Page 37 of Eco-Activist's Mountain Men
“You just happened to overhear, did you?” Her words slice clean through mine. “At what… two-thirty in the morning? What the hell were you doing? Where were you? Hiding?”
“Well, sort of. You see?—”
“So youwerespying on me. What are you, some filthy peeping Tom? Hanging around outside my window, watching me undress? Is that what gets you off out here?”
Her voice rises, louder, hotter, building from that cold start until it’s a shout. The others sit frozen, stunned, their eyes flicking back and forth between her and me.
“No, that’s not fair,” I say, heat rising in my chest. “I only?—”
“Oh,you only, did you?” She cuts me off again, viciously. “You only what? Only spy on girls you don’t like? Because let’s be honest—you’ve had it in for me since the moment I got here. Don’t deny it. You’re not exactly subtle. I’ve known from the start what you think of me—if you even think of me as a person at all.”
She grabs the crutch from beside her chair, shoving it under her arm, and rises in one sharp movement.
“Well, okay then, you great big stupid fucking ox. Have it your way.”
She pauses in the doorway, her chest heaving, then turns for one final jab.
“I don’t want to be here anyway, you… you… lousy stinking Wookie!”
And with that, she stomps out into the yard.
Southpaw lumbers to his feet, ready to follow, but she whirls on him, too.
“And you can stay here as well, you pestilent carpet on legs! Nobody asked you to come!”
The wolf-dog freezes, ears drooping. He lets out a soft whine, then slumps back down by the table, staring mournfully after her like a scolded child.
The silence afterward is thick enough to choke on.
Finally, Toby clears his throat, pasting on his brightest grin.
“Well,” he says. “Who’s for more bacon?”
CHAPTER 13
Eric
Women never fall for me. I’m just not the type women seem to want.
I keep telling myself that one day I’ll meet “the right girl,” but the truth? Girls don’t find me attractive. I’m not rich, I’m not sporty, and I don’t have big muscles to flex on a beach. Not that I’d ever set foot on a beach anyway.
As for looks… my hair is a wild mess of ginger that makes me look like I survived an explosion in a copper wire factory. I’ve got freckles, I wear glasses, I can’t play guitar, and my singing voice sounds like two cats mating on a fence.
Confidence? Forget it. I’m shy as hell. If an attractive girl walks into the room, I blush. If she actually talks to me, I stammer and trip over my own tongue until I sound like a complete idiot.
Honestly, I hate myself sometimes. If even I wouldn’t date me, what chance do I have of convincing anyone else to?
And then Luna came along.
She didn’t just catch my attention—she swept me right off my feet. That’s supposed to be what men do to women, right? Sweep them off their feet, make them swoon, and then it’s passion and romance and happily ever after.
Not me.
I didn’t sweep her anywhere. She breezed into my life like a storm—bright, fierce, impossible to ignore—and I was left spinning. We shared a night together, tender and breathtaking. For me, it was everything. I fell in love. For her? By the next morning, it was like nothing had even happened.
That’s the difference.
She’s everything I wish I were but am not. She’s spontaneous, whereas I overthink. She dives headfirst into life, while I hang back, paralyzed by hesitation. She’s confident with people, while I’m the awkward one hovering at the edges. She’s passionate—God, is she passionate. And me? I can be passionate, but only in rare flashes, like an underused muscle I don’t know how to flex.
