Page 127 of Mountain Grump
“No, I’m fine.” Even though we’ve been walking for forever, my breathing has finally evened out. “Let’s keep going.”
Ethan clenches his jaw. “I saw your look of pain. You’re hurt.”
I sigh. “My feet hurt, but not from… the bird. Can we just keep going? Please?”
He looks like he wants to argue, but he dips his chin and starts walking again.
The first few steps hurt extra bad.Stopping was a mistake.
But I inhale through the discomfort.
It’s nothing I haven’t been through before.
We keep going, but Ethan turns his head in my direction every few steps.
That loud bird made me think of Quackers, and since I think we both need a distraction, I think of a new topic for Ethan. “Will you tell me about the cabin?”
“Fine. But when we get there, you’re taking those boots off.”
I lift two fingers to my brow in a salute.
As if pulling these godsforsaken boots off wasn’t going to be my very first action.
“My dad and some of his high school buddies used to come out here every summer. It’s government land, so they weren’t supposed to, but no one ever noticed, and eventually it became an annual camping trip where they’d come out and just tool around in the woods.” Ethan hooks his thumbs in his backpack straps. “One of the guys was an architect, and, as my dad told it, they all got drunk one night and convinced him to draw up a design for a cabin that they could build themselves. He did. And the next summer, they used four-wheelers to haul the material in and spent two weeks building the cabin.”
“Wow. That’s… ballsy.”
Ethan chuckles. “And illegal. But they got away with it. And the next summer, they figured out a way to dig their own well. They could’ve just built next to the river and saved the hassle. But people occasionally come out this way to fish, so building farther in the woods was the smarter option.”
I have no idea what any of that would require, but I’m still thoroughly impressed. “And now it’s just yours?”
“Since it was illegally built on government land, there’s no paperwork. No deed. No real owner. But all the other guys moved out of state. And I don’t think any of their kids know how to find it. They might not even know about it at all. So yeah, I think I’m the only person who’s been here in the last ten years, which essentially makes it mine.”
“Look at you, breaking rules.”
Ethan grunts.
I try to picture this built-by-hand cabin. But I struggle with the visual, my mind flipping between some Hansel-and-Gretel cottage and some wonky-looking shack.
“Any chance they built a bathroom?”
“They did.”
I almost stumble again. “Seriously?”
“Well, it’s an outhouse. No running water. Or electricity. But there’s a toilet seat.”
“Luxury,” I say with adoration. Because honestly, not having to pee on the ground is apparently my love language.
Love.
Ugh.
I don’t know if it’s safe to fall for this man. But I can already feel it happening.
Ethan just spent hours talking to me about nothing because I asked him to.
Hemarried mebecause I asked him to.
