Page 12 of A Mountain Man Walks into a Library

Sam should go home. He really should. He shouldn’t have stayed for dinner orCatan,and he definitely shouldn’t have stayed the night only to make us breakfast. He shouldn’t be here right now.

But I can’t bring myself to ask him to leave. I like having him here. And I think he likes being here.

After lunch, Dad announces that he has waited quite long enough to try the Snowdrift Brewery in town. As we walk to the cars, I’m preparing myself to tell Sam goodbye. Then my mom turns to him and asks if he has a favorite brew, and this absolutelyboyishsmile passes over his rugged face, and I slide over in the backseat of my parents’ car to make room for him. He scoots in beside me and flashes me another bright, handsome smile. My heart kicks a tantrum rhythm against my ribs.

At the Snowdrift, the merriment continues.

While Sam and my dad are up at the bar getting the next round, Mom leans over to me and says, “He adores you.” And as I watch Sam carefully bring my soda water and lime back to the table, I say, “I know.” I can’t keep the note of wonder out of my voice. I can’t believe I never noticed it before.

Back at my place, we pile out of the car, and I snag Sam’s elbow. He startles at the touch. But then he leans into it.

“Sam, you really don’t have to babysit us,” I mutter close to his ear. He smells like the woodsmoke of my cabin and, beneath it, a delicate note of cologne.

He searches my face before offering me a small apologetic smile. “I’ve been monopolizing your time with your parents, haven’t I?”

I shake my head. “No. No, that’s not it. They really like you, and I...” I swallow. “I really like having you here, Sam. But you shouldn’t feel like you have to do this.”

I feel like we’ve had this conversation a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours.

“Tell me to go, and I will,” he says. His voice is deep and low, a little rough, and there’s something like a dark heat in his eyes, and my mouth goes dry as I take it all in.

I lick my bottom lip and watch the way Sam’s eyes track it. “I don’t want you to go.”

Sam holds my gaze for a long moment, and then he nods. “Okay then.”

When we join my parents in the backyard, my dad has already started the grill. My mom is working on building a small campfire. Sam gives my wrist a brief squeeze and joins her at the fire pit. Once more, I’m stuck in place, unmoving as I watch the scene unfold. A delicious ache blooms in my chest at the sight.

We eat our dinner around the campfire which Sam built into a tall blaze so roaring that it drowns out the spring peepers.

Sam is warm and solid at my side, our knees brushing as we talk animatedly with my parents. He tells a story about falling into a lake during an ice-fishing accident when he was a kid and how his brother Josiah dragged him out. He asks my mom about the obviously handmade knitted hat she pulls on when the temperature drops a bit, and he listens with excited attention as she tells him all about the yarn she got from a lady who raises sheep outside of Ann Arbor. He unscrews the cap of the growler to refill my dad’s glass of pale ale from the brewery.

It’s a cozy, perfect night, and then Sam gets up and goes to his truck.

My heart panics for a moment, sure that he’s finally leaving. Already feeling his absence in my bed tonight. But then he returns with a guitar strapped over his shoulder.

“Do you mind?” he asks my parents. “You know it’s not a Granite-Glacier campfire without some music.” Then he gestures down at the instrument, a hint of uncertainty on his face. “I repaired this for my brother. I’m usually a keyboard man, but I’m decent with a guitar.”

My mother turns such intense heart eyes at him that I almost thinkshe’sthe one that Sam is trying to serenade. Then he turns to me, eyes uncharacteristically shy, cheeks a little pink. And when I nod at him, a small smile takes over his lips.

As my parents watch on, Sam begins to play. It’s soft and slow, a gentle melody drifting on the current between the cool night air and the heat of fire. After a minute, I realize that the song must not have any words because Sam isn’t singing. That feels wrong, somehow, like Samuel Bark is made up ofwords. He’s always talking and joking and telling stories. He fills nervous silences with such confident ease that seeing him silent is like seeing him naked. It’s too honest. Too intimate.

This is Sam without the trappings of words. This is Sam without explanations and easy charm. This is Sam, a little bit of his soul bared.

And suddenly I know. Right now, Iknow: I’m in love with Sam. I’ve been falling in love with him for six months and I had no idea until he sat down beside me and played an obvious love song with no words.

As the last chord fades, I can’t help it. I lean in. Heat compresses between us. And I press a kiss to his rough, bearded cheek.

Except Sam turns to me at the same time, and the kiss lands not on his cheek but awkwardly against the left corner of his mouth. His eyes shoot wide. I see it because my eyes are startled open too. But then Sam’s eyelids droop, and he tilts his chin a fraction, and our mouths slot together.

Sam kisses me chastely. We are in front of my parents, but—

But they think they’re seeing a hundredth kiss between us, something comfortable and months old now. Not our first kiss. Not the first impulsive time I pressed my lips to his, and then Sam’s palm curls around the back of my neck for a gentle squeeze...and he lets go. He sits back in his chair, and I am left there. Stunned. Kissed somehow so thoroughly despite the brevity of it. Mind blown.

“Anyway,” Sam says, looking very pink in the firelight, his voice a little graveled, “that’s a song my brother has been working on for Cabin Fever Fest next weekend.”

My parentsoooh and aaahabout Sam’s musical skill, but all I can think about is how soft his lips were. How warm my mouth still feels where he kissed me.

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