Page 34 of Dare to be Different

Fucking hell. Even I can’t ignore that lie. I don’t want to go back to them because something sits weird in my chest to know Zahn enjoys them so much. This new and very greedy part of me wants him to enjoy me that much, which is an absurd thought because we don’t… we’re not…

We’re just in a fuck buddy partnership that brings us to the same room but doesn’t allow us to focus on each other. Get used to it, Remy.

“You’ll find someone who beats it. Does better,” I tell him, not sure if I want it to be true.

“Blindfold me and suck my dick, Rem,” he says, making me close my eyes in a moment of pure exasperation. “I need to know if it was the blindfold or the person.”

“I will if you will,” I joke, grabbing the iPad off the table. I flop down on my bed with it in one hand and my drink in the other, opening the weather app that shows our flight routes. “Fuck. Look.” I turn it for him to see. “Massive storm cells coming in. We better get out of here by tomorrow, or we’ll get stranded here for days.”

Zahn gets up and flops down beside me, studying the radar. “It could dissipate. Doesn’t look likely, though. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

A pilot’s second relationship is with the weather, and this bitch of a storm cell rolling in looks like the worst kind of mistress.

“Cargo won’t even be here until tomorrow night,” I remind him.

“We could always leave and come back for the cargo once the weather clears.” He shrugs, clicking out of the weather map. My porn history pops up, and he laughs. “Bi-threesomes? Jesus, I’m pulling you over to the dark side, aren’t I?”

I snatch it from him. “You don’t even know what side you’re on. Most days, you don’t even know what fucking lane you’re in.”

He laughs. “Touché. But it’s been fun, right?”

A little too fun, to be honest.

But by mid-morning, we’re already shit out of luck. We stayed up late to track the progress of the storm, but it rolled in and intensified faster than the meteorologists figured it would. Air traffic control radioed out to us, requesting that we stay put after we put in an emergency flight pattern to leave the island a day early.

For now, we’re stuck on St. Matthew.

We’re hoping that since it blew in faster than expected, it might dissipate faster, too.

Zahn calls his family to let them know we’re stuck, and all it does is remind me I don’t have anyone to call. No one to ask for favors either, so Zahn gets Rydan to head over to my place to make sure the furnace is on low after a power outage, making sure my water pipes don’t freeze.

My parents aren’t good parents. They aren’t bad people, but they’re selfish and thoughtless when it comes to anyone but themselves, so asking them for a favor like that would come with a promise to do it and then the disappointment when they don’t follow through. My brother is too high and mighty for my lifestyle, and because of it, we don’t have a good relationship. We were raised in the same town, but I had the Dares to help me out, and he had a business owner take him under his wing. We were influenced by two entirely different outlooks, and not to be smug, but I think I got the better bargain.

The storm is so fierce that we can’t even snowmobile or spend time outside. The wind is suffocating and the snow whips around, creating whiteouts so intense we can’t even see each other if we’re more than five feet apart. There’s no boarding, no hiking, and nothing to do but sit around the lodge and wait.

We try watching Netflix for a bit, but neither of us are TV people, and that gets boring pretty damn fast. We play cards for a bit, but after the agitation of being stuck indoors all day, we end up bickering and being sore losers. Zahn asks me four more times about the ‘blindfold blowjob’, and I deny him the answer four more times, getting snippier and snappier each time he asks. We try sleeping to pass the time, cooking with the few ingredients in the lodge, and splitting up when we get on each other’s nerves. Too bad the lodge isn’t big enough to really give us much space from each other.

All in all, we’re moody, bored, pent-up, and restless. Mostly, we’re sick of each other in this confined space.

It’s a recipe for disaster.

Chapter 15

Okay, so, yeah. We’ve been at each other’s throats for two days, almost three days now, and this storm isn’t showing any signs of relenting. I talked to my mom last night, and she said the town is on lockdown until it passes and it’s created a mess at the resort, too. No flights going in or out, guests stuck at the resort, and Kolt and Bass are fighting like Remy and I are.

Which is weird. We don’t typically get under each other’s skin like this. But there’s a tension between us that has never been there before, and I can’t tell if we’re just stressed about being here or if something different is between us.

We’re the only two staying at the lodge, and most of the doors are locked, so it’s not like we can even separate for long. Even the staff who check in on this place aren’t around, so we’ve been stuck between our shared room, which we willingly agreed to share when we arrived, turning down private rooms because we like the company. Between our room, a lounge area, the communal bathrooms, and the kitchen, we’re always bumping into one another.

I mean, it’s hard to even jerk it without walking in on each other. So, bound together without orgasms is a mess, naturally. Not the fun kind of mess, either.

I pretended to be asleep last night so Remy could jerk off. He tried in the shower, but it’s so damn cold in the bathroom that he struggled and bitched at me about it. Pretty sure he pretended to be asleep to pay me the same courtesy this morning, so at least we both have one release under our very agitated belts.

We’ve bickered like this in the past, but it isn’t usually so obvious. A quip here and there, banter to take the tension down a notch, and some quick-witted insults that usually get laughed off or soaked in whiskey until our moods lighten. It’s happened in remote locations with nothing to do, bred from boredom and isolation, but it passes just like everything does. This time is different. And we’re almost outta booze.

Remy walks back into our room with a tray of food. The kitchen has a lot of canned foods, and after we tried cooking together yesterday, he just wanted to do it himself tonight. He sets it down and hands me a bowl of canned chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. The cheese slices are dicy, and the bread was in the freezer, so it has that distinct freezer-burned taste, but whatever; food is food and warm soup is nice on a cold night.

“Thanks.” I set the sandwich beside me and hold the bowl in my palms, warming them.

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