Chapter 4: The Counter, The Contract, The Comeback
The phone rang at 7:14 in the morning, and Jordan answered it with his mouth full of toast.
"Jordan Reeves?" The voice on the other end was brisk, clipped, the kind of voice that belonged to someone who had already drunk two cups of coffee and run three miles before most people opened their eyes. "It's Margaret. From the publisher."
He swallowed the toast and sat up straighter on the edge of the bed. Anna was still asleep beside him, her hair fanned across the pillow, one bare shoulder exposed to the cold morning air. He pulled the blanket up over her without thinking.
"Margaret. Hi. Good morning."
"Listen, I'll cut to the chase. The numbers from last week were extraordinary. Better than we projected. Much better." There was a pause, the sound of papers shuffling. "The response has been—frankly, it's been a phenomenon. People are connecting with this story. The lake, the fire, the stranger. They want more."
Jordan's heart was doing something complicated in his chest. "More?"
"A second book. And a book tour. Fifty cities, coast to coast, starting in June. Major media. Morning shows, podcasts, the whole thing." Another pause. "But there's a catch. We need the second book by spring. Next spring, not this one. That gives you eleven months."
Eleven months. The words landed like stones in his stomach.
"Eleven months," he repeated.
"I know it's fast. But the momentum is now. If we wait, people move on. They forget. You've got something special here, Jordan—something rare—and we can't let it slip through our fingers because you needed more time to think."
He looked at Anna. She was stirring now, her eyes still closed, her hand reaching across the mattress for him. When she found only empty space, she opened one eye.
"Who is it?" she mouthed.
He held up a finger. Wait.
"The tour," he said into the phone. "Fifty cities. How long?"
"Three months. Maybe four, depending on how the numbers hold. We'll fly you everywhere, put you up in nice hotels, make sure you're taken care of. It's exhausting, but it's worth it. This is how careers are made, Jordan. This is how you become a name people remember."
Three months. Four. Away from the cabin, away from the lake, away from her.
"I need to think about it," he said.
"Don't think too long. We need an answer by Friday."
She hung up before he could respond. He sat there, phone in hand, the silence of the cabin pressing in around him. Outside, the wind was howling through the trees, a hungry, restless sound that made the windows rattle in their frames.
Anna was sitting up now, the blanket pooled around her waist. She was watching him with an expression he couldn't read.
"What was that about?" she asked.
He didn't answer. He stood up and walked to the kitchen, still holding the phone. The sink was piled with dishes—chipped mugs, plates crusted with dried pasta sauce, a half-melted candle from the night before that had dripped wax onto the counter. He should have cleaned it up last night. He should have done a lot of things.
"Jordan."
He turned on the faucet and started washing the dishes. The water was cold, and the soap stung his cracked knuckles, but he didn't care. He just needed something to do with his hands.
"Jordan, what did she want?"
"Nothing. It's nothing."
"Don't do that." She was out of bed now, pulling on his flannel shirt. The same one she always wore. The one that smelled like him. "Don't shut me out."
"I'm not shutting you out."
"You're washing dishes at seven in the morning with cold water and a face like someone died. That's shutting me out."
He set down the mug he was holding and turned to face her. She was standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the kitchen, her hair a disaster, her eyes sharp and worried. The candle on the counter flickered, casting long shadows across her half-finished sketches—the wolves she'd been drawing for weeks, their eyes too knowing, too sharp.
"They want a second book," he said. "And a book tour. Fifty cities. Starting in June."
She didn't move. "Fifty cities."
"Three months. Maybe four."
"And the second book?"
"Due next spring. Eleven months."
She nodded slowly, the information settling into her like water into sand. "That's a lot."
"I know."
"And the tour. Fifty cities. That's—" She stopped. Her hands were trembling, and she shoved them into the pockets of the flannel shirt. "That's a long time to be away."
"Anna."
"I'm not saying anything. I'm just—" She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I'm just standing here. In your shirt. In your cabin. Listening to you tell me you're going to be gone for months."
"I haven't said yes."
"But you're going to."
"I don't know."
"You're going to." She turned and walked back into the bedroom, and he followed her, the cold water still dripping from his hands. She was standing by the window, looking out at the trees, her back to him. "That's what people do. They get an opportunity, and they take it. They don't stay in the cabin with the girl they fucked in the woods."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?" She spun around. "Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you're going to turn it down and stay here with me, and we'll just keep living like we have been, and nothing will change."
He opened his mouth. Closed it. The words wouldn't come.
"That's what I thought."
"Anna—"
"Don't." She held up a hand. "Don't do the thing where you try to explain. I know how this works. I've done this before."
"Done what before?"
"Been the girl who gets left behind." She laughed again, that same hollow sound. "I had a boyfriend in college who was going to be a doctor. He got into med school in California, and he swore up and down that we'd make it work. Long distance. Phone calls every night. Visits on the weekends. And then he moved, and after three months, he stopped calling. After six, he stopped answering. After a year, I saw on Facebook that he was engaged to some girl he'd met in his anatomy class."
"This isn't that."
"Isn't it? You're going to be on a book tour. Fifty cities. Meeting thousands of people. Women. Women who've read your book and think you're some kind of—I don't know—sensitive poet who understands their souls."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it? You're twenty years old, Jordan. You're about to become famous. And I'm—" She gestured at herself. "I'm a freelance illustrator with a bad attitude and a fear of commitment. I'm not exactly the girl who gets picked."
He crossed the room in three steps and grabbed her by the arms, not hard, but enough to make her look at him.
"You are exactly the girl who gets picked," he said. "You're the one I picked. You're the one I'm picking. Every day."
She stared at him. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. Not yet.
"Then prove it," she said.
"How?"
"I don't know. Say no. Stay here. Write the book from the cabin. Do the tour on your own terms."
"That's not how it works. You know that."
"Do I?"
"You know I can't just—"
"Can't just what? Choose me?" She pulled away from him, her voice rising. "Can't just put me first for once in your life?"
For once in his life. The words hit him like a slap. He'd been putting himself first since he was a kid, since he'd started hiking alone, since he'd decided to drop out of school and write a book. He'd been putting himself first, and it had worked. It had gotten him here. It had gotten him her.
But she didn't see it that way. She saw a boy who was about to leave her behind, just like everyone else.
"You want to know what I think?" she said. "I think you're scared. I think you're scared of what it means to actually have something real, something that requires you to show up and stay. I think the idea of being tied down terrifies you, so you're going to take this tour, and you're going to leave, and you're going to tell yourself it's for your career, but really it's because you don't know how to be loved."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? Then why are you washing dishes instead of talking to me? Why did you hang up the phone and start cleaning like you could scrub away the conversation?"
He didn't have an answer for that. She was right. She was always right.
And it made him angry.
"You want to know what I think?" he said. "I think you're scared too. I think you're scared of being happy, so you're looking for reasons to push me away. You think if you sabotage this now, it'll hurt less than if I leave later. That's what you did with your ex, isn't it? You pushed him away before he could push you."
Her face went pale.
"That's not—"
"It is. You told me the story. You said you knew it was over before he left. You felt it. And instead of fighting for it, you let it die. You let him go without a fight. And now you're doing the same thing to me."
The kitchen smelled of damp woodsmoke and burnt coffee. The back door was still ajar, letting in the crisp, hungry wind. Anna's sketches—the wolves with their knowing eyes—seemed to watch them both from the counter.
"I'm not doing the same thing," she said. Her voice was quiet now. Dangerous.
"You are. You're picking a fight about dishes. About the winter. About nothing. Because you're scared."
"I'm not scared."
"Then what are you?"
She didn't answer. She just stood there, her chest heaving, her hands balled into fists at her sides. And then, before he knew what was happening, she lunged at him.
Not to hit him. To kiss him.
It was rough and desperate and tasted like toothpaste and tears. Her hands were in his hair, pulling, and he was backing up, his knees hitting the edge of the bed, and they were falling, tangled together, the blanket twisting around their legs.
She was on top of him, her mouth on his, her hips grinding against his in a way that made him hard almost instantly. He grabbed her ass through the flannel shirt and pulled her closer, and she groaned into his mouth.
"I hate you," she said.
"No, you don't."
"I do. I hate you so much."
"I know."
She pulled back and yanked the shirt over her head, tossing it aside. She was naked underneath, her breasts small and perfect, her nipples hard from the cold. He reached up to touch them, but she grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the bed.
"No," she said. "You don't get to touch me. Not yet."
"Anna—"
"Shut up."
She kissed him again, biting his bottom lip hard enough to hurt. He tasted blood, and it made him harder, which was probably fucked up, but he didn't care. She was working his sweatpants down over his hips, her hands impatient, her breath hot on his neck.
He kicked them off, and then he was naked too, his cock hard and aching, and she was positioning herself over him, her hands braced on his chest.
"Look at me," she said.
He looked.
She sank down onto him in one motion, taking him all the way to the base, and they both groaned. She was so wet, so tight, and he could feel every inch of her, every ridge and pulse of her body around his.
"Fuck," he breathed.
"That's the idea."
She started moving. Slow at first, her hips rolling in a way that made him see stars. Then faster. Harder. Her nails were digging into his chest, leaving marks, and he grabbed her ass and pulled her down onto him with every thrust, matching her rhythm.
"Is this what you wanted?" she said. "To fuck me before you leave?"
"I'm not leaving."
"You're lying."
"I'm not—" He cut off with a groan as she picked up the pace, riding him hard, her tits bouncing with every movement. "Anna, I'm not leaving you."
"Prove it."
She climbed off him and turned around, bending over the kitchen counter, the same counter where she'd been sketching wolves. Her ass was perfect, round and pale, and she looked back at him over her shoulder with an expression that was equal parts challenge and want.
"Do it," she said. "Fuck me like you mean it."
He stood up and walked over to her, his cock still slick with her. He grabbed her hips, positioned himself, and pushed inside her in one hard thrust.
She gasped, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the tile. He grabbed her hair with one hand and pulled her head back, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to make her feel it.
"Is this what you want?"
"Yes."
"Tell me."
"I want you to fuck me. I want you to use me. I want—" She moaned as he pulled out and pushed back in, hard. "I want to feel it tomorrow."
He gave her what she wanted. He fucked her hard, his hips slapping against her ass, the sound echoing through the small cabin. She clawed at the tile, her nails leaving scratches, and he didn't care. He wanted her to leave marks. He wanted her to remember this.
"You're mine," he said. "You hear me? You're mine."
"I'm yours."
"Nobody else's."
"Nobody else's."
He reached around and found her clit, rubbing tight circles while he fucked her. She screamed his name, her body convulsing around him, and he came a moment later, emptying himself into her with a groan that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest.
They stayed like that for a long moment, panting, sweaty, their bodies still joined. Then he pulled out and turned her around, pulling her into his arms.
"I'm not leaving you," he said again. "That's not what this is."
She looked up at him. Her eyes were still wet, but she wasn't crying.
"Then what is it?"
He walked over to the kitchen table, where his laptop was sitting. He opened it, pulled up the email from Margaret, and scrolled down to the attachment.
"Read this," he said.
She walked over, her legs unsteady, and leaned over his shoulder. He pointed at the bottom of the contract.
"See that? Two signatures. Yours and mine."
She read it. Read it again. Her breath caught.
"The tour," he said. "The second book. All of it. It's ours. Both of us. I'm not going anywhere without you."
She straightened up slowly, her eyes wide.
"You're serious."
"I'm serious."
"You want me to come with you."
"I want you to illustrate the second book. I told Margaret. She loves your work. She wants you on the team, not just as my girlfriend, but as a collaborator. An artist. Someone who's part of this."
Anna stared at him. The wolves on the counter seemed to stare back.
"I don't know what to say."
"Say yes."
She laughed, and this time it was real. The sound filled the cabin, pushing back against the wind, warming the cold corners.
"Yes," she said. "Okay. Yes."
He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. Outside, the wind howled, and the trees swayed, and somewhere in the distance, a neighbor's dog barked. But inside, the cabin was quiet. Warm. Full.
"One condition," she said against his chest.
"Anything."
She pulled back and looked at him.
"When we're on tour. In all those cities. In all those hotel rooms. You write every morning. Before anything else. Before interviews, before signings, before breakfast. You write."
"Okay."
"And you write me into every book."
"Already promised."
"Promise again."
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead.
"I promise," he said. "Every book. Every story. Every word."
She smiled. Then she took the pen from the table, the same pen he'd been using for his edits, and signed her name on the contract line. Then she handed it to him.
He signed.
The wolves watched from the counter, their eyes too knowing, too sharp. But Anna didn't feel scared anymore. She felt something else. Something that felt a lot like hope.
The wolves watched from the counter, their eyes too knowing, too sharp. But Anna didn't feel scared anymore. She felt something else. Something that felt a lot like hope.
Jordan kissed her forehead again and stepped back, reaching for his phone. He typed a quick reply to Margaret—two words, no elaboration—and hit send before he could second-guess himself.
We're in.
The response came within minutes. A string of exclamation points. A contract attachment. A tour schedule that made Anna's head spin when she looked at it over his shoulder.
"Fifty-three cities," she said. "That's more than fifty."
"Margaret doesn't do things by halves."
"I'm starting to understand that."
He set the phone down and turned to face her. The kitchen was a disaster—dishes in the sink, wax pooled on the counter, her sketches scattered everywhere. The back door was still open, and the wind had picked up, rattling the windows in their frames.
"We should close that," he said.
"Probably."
Neither of them moved.
She looked at him—really looked at him—and something shifted in her chest. This boy. This twenty-year-old boy with his sandy hair and his quiet confidence and his stupid flannel shirt that she'd claimed as her own. He'd just signed away the next year of his life. And he'd signed it with her.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"I'm thinking we should probably clean up."
"That's not what you're thinking."
She smiled, small and crooked. "No. It's not."
"Then what?"
She crossed the room and took his face in her hands. His jaw was rough with stubble, and there was a scratch on his cheek from where her nail had caught him earlier. She traced it with her thumb.
"I'm thinking I don't deserve you," she said.
"Bullshit."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." He caught her wrist and held it. "You think I'm some kind of prize? I'm a dropout who got lucky. I wrote a book about a lake and a fire and a girl who couldn't start a fire to save her life. That's it. That's the whole story."
"You're wrong."
"Am I?"
She pulled her hand free and walked to the counter, picking up one of her sketches. The wolves. Their eyes were too knowing, too sharp, because she'd drawn them that way—drawn them watching, waiting, hungry for something she couldn't name.
"When I came here," she said, "I was running. From David. From the breakup. From the version of myself that let him walk away without a fight. I told myself I was proving something. That I could handle the wilderness, the solitude, the cold. But I wasn't proving anything. I was hiding."
Jordan leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, listening.
"And then you showed up with your fire starter and your dumb notebook and your questions about wolves. And you didn't let me hide. You kept pushing. Kept showing up. Kept being—" She stopped, searching for the word. "Present. You were present. And I didn't know what to do with that."
"You figured it out."
"Eventually."
She set the sketch down and turned to face him. The candle on the counter had burned down to nothing, and the morning light was creeping through the windows, gray and watery. The wind howled. The trees swayed. Somewhere in the distance, the neighbor's dog started barking.
"I love you," she said. "I know I said it before. But I want you to hear it again. Right now. With no fight and no tears and no counter between us."
He uncrossed his arms and walked toward her, slow and deliberate, the way he moved through the forest when he was tracking something. When he reached her, he didn't touch her. He just stood there, close enough that she could feel the heat of him.
"I hear you," he said.
"Good."
"You want to know what I hear when you say it?"
"What?"
"I hear a woman who's spent her whole life being told she's too much. Too sharp. Too stubborn. Too honest. And I hear her deciding, right now, in this cabin, with me, that she's not going to apologize for any of it anymore."
Her breath caught.
"That's what I hear," he said. "And it's the best thing I've ever heard."
She kissed him. Not rough this time. Not desperate. Slow and deep and deliberate, the kind of kiss that said everything words couldn't. He kissed her back, his hands finding her waist, her hips, pulling her closer like he was afraid she might disappear.
When they broke apart, she was breathless.
"We really should clean up," she said.
"Later."
"The dishes—"
"Later."
"The door—"
He reached past her and pulled it shut, the latch clicking into place. The wind was muffled now, distant, a sound from another world.
"Later," he said again.
She laughed. "You're impossible."
"And yet here you are."
"Here I am."
He took her hand and led her back to the bed. This time, there was no rush. No fight. No tears. He laid her down gently, like she was something precious, and she let him. She let him undress her, piece by piece, his lips following his hands. She let him kiss her neck, her collarbone, the soft skin below her ear.
She let him take his time.
When he finally pushed inside her, it was slow and deep and perfect, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer. He moved like he had all the time in the world, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath hot on her lips.
"I love you," he said.
"I know."
"Say it back."
"I love you."
He picked up the pace, just slightly, and she arched beneath him, her nails digging into his back. He groaned and buried his face in her neck, and she felt the vibration of it all the way down to her bones.
"More," she said.
He gave her more.
They moved together, a rhythm that felt older than either of them, and when she came, it was quiet—a shuddering breath, a tightening of her legs, a whispered name. He followed a moment later, and they lay there afterward, tangled and sweaty and spent.
The morning light had turned golden now, spilling through the windows, catching the dust motes in the air. The wolves watched from the counter. The dishes sat in the sink. The world outside kept turning.
But inside the cabin, everything was still.
"I'm going to need a better desk," she said eventually.
"What?"
"For the second book. I'm going to need a proper workspace. I can't draw wolves at the kitchen table forever."
He laughed, his chest shaking against her. "We'll figure it out."
"And we're going to need to pack. For the tour. I don't even know what you wear to a book signing."
"Clothes, I think."
"Funny."
"I try."
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. His hair was a mess, and there was a red mark on his neck where she'd bitten him, and he was grinning like an idiot.
"You're going to be famous," she said.
"So are you."
"I'm just the illustrator."
"You're the reason there's a book at all." He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You're the reason I kept writing. You're the reason I didn't give up."
She didn't have a response for that. So she kissed him instead.
The next few weeks were a blur. Jordan worked with Margaret on the tour schedule while Anna finished her current illustration contracts and started sketching ideas for the second book. They argued about everything—what to pack, what to leave behind, whether to sublet the cabin or keep it empty for the winter.
"We can't just leave it," she said one night, standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the bedroom. "What if something happens?"
"Like what?"
"Like a pipe bursts. Or a tree falls on the roof. Or raccoons get in."
"Raccoons?"
"It happens."
He walked over and took her hands. "We'll get a caretaker. Someone to check on it once a week. The cabin will be fine."
"And us?"
"What about us?"
She looked at him, at the worry creasing his forehead, at the way he was holding her hands like he was afraid she might pull away.
"Will we be fine?" she asked.
He pulled her close and pressed his lips to her hair. "We'll be better than fine."
The tour started in June, in a small bookstore in Portland that smelled like old paper and lavender. Anna stood in the back, watching as Jordan read from his book—from their book—and the audience leaned forward, captivated. When he finished, they clapped, and he looked up and found her in the crowd, and his smile was so wide it hurt.
Afterward, they signed books together. A woman in her fifties approached the table, clutching a copy to her chest.
"You must be Anna," she said.
Anna blinked. "I am."
"I recognized you from the illustrations. They're beautiful. They made me feel like I was there, by the lake, watching everything happen."
"Thank you."
The woman looked at Jordan, then back at Anna. "You two are lucky. You know that, right?"
Anna looked at Jordan, at the way he was watching her, at the softness in his eyes. "Yeah," she said. "I know."
The tour continued. City after city. Hotel after hotel. Jordan wrote every morning, as promised, and Anna sketched beside him, their laptops open, their coffee growing cold. They explored new places together—bookstores and coffee shops and parks and museums—and at night, they collapsed into unfamiliar beds and made love like they were still back at the cabin, like nothing had changed.
But everything had changed.
The second book was harder than the first. Jordan struggled with it, tearing up pages and starting over, doubting himself. Anna was there through all of it, reading drafts, offering feedback, holding him when he was convinced he was a fraud.
"You're not a fraud," she said one night, in a hotel in Chicago. "You're a writer. This is what writers do. They struggle. They doubt. They keep going."
"What if it's not good enough?"
"It will be."
"How do you know?"
She kissed his forehead. "Because I know you."
The book came out the following spring, and the response was even bigger than the first. The critics called it "a triumph" and "a masterpiece" and "a stunning follow-up from one of the most exciting new voices in contemporary nonfiction." Anna's illustrations were praised as "evocative" and "haunting" and "the perfect complement to Jordan's spare, beautiful prose."
They went on tour again. More cities. More signings. More readers who came up to them with tears in their eyes, telling them how much their story meant.
And through it all, they stayed together.
The cabin was waiting for them when they got back. The caretaker had done his job—the pipes were intact, the roof was fine, and there was no evidence of raccoons. The wolves Anna had sketched were still pinned to the kitchen wall, their eyes watching, their mouths curved in something that might have been a smile.
Jordan stood on the porch, looking out at the road, at the maples, at the lake beyond. Anna came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
"Home," she said.
"Home."
She rested her chin on his shoulder. "What happens now?"
He turned in her arms and looked at her. The sun was setting, painting everything gold, and the air smelled like woodsmoke and damp earth and something new, something green.
"I write another one," he said.
"And I illustrate it."
"And we keep going."
She smiled. "I like that."
He kissed her, long and slow, and the porch swing creaked beside them. The wind rustled through the trees. The neighbor's dog barked once, twice, and then settled into silence.
And somewhere in the distance, the wolves were waiting.
They always would be.