And anyone I’ve mentioned it to has judged my mom, chastised her, said what a horrible person she is, but I know she’s not. I know she’s not that woman.

But Scottie…she gets it. She fucking gets it.

“Thank you,” I say to her.

She shrugs shyly. “You’re welcome.”

I move toward her and pull her into a hug. Her arms wrap around me instinctively, and she holds on to me tightly as I place my chin against the top of her head.

We stand like that for a few minutes, just holding each other, allowing understanding to wash over the both of us. And when we finally pull away, it’s only a few inches. Our eyes meet, a palpable connection beating between us. It’s more than just a friendship that we’ve formed. There’s genuine honesty. There’s an appreciation.

Her eyes fall to my mouth for a brief second and then travel back up to my eyes. Our arms are still wrapped around each other. It would be so easy to bend down right now and kiss her. To cup the back of her head and show her just how much I appreciate her. How much I’ve enjoyed these last few days with her, even when we were fighting.

And as I bite down on the inside of my cheek, I tell myself don’t.

Don’t cross that line.

Don’t push any further than I already have, because I wasn’t lying when I said that I wasn’t sure about what I want. If I can handle a relationship.

But hell, she’s making it fucking hard to keep myself away, especially when she looks at me with those expressive, nearly pleading eyes of hers.

“Thank you for last night,” she says quietly.

“For what?” I ask.

“For reminding me about what it is that I want in life. I forgot how nice it is to have human touch, and you…you reminded me of that.” She smiles. “I was kind of happy there was only one sleeping bag.”

That makes me chuckle. “Jesus, is it bad that I was thinking the same thing this morning?”

“Really?” she asks.

“I mean…yeah. I forgot what it was like to snuggle with someone. It was nice. I enjoyed it. Not to mention I didn’t mind the whole hand up the shirt thing. It was a nice touch.”

“Of course you’d say that.”

I wet my lips. “Can’t blame a guy. But it should probably be just a one-time thing though, right? I mean, imagine if we snuggled in the sex cabin. Think about how the cabin would take it wrong.”

“The walls would whisper,” she cutely says.

I chuckle. “They’d torment us. Tell us to go further. Tease us relentlessly. The vibrators would vibrate. The cock rings would jingle.”

“The lube would bubble. The condoms would crinkle.”