagnose me. 

Smiling, grinning so the little bitty dimple in my left cheek is pronounced, sending cute kid sister vibes, I attempt to disarm her concern. “I’m all good, sis. Promise. My head is fine. Everything about this little piece of the world is calming, and quiet. At first it was a little off putting. Hard to settle in with absolutely nothing going on. No noise. No cars, no people. But Ashe kinda helped me see it differently. Perspective ya know?”

Angling her beautifully manicured eyebrows, threaded and tinted, she leans closer to her phone while also bringing the device just inches from her face to inspect me over her glasses. “Perspective? Raven, what are you talking about? Who is Ashe?”

“He works here.”

“He works there?” she echoes, disbelief clouding her face. “The Paul Bunyan guy you were telling me about? The son who picked you up from the hospital?” My sister queries, her voice raising to a whispered squeal. She’s at work, taking a short break to catch her breath and check up on me, but now that she can sense I’m not telling her everything, she’s not gonna rest until she finds out everything. “This is not adding up. You said that guy was rude as hell.”

This is so Deja. As the older sister she has always made my business, her business. Always. When I was in the sixth grade and discovered my mother’s collection of Zane books, she took it upon herself to notify my mother, noting that the books were inappropriate for a twelve-year-old. She was right, and in a huff at being scolded by my mother, sequestered to our shared bedroom to sulk, I had to agree as I recalled the warm and confusing feelings those books that explored all of the erotic maturity of grown folks’ business, conjured in me. With the wisdom of a sister that is only a few years older, Deja coolly, instead offered me Judy Blume’s ‘Forever’ and ‘Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret’, as alternatives that truly were more my speed. 

She’s always done that, too. Been that kind of bridge for me, getting me from one complicated life experience to the next. Offering to beat up mean girls. Slipping the key to her apartment into my purse and communicating to me in a non-descript manner that I had a more appealing alternative to living as an adult with my parents. And of course, introducing me to Preston. Another alternative she offered up. One that was so very different from the monogamy challenged, fuckboys I was used to. At least that’s what we both thought.

Sulking at the memory of that last thing, I roll my eyes and make a request of my big sister, “Deja, please mind your business.”

“Hello! Little sister you are my business. So, cut the shit and tell me what inspiration you’re talking about.”

There’s the response I was expecting from her, and why I really didn’t mean to slip up and use his name. Why I was concentrating so hard on giving nothing away? Deja’s too good at this.

“And have you talked to Preston since you’ve been there? I saw him the other day in the cafeteria, we didn’t really have time to chat, but I’m sure he’s worried about you.”

I have, but I really don’t want to get into that either, and thankfully two short knocks to my room door interrupt our back and forth and provide me with the much-needed reprieve to swerve from her prying. “I’ll call you later, Deja. Someone is at my door.”

With all of the attitude of the ancestors, and every big sister everywhere, Deja doesn’t let her medical degree get in the way of a Brooklyn neck roll, dipping her head to the side and points her finger at me through the phone one last time. “Uh huh. You better call me back.”

“I will.”

“And wear a mask!”

“Ok!” I promise, closing my Macbook, and shutting out my sister’s commands. 

Reaching for my mask that rests on the nightstand, I drape it across my face, even though I don’t really think I need it given that only Eva and Ashe are at the inn with me. I’m sure it’s one of them at the door. It’s that certainty, and a hope that it’s Ashe instead of Eva, that pushes me to hurriedly snatch my scarf from my head, and check my appearance in the bathroom mirror on the way to the door. 

Pulling the heavy wooden barrier open just as another set of brief, soft bangs sound off, I find Eva, dressed in a thick, Donegal sweater, corduroys, and snow boots, appearing ready for her day. 

“Good morning, Eva!” I greet her, pulling my mask off and wrapping my robe more tightly around my frame, feeling the chill from the hallway invading on the heat from my fireplace warmed room.

“Morning. I wanted to let you know I’m gonna be gone probably most of the day. Café is closed, and of course no guests are expected, so no one should be dropping by today.”

“Oh ok.” Nodding that I understand I wonder if I should ask about Ashe? Would it seem too interested of me to bring him up? The question halts my lips from forming the words to ask as they also burn with the remembrance of our shared kiss last night. Does she know? Can Eva tell that my body still tingles when I think of her son? I hope not, and try to mask any interest in Ashe, keeping my questions to myself. “Have a good day then.”

“Sure thing, hon. You stay warm, and help yourself to the kitchen.” Turning away, she gifts me with a smile and a parting wave, her long dark hair swishing against her sweater collar with each step. 

Closing the door behind me, I press my back to the wood. It’s just after eight in the morning, and I’ve been writing since before dawn. I’m not really a morning person, but like I told my sister, I can’t stop writing. My fingers can barely keep up. Every scene seems to be flooding my brain so quickly, with such vivid clarity that I can almost see and hear the characters. The energy flowing through me creating a tapestry in my mind, weaving together a clear pathway to a satisfying end of the story.

Which is great for the characters in my book. A couple who had fought each other, could barely form a kind word between them, had suddenly found no way to continue to deny the source of their tempestuous chemistry between them. It was lust. It was passion. Desire. 

Maybe. Perhaps...I could relate. 

Last night, with thoughts of something newly discovered about Ashe. Something softer, more introspective. Funny. Competitive. Perceptive. Caring. Sexy...riding me as I tried to find restful sleep, my legs skimmed against each other, my fingers touching, stroking, seeking some relief from the fire Ashe created within me, I instantly could tell that something creative had been unlocked. And each and every brush of my fingers over my own body, continued to unleash my imagination. An imagination that ran wild with thoughts, imaginings of his large hands instead of my own. His breath warming my flesh instead of my own needy panting kissing the air. 

Even my dreams were haunted by him. By my desire for him to follow me into my room and completely ruin me. To take everything that I was too afraid to offer. Afraid that once again I would lose myself, drown in the passions of a man who wasn’t really for me. Despite the fact that I could sense his urges in the press of our kiss, relate enough to that need to use it for my writing, I also recalled the sting of my romantic failure with Preston. The one guy that I really thought I could make it with. And man... I don’t want that again. Not right now. Not when I’m earnestly trying to put myself back together. Literally and figuratively. 

Preston was supposed to be the romantic hero in my story. The tall, dark, handsome doctor that would help bring my history of unsuccessful, amorous entanglements to a final end. At the risk of sounding like the book nerd that I am, my sister introducing Preston to me was to be the rising action, that would lead to the much-needed climax. Finally, I would get what every girl who had grown up on a healthy serving of princesses and fairytales, yearned for. And yet, our relationship didn’t quite turn out that way. 

Yes, Preston was like a prince in comparison to the frogs I had been with. Intelligent and witty, his sharp focus as a surgeon was almost overwhelming. Serious is the way my mother described him. Self-absorbed is what my father said, but for some reason even as they offered a view of him somewhat less rosy than the one I saw him with, I couldn’t move away from the possibility of finally getting exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, my plans weren’t Preston’s plans, and now here I am. Hiding out from my failures under the snow blanketed beauty of Maine. Surviving, much like the small mammals Ashe mentioned last night.

Again, going nearly full circle, my thoughts turn to him, and perhaps, I muse as I loosen my silk kimono robe, ready to shower and grab some coffee downstairs, Ashe has already been as useful to me as I can allow? If nothing else the man has helped me breathe new life into my manuscript, and really, isn’t that what I’m supposed to be here for anyway?

XXXX

‘And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control
And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control...’

Is that? Is that Rage Against the Machine I wonder to myself, my feet automatically beating a path away from the café, and towards a long hallway on the other side of the front room that ends at a door. Pulling the door open, I’m assaulted by frenzied guitar riffs. Immediately I confirm from the furious vocals of Zach de la Rocha, charging and challenging in the repeated chants, for the listener to recognize the bold hypocrisy of society that’s easily ignored, that it is indeed Rage Against the Machine. 

With each step I get closer to the source of the music, to the large speakers that adorn two corners of the open space, and its mirror covered walls. Thick, black mats are dispersed all over the floors, carrying the heavy weight of metal workout equipment. Weight benches, kettle bells. Shiny chrome lifting bars, with more weights than I can count attached. A squat rack. A treadmill is pushed towards the left corner, with a few jump ropes and a heavy bag on the other end of that wall. 

None of that holds my attention though. It’s all minutiae. Unimportant tidbits. The main attraction stands in the middle of the room, grunting, sweating as he rips the Olympic weightlifting bar, stacked with the strain of multiple plates on each side. It’s really a shame that I recognize most of this equipment, remembering that one year I decided to do cross fit and get my summer body right. I lasted two months. Most of that time was spent ogling the trainer. That guy had nothing on Ashe though I decide, holding tightly to the cup of coffee in my right hand, as I nibble at my bottom lip, and shamelessly stare as he continues his workout and his eyes find mine in the mirror. 

He doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t deviate from the punishing focus of his workout. His eyes remain on mine. I can feel the heat of them reflecting in the mirror. Even as I permit my own to ride the thick, muscled cuts of his form. Down from the nearly black curls, damp with sweat, that curl against the nape of his neck, the veins pulsing with the effort to continue his workout. Tanned skin drapes his broad shoulders, the planes of his wide back rippling against it with hard sinew down to a trim waist, where his mesh shorts hang sinfully low and hide none of the firm roundness of his ass. His long legs, powerful thighs and calves, covered in fine dark hair, nearly steal my breath away. 

This feeling is one I must remember for when I return to my laptop and my manuscript. Lightheaded, breathiness. This is swooning I decide, swallowing down a gulp of the hot coffee, hoping a jolt of caffeine will shake me out of this stupor.  

‘Uh
Yeah
Come on
Uh

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me

Motherfucker
Uh...’

The song ends on that vicious promise, and is swiftly followed by Ashe finally dropping the sturdy barbell to the thick floor mat by his feet. 

“Alexa, turn the music off.” Ashe commands, his voice a weary rasp. 

Licking at my lips, taking note of sweat inching down the small of his back, just down his spine, I offer a weak voiced apology. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I heard the music when I left the café.”

“Uh huh.” He mumbles over his shoulder, head bowed as he scrutinizes something on his phone that he’s retrieved from his shorts pocket.

Shuffling my feet, unsure of whether or not I’ve pissed him off by interrupting his workout or not, I ramble off the only thing I can think of to break the awkward stillness of the moment. “Rage Against the Machine. Good song. I saw them once in 2011. At a concert in Los Angeles.”

“Nice. I met Tom Morello years ago. I played for the Bruins. We were introduced by a mutual friend after we beat the Blackhawks in Chicago. He’s a Blackhawks fan.” He laughs, just before he lifts his head, and finally turns towards me. Ashe greets me with a smile, wide and bright, as his gaze conducts a short but noticeable sweep of my body, head to toe then back again, settling on my face. He has a habit of doing that, and though my sister would call it objectification, I can’t help but enjoy the thrill of his eyes on me. 

Flutters in my belly aside, I immediately want to appear composed in front of him. Unaffected by the pure athleticism of his bulky form, effortlessly lifting and raising the weights as though they are nothing. But the sexy wickedness in his welcoming grin is hard to ignore, and my body instantly responds to those pink lips pulling at the corners, lighting his eyes as he catalogs my thick body in skinny jeans and a sweatshirt. Does he recognize there is also the same blush of lust turned on him, in my own eyes? Even as the slightest modicum of embarrassment at the way I’ve totally and completely consumed his muscled form, sends my glare away momentarily. Lowering to my feet, swallowed by a pair of oversized slippers I found in the closet of my room. 

“I like your shoes.” He chuckles and juts his chin towards my feet, then reaches over to one of the benches, grabbing a water bottle and towel. “Not the right ones for working out though.”

“Ah, yeah. I found them in the closet in my room. I figured they were for guest use. They’re massively oversized, but very comfortable.” Pushing my foot outward to balance on my heel, as I shift my hips in a little pose, I’m showcasing my footwear.

“They’re mine” Smirking, he brings the bottle to his lips, greedily gulping water. My eyes can’t help but watch as his Adam’s apple bobs, and sweat trickles down his throat. Now I’m sweating. “I left them there. A while ago.”

Wilting a bit, I drop my cutesy stance. “Sorry! I- I didn’t know. But, why would you leave them there?”

“Like I said, it was a while ago. And I don’t really go in that room anymore.”

Anymore?

“They look good on you, though. Keep wearing ‘em.”

Thankful for my dark complexion, I hope that the cheesy smile on my face at his response, is not as transparent as a blush would be on someone else. “Well now they’re mine forever.” 

“I’m alright with you keeping something of mine forever.”

“Even if I take them back to New York with me?”

“I’d find you.” 

“Would you? Come find me?”

“Absolutely.”

The satisfied relaxation of his flirtatious smile sends another tingle through me. It makes me antsy, almost hyper in my inability to keep still. Old Raven would be sopping up his attention, ready to charge headfirst past teasing banter. New Raven is trying to be more thoughtful, less impetuous. 

Turning, I walk around the room some giving myself a chance to think and not just react, touching weights, bars, stopping at the treadmill. Ashe’s eyes never leave me though. Even with my back to him, I can feel the heat of his stare, and it pulls my feet to carry me right back to where I was before, directly in front of him.

“So, what are you getting into today?” Ashe asks, transitioning the conversation away from further discussion on why he would leave his house slippers in a guest room, and not go in that room anymore to retrieve them. Using a towel to wipe his face and neck, sitting on the weight bench and stretching his long legs out in a wide V, he seems to be patiently waiting for me to answer his question. 

And I’m trying but...

His grey shorts leave nothing to the imagination, and damn it if I’m not tongue tied trying to get my lips to do more than parting at the sight of the bulk and heft bulging at the apex of his thighs. 

“Woo... uh...”

“Writing?”

“Yeah...writing...”

Grinning broadly, he tilts his head to the side, and with his hair mussed, curls wild about his head, he’s so handsome I can hardly breathe. This man has to know what he’s doing. Right?

“Well, if you can take a break today, wanna have some fun? With me?”

“Ashe, are you asking me on a date?”

“Yes.”

My eyes widen at the bluntness of his answer. Every encounter with him since I got to town has been different. It’s like I unlock a little more of his personality each time. More levels of him become accessible to me, and I like it. How complex of a person he is. Not shy or coy. Not like he’s trying to be mysterious to pull me in. It’s like he’s genuinely trying to let me see the textures of him. The real him. Unapologetically offering to me his vulnerability, both the good and the bad. Layer by layer, I discover the multiple facets of Ashe. 

When his mother told me had been a professional athlete, I figured I knew who Ashe was. The rude, distrustful man who picked me up from the hospital made a bit more sense. Then I saw the way he was evasive, maybe even a little pessimistic and self-deprecating when Oliver was around. Also competitive with his friend and I, grumbling whenever he lost a hand at poker. But once we were alone, he gave me more. 

Ashe is also loyal and protective, somewhat of a caregiver in the way he wanted to look after his parents before his father died, and how he takes care of his mother now. Honest in discussing race with me, not shying away from it as though seeing and acknowledging my Blackness was not some taboo thing to be ignored. And of course, now there is the flirt. The sexy, tenacious, self-assured Ashe who goes after what he wants. A kiss. And now a date. 

I fearfully admit to myself that I like him. How apparent he seems in his interest in me, despite the complexity of the man. I’m not really used to that from men, at least not the men I’ve dated over the last few years, and I’m not sure how to respond to his directness. 

My relationship with Preston always felt like we were playing chess. Except he was a grand master, and I was a basic novice. For some reason I never really knew, at least not until it was too late, what was going on with us. Every move on his part felt calculated and strategic, and because I didn’t even realize I was playing a game, I didn’t even have a good countermove. Our relationship was a whole lot of me reacting to what Preston wanted. What Preston needed. It kept me off balance, and I can see that now that I’m no longer under the delusion that allowing him to drive things would ultimately satisfy us both. 

I’m back to trying to be my own woman again. A woman who knows what she likes, what she wants, and isn’t intimidated by accepting nothing less. For some men it will be an unwanted challenge. Something tells me by the way Ashe is studying me, waiting on my answer, resting easily in the silence as I allow myself a moment to pause. To think... This might not be challenging to him at all.

“Raven, will you go on a date with me today?” he questions, the deep bass in his voice both seductive and charming, especially when it gives way to a short rumbling chuckle as he drags his palm back over his sweaty hair. “I know it’s not baking and hanging out, laughing with my mother-”

“Eva is a very funny lady. And her cooking is fabulous. I enjoy her company.”

“She’s tough competition, but...” Licking his lips, he does that thing again where he’s eating me up with his eyes, dropping those long, spiky eyelashes in a slow blink before he raises his gaze back to mine. “I like a challenge. You never know, you might like my company better.” He shrugs, as though he doesn’t know that I absolutely enjoy his company. I did last night. I am right now. And there is no way in hell I would turn down an opportunity to enjoy it again today. 

I know I’m supposed to be writing, but...

Scratching his fingers through the thick, dark hairs of his beard, he winks at me, and maybe taking note of my indecision offers with finality. “I’ll show you a good time.” Ashe promises, and with those few words makes up my mind for me. 

Rising from the bench, he moves forward and stands over me. My nose tingles, and a jolt of awareness shoots through me at the scent of him. Pheromones. Sweat and musk, his natural earthy smell, mingles in the air. His height and brawn are always so impressive, but without his shirt on, his hard chest so close to my own, the overall masculinity of him is damned near inundating my senses to the point of a short-circuited overload. Is there steam coming out of my ears? Am I drooling?

I’m fighting every instinct to reach out and touch him. Flatten my palm over his pecs. Run my fingers through the grooves and cuts of his chiseled abdomen. Trace the path with my tongue that the dusky hair seems to be directing from his chest and stomach, and down into his low hanging shorts. 

Locating a reserve of strength, I don’t follow those impulses. Even as Ashe breaks the stillness that rests in the sliver of space between our bodies, and leans down to drop a simple short kiss to my forehead. 

Rolling my eyes at myself, at my body’s response to him, I twist my lips to halt the grin that is fighting its hardest to make itself seen. “Well... ok then.”

XXXX

“Come on up with me. I’ve gotta take care of something in my office. Will only take a few minutes. Then we can properly have our date.” Ashe directs, each warm breath welcomed to the frigid air with a puff of chilled smoke. He offers me his hand to help me down from the truck, then holds me steady with his large, gloved hands firmly gripping my hips. 

Wincing slightly from his touch glancing against the bruises on my left side, I can only nod in agreement. 

“Your side? It’s hurt?” He asks, concern angling his dark brows as his gaze drops to my hip, then lifts to my face, studying me as he awaits my response. 

“Still a little pain.”

Softly he apologizes, “I’m sorry,” but doesn’t remove himself. His body actually inches closer to mine and he wraps his arms around my waist with his palms resting above the curve of my bottom, hugging himself around me as though he would protect me from whatever injured me in the first place.  Even through my coat, and sweater, I can sense the heat of him penetrating through me, and it makes me want to ease into him. Curl up against his frame. This feels safe. Comforting. My body wants more of this. 

Our hug stretches for what feels like minutes but is actually only a brief clip of time. Dragging his finger carefully along the small bandage on my forehead that I freshly replaced this morning, Ashe seems to be taking inventory of my injuries. Looking up at him, as he looks down his nose at studying my face, his significant height towering him over me and the sun blazing brightly in the sky, I muse to myself that I never want to forget this moment. This feeling. The perfection of whatever is building between us.

Secretly, I savor the feeling of my body cloaked by his, by my smaller hand wrapped securely in his as we rode in his truck. Him smoothly navigating through the streets with one hand, and with the other never breaking the thread of our fingers on the middle console.

 I’ve missed contact. People. The sensation of warmth that emanates from the press of someone against me. Even if it’s clothed contact. The wrap of him around me, at any juncture, livens my senses and is a quick second to my favorite thing about this afternoon so far. Second only to the breathtaking figure Ashe cut when he collected me at the door to my room. His hair freshly washed, falling away from his face in dark inky waves; beard trimmed down a bit. A hoodie concealed his huge chest from me, but the scent of his cologne, wafting in waves through the door was more than enough to make up for it. God he smelled divine. His own masculine fragrance, mingling with a hint of soapy clean, and what my sensitive nose could make out as mint, rosemary, sandalwood and maybe even what my mind could conjure from memories of the pure swell of the sea. 

On a short sniff, he seems to refocus, intent on taking care of whatever business he needs to handle at his office and releases me from his hold while dropping a short kiss on my cheek. Reaching for my hand again, he’s ushering me towards the two-story brick building. 

Trudging through the thick tufts of snow that transforms the world around us into a winter wonderland, his heavy footsteps pounding the slush down to create a path for me to follow, we make our way to the front door, and are instantly met with not only a welcoming blast of heat, but also with a short shout of, “Wassup, Murph!”

Responding with a jovial “What’s up, Ol,” Ashe stops in the entry foyer and gives his friend a short head nod, and pulls me close to his side, my hand still securely in his. “Didn’t expect to see you so early today.”

“You know me, man. Slept it off.” Oliver answers jovially, bouncing his eyes between Ashe and myself. Dropping his gaze to where our hands remain intertwined, his eyebrows raise in what I can only assume is curiosity at our newfound closeness. “Afternoon, Raven. You look lovely today.”

Rising my own eyebrows right back, I give nothing away, not speaking to the question so obvious on his face, and only reply with a brief, “Thank you, Oliver.” 

I take note of Oliver’s perpetual grin, the one he doesn’t bother to hide, and allow myself a second to take stock of our surroundings. The outside of the building was non-descript, matching the long row of reddish brick structures up and down the street, even some grey and white ones, some taller, some shorter. Each roof and some windows, bearing similar colonial edging, weathered by years of sun, rain, and snow. While the sun is high in the sky today, its warm rays are no foil for the heavy cloaking of snowbanks that memorialize the footprints of the few scant sightings of masked people in and out of the other buildings, hustling to gather essentials before returning to their isolated lives of quarantine. 

The inside sticks with the colonial New England theme, but with some contemporary touches one might expect at any brewery. While there is of course a small, short bar, stools, and a handful of tables and chairs to one side, the other side is a wall of glass that separates the rest of the building from the actual brewery that rises to take up both floors. The glass is a nice touch, allowing patrons to get a glimpse of the manufacturing of the beer they are drinking from the couple of taps behind the bar. The walls are adorned with plenty of memorabilia and pictures you would expect from a bar in New England. Patriots, Red Sox. I can even spy what appear to be some hockey pictures. The centerpiece behind the bar is a replica of a boat.

“What are you two up to today?”

“I’m taking the day. Gonna show Raven around a bit.”

“What can you show her, Murph? Everything is closed for quarantine.” 

“Got something in mind.”

“I’m sure.” Oliver smirks, his gaze flipping again to where our fingers are intertwined. 

It doesn’t make me nervous, Oliver’s curious stares, but I do wonder what’s going through his mind right now. Last night Oliver was putting it on pretty thick. And normally, he would be just my type. Handsome, charismatic. Fuckboy. But I’m trying to be a new Raven. A Raven who can see the iceberg, and instead of employing my old Titanic ways, swerves early enough to avoid sinking. Ashe feels like the course that goes around certain destruction, at least in the immediate term. 

With that in mind, I release his hand. “Restroom?” 

Answering my question, Ashe points to a door directly towards the back of the small bar area. “Back that way. I’m gonna run up to my office. Come up when you’re done. Ok?”

“Yep.”

I amble away, rushing to relieve my bladder of the two cups of coffee I consumed this morning. I know my sister told me to drink more water to help with the headaches I’ve been having, but I needed the caffeine to keep me going. Waking up early to write may have been a reaction to new inspiration, but I am not a morning person, and I’m definitely feeling the effects.

Quickly handling my business, and washing my hands, I hurry from the bathroom, excited to get to our date, and I halt for a moment hearing Ashe and Oliver talking.

“Ashe Murphy, holding hands in public? Since when are PDAs your thing?”

“Shut up.”

“Ashe Murphy, taking a day off?”

“Shut up! Ol...”

“Oh no! This is too good. Ashe Murphy, Mr. she’s just alright? That was you just last night.”

“Fuck off!”

“I’m just sayin’. A lot must have changed after you left me asleep on my couch.”

“Nothing happened. And if it did, I wouldn’t fuckin’ tell you.”

“That satisfied fuckin’ grin you’re wearing is telling me plenty. And listen, I ain’t mad at you. Raven’s beautiful. I mean...that ass in those jeans is something else. You know I understand.”

“Alright, watch what you say about her. I gotta take care of this shit with Mel. Watch your fuckin’ mouth when Raven comes back out here.”

“I’m happy for you, Murph!” I hear Oliver yell, amusement causing a snort to top off his declaration.

Peeking around the corner, I can see Ashe’s profile as he points his finger at Oliver while he’s walking up the stairs. 

Not wanting to seem like I was eavesdropping, I wait a beat before I come from around the wall that leads from the restroom. Taking my time, I glance around the small bar area as I stroll towards the front of the building and closer to the steps. 

I can feel Oliver’s eyes on me, traveling over my frame as I pretend not to notice, but instead focus my gaze on a few pictures I somehow missed hanging in the entry foyer. One I can tell is Ashe. Though much younger in the picture, his hair long and hanging with shaggy fringe over his forehead, he’s cutting an impressive figure with his hockey gear on. His shoulders and stature appearing even more massive than he already is. In a Bruins jersey, positioned somewhere in what appears to be a hockey arena, his helmet under his arm, stick in his hand, he seems happy. Satisfied. There’s no thick beard to shelter his grin from my inspection, and I can’t help but to notice how joy truly lights up his face, reaching even the dazzling blue of his eyes. 

“That’s before his first game with the Bruins. After he got drafted.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Mel took that. We were all real proud of him.”

Tilting my head at the name drop, I don’t want to show my hand just yet, let Oliver in on my curiosity, but I can’t help but echo him, “Mel...” 

“His wife.”

“Right.” My response is curt, clipped. There really is nothing else for me to say, though I school my face. His wife? The old Raven would take off. Leave Ashe behind to figure out what happened to me with no explanation. His wife. But I’m new Raven, and new Raven will give Ashe a chance to explain. 

Pointing his finger to the picture next to the one of Ashe in his hockey uniform, is another of Oliver and Ashe together, both holding up mugs of beer. 

“That’s us with the first pour to come out of the taps here. Mel took this one too. It was a while ago.”

Trying to flatten my voice, stomp out any petulance that might be in my undertone, I drolly interject, inflecting every bit of disaffected New Yorker I can summon, “She’s a good photographer. Mel.”

“Oh yeah. We all started this thing together, took over this brewery as a kind of hobby when Mr. Murphy got sick. Small batches only. Then it kind of took off into something bigger. The bar never opened but the money from the brewery helps keep things afloat.”

“Pandemic is taking a lot from everyone.” 

“Lots of folks hurting right now. I’m lucky. Fishing is essential, I guess. People gotta eat.”

Oliver is giving me an out from the discovery of Ashe’s wife, and he doesn’t even know it. I take the bait he’s cast and somewhat bow my form towards his and away from the wall of pictures, allowing my interest to be diverted in a way I can handle. 

“How does that make you feel? Being essential.”

“I don’t know. Isn’t everybody’s work essential?” the handsome ginger muses, quirking his eyebrow in question.

“Yeah, I think so. It’s essential for people to be able to pay their bills. Eat. Protect themselves and their families.”

“Exactly! That’s why this lockdown stuff is crazy. How can people do that if we’re not even allowed to leave the house?” Oliver snorts, in a blatant rebuff and rebuttal of what many of us have heard before.  

Friction with Ashe’s friend is not what I want, but emotion builds in me as I think of my sister working in the hospital, sometimes on for 12-hour shifts, putting her own life on the line, denying herself the opportunity to have a life and even see our parents for months. “Well, from a public health perspective, I get why things can’t be like regular right now. Can’t be like they were. They have to be what they are. Ya know?” My hands fly in their normal, animated way to drive home my point. “A deviation from what we consider normal, can be quite an exquisite surprise if we allow ourselves the possibility.”

“That sounds like something Ashe would say. All poetic about something practical.” Oliver chuckles. “I ask him how he’s doing the other day, what does he say to me? He’s just finding his way in a storm.”

It does sound like a rather poetic expression, one that I hate to allow my preconceived notions of athletes come into play here, but I didn’t expect from him. Brutal lugs is how I would casually describe hockey and football players, but as I think of Ashe, and allow my eyes to travel back to the pictures of him to my left, there is a certain amount of caring and gracefulness to him and how he moves that is wholly unexpected. Even when I figured him to be a rude lout at our first meeting, he was still quite mindful of me that day. Of my delicate condition. Driving carefully so as to not jostle me around. Bringing my bags to my room. And last night, preparing me lavender tea and carrying me to my room. 

Harder inspection of the pictures allows me to see things my initial perusal missed. 

Observing the pleased grin that looks back at me, reflecting a part of Ashe I don’t really know, I can almost feel the pride and love that the person who took the picture must have felt. They recognize the same in him. Now I can see it. There’s almost a tangible centering of Ashe in the picture, Oliver’s inclusion almost an afterthought. If Mel took this picture, she obviously had intended for the focus to be Ashe. 

Heaviness begins to thud in my chest, a weight of sadness. Had anyone ever placed me in the spotlight the way Mel had done with Ashe? Had my smile, my eyes ever twinkled with the reflection of that kind of adoration? Had I ever been in love like that?

I’ve had boyfriends and lovers. Relationships and dalliances. But never the kind of connection that seemed to emanate through the lens of Mel’s camera between her and Ashe. 

Damn...

Turning away from the wall, I remember that I was supposed to meet Ashe upstairs after I used the restroom. “Can you excuse me?” Gesturing with my thumb towards the steps I try to excuse myself. “I’m supposed to-”

“Yeah, he’s upstairs. There’s no door, office takes up that side of the floor.”

“Thank you.” 

He doesn’t respond at first, he seems to be thinking of something, and I don’t immediately take off. I don’t want to be rude since he appears to want to say more, his lips moving then stopping until I suppose he finds what he wants to say. 

“It’s all good.” Oliver nods, then winks, “Murph’s a good dude. My best friend. Life hasn’t been as easy for him as it might seem. He’s rough around the edges. We both are. That’s kinda how you are growing up around here. But ya know...” pausing momentarily his eyes travel up the stairs, as though he’s drawing my attention to the bass heavy hum of Ashe’s voice probably on the phone. “I play around, and I may have had my own...intentions. But, Ashe is like my brother. For real.”

“Ok...”

“I think he’s ready to move on.”

My instincts as a storyteller make me want to ask Oliver what he means. To delve further into his cryptic sentiment. The introduction of Mel as Ashe’s wife into the narrative, against his insistence that he’s ready to move on. What is he trying to tell me? Oliver’s words seem at odds with his flirtatious manner. There is also a part of me, the part that’s been hurt by the games of men, that tells me to take Oliver’s words for what they are and move on. Rumination won’t serve me well for the short time I have left here. 

One step at a time I walk up the stairs, pushing everything Oliver said to me out of my brain, and trying to focus on whatever Ashe has offered of himself. Reading too much into relationships, experiences, is what brought me to this place in my life. Me thinking, wanting more than is available to me. The discomfort of those past dalliances wasting away is what drives me to pick up my face, and push forth a smile as I pick up the hint of cigarette smoke billowing from where Ashe sits on the corner of his desk in the middle of the loft office. 

Dragging hard, a long pull of the cigarette between his lips, Ashe forcefully blows away the smoke he sets free from his lungs, punctuated by a short sentence as his eyes lift to acknowledge me. With a short backwards nod, he ushers me closer. “Sure, Mel. I just sent it. It’s done. Ok?”

At first, I don’t want to give him eye contact. I don’t want to follow his direction and shift closer to him. Ashe’s eyes don’t sparkle for me like they did in those pictures. Last night I witnessed lust swirling in the dark azure of his dreamy gaze. Amusement lightened them to a clear sky this morning as he witnessed me watching him lifting weights. And I get it. We just met. Like he said last night, we’re strangers. My head knows this. It’s that pesky little romantic heart of mine. The part of me that is in love with love, but has yet to find it for myself. 

Reflections, my thoughts trap me, cement me in a fugue state, fixated. I don’t notice that Ashe is no longer on the phone, or that he’s holding his hand out towards me. Or that he’s calling my name. 

“Raven... Hey, Raven, you ok?” Searching my face, his stare narrows through the smoke of his final puff, just as he crushes the stub of the cigarette into an ashtray next to him on the desk. Angling out towards me, Ashe extends his hand even further. Landing his long fingers against the tips of my own, he doesn’t grab at them. Instead, he tenderly tickles the tips of my fingers, feathering them with more gentleness than I would expect from hands as large as his. They’re rough to the touch, the skin calloused in places. The roughness is actually pleasing to me, arousing my senses with the introduction of a gentle abrasion. “Raven.” He calls again, gathering my full attention this time. “Come here.”

Switching my weight from my back leg, I allow my booted feet to advance and carry me closer to him. Guiding me with his hand, Ashe settles me at the juncture between his outstretched legs where I’m confronted by his conquering presence. 

“What’s wrong?”

Shaking my head slowly, I don’t even move my lips to gift him words. I’m afraid of what might fall out. Questions about his wife ride me, living on the precipice of my thoughts, right next to Oliver’s assertion that Ashe is ready to move on. Where would I even begin?

“You don’t have to tell me. It’s ok.” Ashe offers, possibly sensing my reluctance. His hands have moved from my fingers to cupping my upper arms, soothingly stroking them, coaxing me away from whatever agitates me, but not demanding anything of me just the same. 

Flitting away from his handsome face, his forehead creased in concern, my eyes fall to the first safe thing I can find. “I didn’t know you smoke.”

“Only when I’m stressed.” He smiles sadly, his palms still lulling me with the cadence of his soothing touch. 

“What has you stressed? Your wife?” before I can stop it, the words blurt from me, escaping the weak barrier on my mouth. 

Dropping his hands to grip the edge of the desk, Ashe nervously laughs for a second, but gathers himself quickly. Leaning away from me, he crosses his arms over his chest and nods as though agreeing to engage. 

“Ex-wife. And yeah, she’s often the reason for my smoking. Both are vices I’m trying to free myself of.”

Pacing away from him, agitation is rising, increasing my body temperature, and I’m instantly regretting the thick, red sweater I donned for our date. “A vice? What does that mean? Being married is a vice? And, why didn’t you tell me you’re married? I don’t date married men! This is...” With upturned palms I’m running out of incredulity and now I just want to get some answers to my questions and to express my displeasure, but man this is some shit! “Wait, you know what? Nevermind. It’s none of my business. You don’t owe me an answer. We just met.”

 “No, they’re fair questions. Can you come over here though so I can answer them?”

“I think I should stay over here. I just told you I don’t date married men, Ashe.”

“Then you should definitely come back over here since I’m no longer a married man, Raven.”

Huffing in frustration, I move closer to him again, a snail’s pace, but I reclaim my place in front of him, nonetheless. Crossing my arms, mimicking his stance, I give him Black girl sass in my pursed lips, and quirked eyebrow.

“Mel and I are divorced. We’ve been divorced since late last year. Separated awhile before that. We tried to make it work.”

“Ashe, this is none of my business.”

“You asked, Raven, and I don’t mind telling you. I probably should have said something already.” Reaching behind him on the desk, his hand dances around until he finds a pack of cigarettes. Pulling one from the pack and placing it between his lips, he then lifts his eyes to me in silent question. To which I shake my head no. He responds by sliding the cigarette back into the pack, and tossing it over his shoulder. On a deep sigh that lifts then slumps his chest, Ashe is threading his fingers on his lap, then he continues, “We dated through college. She’s a year older than I am. I actually met her when I first got to school. She was a journalism major, doing an article on sports for the newspaper. That’s where we started. At the inn is where we ended. In room 202.”

“Wait...202? My room?”

“Yep. We actually dated off and on for longer than we were actually married. I played hockey most of that time. And when I couldn’t any longer, I went back to school, got my law degree, worked as a lawyer. I was ready to settle down, ready for a family. But, Mel was becoming her own thing. Melanie Michaels Murphy, anchor for the Channel 5, WCVB news team.”

My face froze. “Melanie Michaels Murphy? Short, dark hair cut in a bob? Blue eyes?”

Tilting his head in question, Ashe finally seems as thrown as I am. “That’s her. You know her? You know Mel?”

“I- I’ve met her. When my first book came out, I uh... I did an interview at that station when I was doing a book signing in Boston. She’s...she’s very pretty, Ashe.” Thinking of the short, beautiful woman I met briefly so many years ago, I can’t help but feel myself wanting to shrink. I look nothing like Mel. We couldn’t be more different. 

“Small world. Wow...”

“So, what happened? With you and Mel? Why would you get divorced?” absentmindedly, my feet carry me pacing away from Ashe, subconsciously putting space between us.

Fidgeting with his fingers, seemingly unable to keep them still, Ashe’s face narrows into a frown as though he’s giving his next words serious though. “Ah, we just weren’t really on the same page anymore. We were in different places in life. I was trying to be a lawyer. An associate, which is very hard work. Lots of hours. Lots of time just...not home. Then after my dad’s stroke, more time away, back and forth between Boston and here, checking in on his recovery. At first, she was coming with me every time. Then she would come sometimes. Then, not at all. But even before that, we were living separate lives really.” His shoulders slump under the weight of the story of the demise of his marriage, and his head drops forward, his chin resting close to his chest as his hands clasp together behind his neck. 

“Ashe... You don’t have to-”

“The last time she came, she served me with divorce papers. And, I get why. We really weren’t the same people that we had been. We both wanted things for ourselves that didn’t serve the other any longer. She had the courage to ask for the divorce first, but, I was on board. It was the right thing. We weren’t in love anymore.”

Rubbing my hand against my forehead, I’m trying to make peace with everything he just said. “This is a lot to take in. Right? Thank you for sharing it with me, though. Like, I mean you didn’t have to. Right? You could have totally been like, listen lady I just met, mind your business. Right?”

Slowly his head raises, and a broad smile overtakes his handsome face. It’s like the sun has come out, ushering aside the cloud of sadness that pulled at his beautiful features. “Well, Raven, yeah I could have. But, lady I just met, I kind of want to know more about you. That means I have to let you know me. That’s my story. I came here today to send over the papers from the bank showing she was released from the business loan for the brewery. She’s getting remarried.” He shrugs nonchalantly as though he didn’t just basically sum up the end of an era of his life in five minutes or less. 

But also...he said he wants to know me, and now, now he’s reaching for me, and my feet obey him before my mind tells them not to, and he’s back to doing that arm rubbing thing. And oh god, he’s looking up at me, blinking those long eyelashes at me, and I want to hug him, and press myself against him, and tell him everything is going to be ok even though I can’t promise that. And I want to be transparent and dump my own life story out in five minutes or less as well. 

“Sorry I jumped to conclusions. Oliver mentioned your wife, and I heard you mention Mel and you were on the phone with her, and it was... Yeah. Sorry. Sometimes, my imagination is not my friend.”

“You don’t have to apologize. If I heard you on the phone with a man I thought was your husband, I don’t think I would be so understanding.”

“No?”

“No. I would be furious.” He declares succinctly, the tenor of his voice dropping to a whispered bass that sends literal shivers over my flesh. 

“Furious?” I tease, biting at my lip and raising my eyebrows dramatically, unexplainably aroused by the firm set of his features. 

“I don’t want the competition.” Ashe’s hands travel from my arms to circle my waist, directing me closer and closer, until there is no space between us. “When I played hockey, I was a defenseman, and we don’t share with the other team. Do you know what that means?”

“No.”

“My job was to keep the other team away from my team’s net. Keep them away from the puck so they can’t score in our net. I don’t share.” He answers, placing a series of small, wet kisses to my chin and jaw. “I like you, Raven. I like how I feel around you. And, I don’t want to share that feeling with anyone else. I want to keep it between me and you.” With his large hand, he tilts my head to the side. His lips and teeth nip at my throat, and he asks against the sensitive skin with such fierce seriousness, his voice rasping over the words, that I know he will accept no argument, nothing but the truth. “Is that alright?”

“Yes.” The word travels on a breathy whisper, just before Ashe sucks away all rational thought with the hungry press of his lips to my own. 

XXXXX

“Who taught you to cook so well? Your mother?”

“Yes. Her and my father, they are both excellent cooks.”

“Your dad?” Ashe laughs around a mouthful of pork chops. 

“Why are you laughing? Men cook.”

“My dad could not cook. He fished and hunted, but couldn’t boil water. My mother has always done all the cooking. You’ve seen her, she still cooks constantly. Even when there’s no one but me and her to eat it.”

“She said she likes it. Told me she enjoyed cooking for her guys. You and your dad.”

Dropping his gaze, his lips turn down into a frown for a moment at the mention of his father, and he takes a large gulp of beer to chase whatever emotion he’s feeling. “We both had big appetites. Logging is tough work. Hockey too I suppose.”

Leaning my elbows on the table next to my plate, I reach for my glass of wine. The smooth intermingling of fruity sweetness with the tart bitterness of the Riesling, cool on my tongue.   “Eva showed me some photos of your dad. You look so much like him. You could be twins.”

Blinking, almost bashfully, Ashe bows his head, affirming the truth in my statement. “People always said that. Especially when I got older, grew into my body. I’ve got my mother’s features in a way-”

“You’re pretty like her.”

A bark of laughter erupts from his chest, his cheeks warming with a blush that could either be from his mirth at my comment, or the blazing fire in the hearth behind him, heating up the small café just for us. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m pretty.”

“I would. I definitely would.”

“Ok...”

“But you’ve got a roughness that kinda mixes it up a bit. How tall are you?” I ask, licking at the sweetness of the wine left behind on my bottom lip, and reaching across the table to move aside the wayward curls that are now dancing across his forehead. The wine and beer we’ve consumed have kept things loose and jovial between us since our tense discussion earlier about his ex-wife. 

When Ashe said he wanted to get me to know me, and take me on a date, he wasn’t kidding. Leaving the brewery behind, he maneuvered his truck around the small New England town, giving me a tour of all of the places that mattered to him. The house he grew up in, a small sky-blue cape cod, with white shutters that his family abandoned when his parents decided they would move into the inn to better manage the property. His high school where he was a heavily recruited hockey star, and an academic genius, graduating first in his small class of 75 kids. And finally, ending at the pond in the center of town, not far from the brewery where he first learned to skate. Ashe even brought a pair of his mother’s ice skates to get me on the ice, not realizing that though I’m a New Yorker, and Rockefeller Center is a New York thing, I do not ice skate. 

My declaration was a highlight of our day, as he assured me that he could teach me, despite me telling him Black folks don’t ice skate. Winter sports aren’t our thing. He told me PK Subban and Surya Bonaly, as well as other Black folks who skate would disagree, and he continued to escort me around the ice with my hands in his as he skated backwards, only allowing me to fall once when I got excited and tried to skate off on my own. Landing soundly on my butt, my pride was a little hurt as well, but of course Ashe was there to help me up, and under the guise of helping me soothe the ache, delivered a few gentle rubs to my bottom. I suspect he was really just looking for an excuse to get those big hands on my ass, but truthfully, I didn’t care. 

I would be a huge liar if I didn’t admit, at least to myself, that I could easily fall in love with Ashe. The man isn’t really giving me a choice. It seems like something has unlocked between us and he’s putting on the full court press of charm, wit, sense of humor, and adding all of that to his good looks, I’m not sure what my options are here. Do I even want other options at this point? 

When we returned to the inn, and he announced that his mother texted him and said she was going to spend the night with her sister and we were on our own, it felt like some rom-com setup. Cozy, quiet inn. Snow falling in thick white, cotton ball puffs outside of the wall of windows, as I cook a dinner for the two of us, and Ashe sets the table closest to the fireplace. Pulling out all of the stops, decking the table out with wine and candles, the romance factor had been hiked up, and after a quick shower before dinner, we both returned to the café for dinner, and it felt like we had progressed past the light first date banter to the much sexier second date. 

Even the music he’s playing from his phone, a Pandora playlist that he calls ‘Yacht Rock’, but just sounds like white folks 80’s music to me, is adding to the fun yet romantic ambiance. I even recognized a few of them like Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, which we playfully danced around to in the kitchen as I plated the food, as Ashe mouthed the words of the song to me.

“Standing in the sunlight laughing

Hiding ‘hind a rainbow’s wall

Slipping and sliding

All along the waterfall with you

My brown-eyed girl

You, my brown-eyed girl...”

I don’t know if I could have written a better scene, I muse to myself as my fingers linger at Ashe’s hairline. With what I’m sure are stars in my eyes, I wait for his answer to how tall he is, my wonder at the massive size of him probably apparent at the way I’ve casually allowed myself to stare at and touch him so freely. We’ve completely forgotten our Covid protocols of no face touching, and six feet or less closeness, sharing plenty of kisses throughout the day. Ashe takes a hold of my hand, kissing the tips of my fingers, and holding them to his bearded cheek.

“Guess how tall I am. What do you think?”

Shrugging, I run my free hand over my short curls that are still damp from my quick pre-dinner shower. “I don’t know. Six feet?”

“That’s short!” Scoffing, feigning at offense, he’s scrunching his face in distaste. “Much taller.”

“Much taller? Oh my... How tall?”

“Six four.”

“Nice.”

“Nice?”

“Oh yeah! I’m a tall woman, but tall guys never talk to me. Only short guys. My sister used to joke that I needed to wear a sign that said ‘Must be six feet or taller to ride’.”

“Is that why you’re still single? Haven’t met anyone tall enough to ride?”

Needing another glass of wine, I instantly drain mine then add more, and savor the pause while I watch the gold-colored liquid swish around the glass. Gulping another sip, I smack my lips softly. “Um, ya know, Ashe, I don’t think I have an answer for that question really. I mean, I’ve dated right? I’ve had relationships.”

“Ok...”

“I think...” hesitating, I suppress my inclination to just rattle off something flippant and move on, but this is the first time someone has actually asked me this question, and it’s intriguing. Ashe appears to really want and expect an answer. He’s all soft blue eyes, lazily blinking at me, so I suck down my nerves and go for it. “I want something that the guys I’ve met simply don’t want. Or at least they don’t want it with me I guess?”

“What do you want, Raven?”

“Everything...” I answer, the response coming to me, and spilling from my lips so easily, as though I’ve rehearsed the declaration a thousand times. To some degree, since I first watched Brandy in Cinderella, my heart has been set on having it all. The prince. The happy ever after. Everything.

“What’s that include? Everything is broad.” He snorts, releasing my hand as he rushes over to the front desk area of the inn, grabs a pen and paper, and hurries back to his seat. “Let me write this down, make sure I got it all.” Ashe teases, lightening what I suppose he can tell is a difficult subject for me. 

Waving him off, I laugh at his antics, and ease back into the comfort of my chair, wrapping my arms around myself. “You’re being silly.”

Slowly shaking his head, Ashe isn’t smiling. He’s not frowning either though. His features are relaxed. He blinks, and the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks disarms me with the pretty of his face. Patiently, with deliberate ease he clicks the tip of the pen once, and puts the tip on the paper. Calmly, steadily he offers, “No, I’m not. I want to know what everything includes. I’ve got the height down. Checking that one off.”

Playing with my fork, I push what’s left of my food around my plate, denying him a view of the bit of embarassment that warms my face. “Don’t tease.”

“I would never. Tell me.”

Releasing a long breath, expelling the tension that always seems apparent in my heart when I think of me. Of who I am. What I want. What I deserve. I set about answering his question. “I want romance. Love. The fairytale.” Fighting the inclination to hide my face behind my palms, I lift my gaze to find Ashe returning it, no question or faltering apparent in his blues.

“Ok.”

“And I want to get married and have a family and kids and yeah... All of that.” It comes out in a long stream of word vomit, but again, Ashe doesn’t seem put off by it.

“All sounds fair to me. Where’s the problematic part?”

“I- I don’t know?” I croak, stifling a cry with a harsh laugh that does little to relieve the pressure of the pain gathering in my chest, as I wonder the same myself. Why does this seem so damn hard? “My parents met on the subway. He gave up his seat for her, they talked the whole ride. My dad volunteered to walk my mother home because it was late and dark. It wasn’t even his stop. He said he just saw this pretty, dark skinned woman with this large afro and these big eyes, and curvy figure, carrying all of these bags, all alone, and he said he couldn’t let her get away. He walked her home that night. And every night for the next two weeks. She was riding the subway home from school. She worked full time during the day, went to college in the evening. He worked at my granddad’s car repair shop during the day, and played guitar in a band in the evenings. He was on his way to a gig that he never made it to. He said he was following her home every night because he was following his heart.”

“I understand that.”

Pulling my legs up to hug them against my chest, I rest my cheek against my knees. “So, my sister and I grew up hearing this story all the time. After two weeks of walking my mother home every night, ditching his gigs, he asked her to marry him. They got married the following weekend. And they are still married. Still very much in love.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He even wrote a song for her.” My voice softens, quiets as I think about my parents, their love story. The one that still swaddles them in a cocoon of love to this very day. “They still dance together. She learned to cook all of his favorite West Indian dishes like roti, curry from my Trini grandmother. My sister swears she has even seen him washing her hair, and oiling her scalp for her.”

“What?”

“Nevermind. I guess I’m saying, that’s what I want. I thought my last boyfriend was going to be that. It started off that way. We were together for two years. Preston was a surgeon, he works with my sister. He’s...my type. He’s smart. And after all of the time we spent together, I somehow missed that he had no interest in my fairytale. He didn’t want marriage or kids. He said he wanted companionship, but not the drama of kids and marriage. He said that’s what ruins relationships.”

“What’s that mean? Your type?”

I’m reluctant to answer that question, and I swerve away from it, maintaining my closed position with my head bowed and my chin on my knees. 

“Raven, maybe you and that guy were just in different places in life. It happens. Look at me and Mel.”

Nodding, I accept his statement. “Suppose so. Honestly, he’s just a symptom of my problem with falling for unavailable men. The guy before him forgot to mention he was married. He literally said he forgot to tell me.”

“Well, he was just an asshole.”

“Yes, he was. But, me, I’m a serial monogamist, Ashe. The men I meet are not.”

“Maybe not all of them. Maybe not now. There are men who want...things.” Ashe declares in a voice clear and firm, his back straight. His intent unmistakable. “Did you hear me, Raven?”

While I consider Ashe’s question, I force my gaze to drop away from his prying stare. He wants an answer, he deserves one, but it’s not that easy. Concealing my face from him, I scrub across my taut features with my palms, trying to massage away the tension building as I’m confronted by this moment. Pandora shuffles to another song, and I instantly recognize Phil Collins’s voice.

‘How can I just let you walk away?

Just let you leave without a trace

When I stand here taking every breath with you? Ooh, ooh

You’re the only who really knew me all...’

“Raven?”

“I did. I heard you, Ashe.” I huff into my hands, hating how much I want to believe him. 

“Dance with me. Come on.” 

Looking up, I see that Ashe has abandoned his chair and is standing next to me, ushering me from my seat. Pulling me up and into his strong arms, he doesn’t give me any room to protest, or hold myself away from him. Steadily, he commands my body in an easy sway against his warm, hard frame as he mumbles the words of the song in soft rumbles against my temple. 

‘So take a look at me now

Oh, there’s just an empty space

And there’s nothing left here to remind me

Just the memory of your face...’

Sinking into him, my cheek pressed to his chest, so close that I can almost feel his heart pounding, I permit myself to float on the waves of the moment. How badly do I want this to be real, I think to myself, warring with what I know to be true. This can’t be. And just as the song ends, and I try to pull away, Ashe lifts my face to his with his index finger. 

“Look at me, Raven. I promise, I won’t hurt you. But...you have to give me a chance. Let’s see what this is.” Inching down towards me, Ashe kisses me. This kiss is nothing like the soft, easy pecks we’ve shared so far. This one is all fierce hunger as his tongue parts my lips and sweeps into my mouth, taking control of my senses. He overwhelms me, framing my face with his hands, moving from my lips to licking and sucking at the column of my throat. Ashe inches back to my lips, and I accept his kiss, tangling my tongue with his, giving as good as I’m getting as hunger builds in my gut, dampening my panties. 

Whimpering, I’m pressing my aching nipples into his chest, the sensitive peaks turgid against the soft cups of my bra. “Ashe...” 

“Fuck! You’re making me crazy, Raven. Truly crazy.” He moans, gripping my ass in one hand, while molding his palm over my breast with the other. Ashe’s breathing is harsh, creating a heave of his chest, in and out. Each breath, warming my neck just below the lobe of my ear that his tongue and teeth toy nip at. A strangled whisper drips from his lips, just as he heartily lifts me into his arms, without warning “I want you. Now.”

“Ashe?” Caught off guard by the quickness of this large man, I can do nothing but wrap my legs around his waist, and my arms around his shoulders. Hugged around his massive frame like this, his one hand holding me up under my ass, I can literally feel my body melting into him, desire loosening my every inhibition. 

Without another word, Ashe grabs his phone from the table, and turns with me in his arms, towards the stairs. 

“Wha- Ashe, what are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer me. I know he can hear me, but he offers no answer, just the swift pace of his long, eager strides carrying us in what seems like only a second or two, directly to my room door. Pushed up against it by his thick frame, the girth of his cock pressing insistently into my groin, I can’t help but to seek the passion of his kiss.  

Gently, he jerks his head back, away from my lips. His eyes settle on the pull of my teeth against my swollen bottom lip. Following his eyes, he licks across my lips, and rasps in short, heavy grumbles. “Tell me now, Raven, that you understand what I said. I want... I’m not like those other guys. Tell me you understand. That you know I won’t hurt you.”

“Ashe, you shouldn’t make that kind of promise. You hardly know me. I’m going to leave.”

“Tell me.” He charges again, his large body pressing me harder against the wooden door. Up and down, in and out, he breathes, the veins in his neck struggling against his skin with the effort of his practiced control. His eyes are twinkling with something I have never seen directed at me before. It’s like a crazed focus, a dark fire that burns white hot. And in that second, the briefest speck of time, I stop fighting my brain and my heart. My body wants this man. “Don’t tease.” He pleads, echoing my sentiment from earlier. 

“You... you won’t hurt me?”

“Never.”

“I’m going to leave soon...”

“We’ll see.”

Twisting the doorknob behind me, I open the door, and grip a hold of his belt, pulling at him. Ashe may have set us on this course, but I won’t let him drive any longer. The promise of something he cannot realistically fulfill, and I cannot avoid is banked in those burning sapphire eyes of his, and that alone could make me fall in love. Make me believe in another fake fairytale. But I know better. Lust is not love, and if I’m going to do this, it’s going to be on my terms. 

Unwrapping my legs, I climb down and guide him towards the side of the bed, and push him to take a seat. Ashe tries to touch me, his hands eager to find my breasts again, seeking their heat underneath my shirt. But I don’t let him. I push his hands back to his sides, and instead I move between his legs, and begin pulling his shirt over his head. A slight gasp escapes my lips at the sight of his muscles, straining and hulking through the dusting of dark hair covering his chest and abdomen. I don’t practice restraint. I explore every inch of him, skimming my palms over the boulders of his rounded shoulders. The mounds of his pectorals and biceps. And then down, tracing the cuts of his belly as my fingers maneuver open his pants. 

“Raven...” he grunts as my hand palms his cock, thick and long, the warm heat of him throbbing with need. Smothering with kisses the shocked moans from his lips as I begin to stroke him, I savor the smooth, veiny column in my hand.

Growing hotter, my body tingling with need and anticipation, I straddle his lap. “Lay back.”