The Invitation by Adriana Locke

Georgia

“Should we leave rent or a tip when we leave?” I ask, coming out of the bathroom. “And by we, I mean you. I have no money—here or elsewhere.”

Ripley’s sitting on the sofa, repacking his backpack. He grins, nodding toward the table. A letter and a business card have been placed in the center.

Hello,

We used this cabin for shelter during a storm. Please contact me at the number on the business card, and I will pay for any cleaning fees or inconveniences.

Thank you,

Ripley Brewer

“Aren’t you afraid someone is going to get a hold of this and extort you?” I ask.

He laughs. “Extort me for what?”

“I don’t know. The possibilities are endless. Don’t you watch television?”

“Ironically, no.”

“Not to freak you out or anything, but they could burn this place down and then charge you with arson,” I say. “They could break everything in here and say you did it and demand you refurnish the place. They could kill someone, drop the dead body here, and say you’re the prime suspect.”

“First of all, who is this they you’re talking about?”

“Whoever owns this place.”

“Second,” he says, as if he wasn’t expecting an answer to the first question, “someone would have to be very diabolical to burn their own cabin down just to blame it on me.”

“It happens.”

He nods like I’m the diabolical one. “Third, DNA would clear me on murder, so I’m not worried about that. And if they say I broke everything, I’ll pay for it and move on. Or, I’ll have my attorneys fight them. Either way, the karma of not leaving a note is worse than taking my chances.”

I roll my eyes. “You have such a rich person’s perspective on stuff.”

“Well, probably. But am I wrong?”

“I mean, no. Not technically.” I wander to the window and peer out. “It’s just interesting how you think about things that other people don’t.” I face him. “I’d be terrified to leave my contact information just laying out for the public. What if the wrong person found it and tracked me down?”

His features darken.

“What if I walk out my front door one day and there’s a man with a handlebar mustache in a beat-up white van with tinted windows sitting across the street?”

“So specific.”

“Little girls grow up painting pictures of who the ‘bad guy’ might be,” I say. “That was mine. His name was Gilbert. He smelled like cigarettes and wore sunglasses.”

Ripley cocks his head to the side. “I have so many questions.”

“The point is that as a female and as a person who couldn’t just hire an attorney to defend myself in court, I’d never leave my information like that. Maybe I’d call in after I got home or something. But that?” I point at the letter. “That’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”

His brows tug together as if he’s never once contemplated something like this. It blows my mind. How has he made it thirty years and not considered these types of things?

He scoots over on the couch. “Why don’t you sit with me until the rain stops?”

“Oh, do you want to cuddle? Heads-up—I’m not much of a cuddler.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“You’re a smart man … sometimes.”

I sit beside him, leaning against his side and drawing my knees up to my chest. He wraps an arm around me and rests the side of his head against mine.

I wait for the weirdness to settle in, for the moment where we realize that we might not hate each other anymore, but we also aren’t friends. Now that we’ve had sex, things are forever changed. And no heart-to-hearts, no arguments, no truths will ever fix it.

But nothing happens. Huh.

“What are you thinking?” he asks softly.

“That we didn’t film at all today.”

“That’s not what you were thinking,” he says, chuckling.

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

I take a long breath and wonder if I should broach this topic. It makes me nervous to go there, but we’ll have to do it sooner or later. And he did bring it up, which is a green flag.

“I’m wondering when things get uncomfortable,” I say.

“Why do they have to get uncomfortable?”

He strokes my arm gently, his even breathing lulling me into a trance. I forget he’s asked me a question. Instead, I close my eyes and let his presence bleed into me and make me feel protected in a way I can’t remember feeling before.

“I don’t want you to feel pressured by this,” he says, hesitantly.

“By what?”

“When we walked up this mountain, you felt one way about me. Now that we’ve had sex, I don’t want you to think there’s pressure there.”

Oh. “So you’re saying that as far as you’re concerned, what happens in the cabin stays in the cabin?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then what did you say?”

I hold my breath and wait for his explanation.

I don’t want to jump to conclusions, although I guess I already did. I suppose I just don’t want to assume that this was anything more to him than a fuck. Because I don’t know what it was and I’m afraid to think about it too much.

My chest tightens at the silence.

“You know, I believe you didn’t plan this,” I say, leaning off him. “I don’t think you expected this to happen any more than I did.”

He places a hand on my shoulder and gently guides me back into him.

My heart races.

“But I don’t want you to feel like you’re somehow … I don’t know. I guess I don’t want you to feel like I have any expectations going forward. You have a life and I’m just⁠—”

“Hey.”

I stop talking and sit perfectly still.

He sighs. “I’m going to be very honest with you, okay?”

I nod.

“And no matter what I say, I don’t expect you to reciprocate those feelings,” he says. “I actually doubt you will. But I’ve spent over ten years keeping them to myself and even if you laugh in my face, I think it’s time to get it out in the open.”

What the hell is he going to say?

I stare at the wall across the room, listening to my blood rush through my ears. Ripley draws small circles on my arm as he presumably figures out what to say.

I have no idea what that’s going to be and the anticipation is killing me. I would swivel around and tell him how I feel if I knew what that was—or, if more honestly, I wasn’t afraid to speak first. The last thing I want to hear is that I don’t fit in his world like this.

Why would he want it to be anything more after I’ve already screwed up his life? And how do I act like he didn’t lose his scholarship over me? And his dad didn’t hit him in the face over it?

Surely, he still has some disdain for me in his heart, and I can’t blame him.

“What I told you earlier is true,” he says, his voice a few octaves above a whisper. “I was smitten with you the day I saw you. I felt this connection to you the moment I saw you walking down the hall—like I was your protector. Like you were mine to protect.”

Tears fill my eyes. No one has ever said anything like that to me before.

“I—”

“Please let me finish.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I couldn’t stand you hating me, but I was too prideful to ask why. It was easier to spar back with you. That way, I still got to be in your world, in your life, even if it wasn’t with you.”

He presses another kiss to my head.

“I’m sitting here right now hoping that it rains forever,” he says. “Because if we walk out of here and I never get to experience this again, I want as many memories with you as I can get.”

My gosh. I sniffle back the tears, his words hitting me in the heart.

“I don’t know what I want,” he says. “It seems crazy to even start talking about things long-term when I don’t even know if you want to see me again. But, if I have my way, I’d really like the opportunity to try to make up for the years we’ve wasted being mad over goofy things.”

I sit up, pulling away from his grip, and turn to him. I straddle him so I can see into his eyes.

“I hate being emotional,” I say, laughing as tears stream down my face. “It makes me feel weak.”

He brushes the tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “It doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.”

“Well, it feels really stupid that we’ve gone our whole lives without realizing the truth,” I say. “And I feel absolutely shitty for hating you when you were protecting me the whole time. I’m a terrible person.”

“No, you’re not.” He kisses me softly, smiling. “I didn’t think a girl like you would be seriously interested in me, so I let you think the worst. It was easier having you hate me without knowing me than having you hate me after you did.”

“You seriously break my heart when you say things like that.”

He shrugs.

I stare into his blue eyes and see my reflection in them. They’re clear and honest and fill me with a peace that I’ve been searching for my whole life. Who would’ve thought I would find it here?

“Honestly, I don’t know what I want either. I think we both need a little time to clear our heads and be sure about things.” I groan. “And I need to deal with my mother.”

The thought of telling her about Ripley makes my stomach hurl. She’s not going to take it well. At all.

“I would never want to come between you and your mom,” he says, brushing my hair out of my face. “Family’s everything to me. You know that.”

I nod. “All of that being said, today has been pretty eye-opening and I’ve already decided what I want our next date to be.”

He smiles. “What’s that?”

“I want to meet Waffles. And we probably need to do it soon since we didn’t get any footage today.”

His head falls back, and he laughs. “I much prefer the footage that’s in my head from today than I would have the footage we would’ve captured on top of the mountain.”

“Yeah, well, same.”

I thread our fingers together and hold our joined hands between us.

“So what do you say?” I ask. “Can I meet Waffles?”

“You can absolutely meet Waffles. He’ll like you. You have a lot in common.”

“Really?”

“You’re both adorable.”

I kiss him.

“And a little mean.”

I laugh but kiss him again.

“It’s impossible to stop both of you once you get going, although he does listen a bit better than you,” he says, laughing as I gasp. “And you’re both very food motivated.”

I smack him, making him laugh harder.

“I’m going to get a dog just like you and name him Pancakes,” I say, grinning at Ripley’s amusement.

“Oh, really? What’s he going to be like?”

“Very handsome.” I run my fingers through his hair. “Loyal, almost to a fault.”

Ripley’s smile softens.

“He’ll be cocky to hide the fact that he has insecurities—which I won’t hold against him,” I say. “And I think we’ll have potential to share a very loving, fun, and probably argumentative at the time, but it’ll be okay because that’s who we are relationship.”

Ripley wraps his arms around my waist. I pull his head against my chest and hold him tight. It feels so … right.

“The rain has stopped,” I say, noticing the sun peeking through the clouds.

He pulls back and looks up at me. “So we’re friends now?”

“No. We’re friends with benefits.”

“I better be the only friend getting those benefits.”

I smile, kissing him again. “I have a feeling there will be lots and lots of benefits in this friendship, Mr. Brewer.”

He thrusts his hardened cock against me. “How about one more round of benefits before we leave?”

“We might as well since you’re basically giving them your bank information—ah!”

I giggle as he pulls my face to his and makes me forget about the world. About everything but him.