Chapter 21
Sloan
♪ White Winter Hymnal | Fleet Foxes
Jason had his playlist on the Bluetooth of our rental SUV. On the plane we’d shared his headphones, each of us wearing an earbud so we could listen and still talk to each other. We’d had our foreheads together the whole time. I think I’d learned every fleck in his irises on that flight.
Jason looked at me from behind the wheel. “So just to warn you, my mom’s going to put us in separate rooms. She’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“Wise woman.” It was probably safest to keep us separated, especially after last night.
“We could always get a hotel room,” he suggested, giving me a wicked sideways glance. “Everyone does keep telling us to get one.”
My cheeks heated.
I could count the number of men I’d slept with on one hand and have fingers to spare. And the last person on my list had been the only man I’d planned on sleeping with ever again. Even though absolutely nothing had felt wrong about what happened between Jason and me last night, Brandon’s memory had been just enough of a buzzkill to pull me from the moment.
But I doubted I’d hesitate again.
Jason was slowly edging out all the things that froze me in time. He was thawing me from my nuclear winter from the outside in—and he was almost to my core.
He smiled at the road and I admired his profile from the side. The lines that creased at the corners of his eyes, the slope of his nose, a small freckle on his cheek, a square jaw and closely trimmed beard with its flecks of red, his Adam’s apple.
My eyes followed his neck down to his arm. I took in the muscles of his biceps, then the hair on his forearm, his hand on the wheel. I thought of how his voice sounded when he sang, the way the calluses from his guitar felt on my bare skin, and how much talent was in those fingers. Those hands wanted to touch me.
No, next time nothing would stop me.
“This is Ely.” His whole face lit up as we began to drive through the small town.
God, I wish I could be that excited to come home.
Mom had sold the house I grew up in years ago, after the divorce, and moved to a one-bedroom apartment with her new husband. Dad lived in San Diego with his new wife. I was an only child. Brandon’s family and I drifted apart after he died. I was still friends with his sister, Claudia, on Instagram, but we hadn’t seen each other since the funeral. Kristen was the closest thing I had to a sibling. It must be so great to be able to come home like Jason was.
The two-lane road ran right through the heart of the town. Restaurants and shops peppered the street on both sides. No Starbucks, but I could manage without it for three days.
We passed Jason’s family’s business and he pointed it out as we drove by. The building was cute. It was a log house with Ely Outfitting Company on the side. They’d used a canoe as a flower box under the window, and the railing on the steps was made from paddles.
We kept going fifteen more minutes beyond the town and turned down a one-lane dirt road with a mailbox at the entrance.
I craned my neck to see the house as it came into view. There wasn’t another home in sight and there hadn’t been for most of the drive since we left the edge of town. The single-story log house was nestled in the woods, surrounded by forest so thick I couldn’t see the other side of it. The roof was green over honey-colored logs, and a porch with log banisters ran the length of the front. The smell of burning firewood filled the crisp air.
Jason parked and came around to meet me as I unbuckled myself.
“You ready?” he asked as I got out of the car. He stood with his hand on the top of the SUV, barring my exit from behind my open door. “I’m going to need one last good kiss from you. We might not get another chance until we leave on Sunday. I have a feeling we won’t get much time alone.” He smiled at my mouth.
“Oh, I wondered why you had me cornered here. You’re saying goodbye to me for a few days.”
“I’m only saying goodbye to your lips.”
The passenger side of the SUV blocked us from the view of the house, so I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him, smiling against his mouth. Then a booming voice broke into our private moment. “Hey! Get a room, asshole!”
Jason shut his eyes and grinned. “Fuck.”
I turned around and looked through the windows of the car to see a man coming our way.
“David’s here,” Jason said, smiling.
Jason met his brother in front of the SUV. The burly, flannel-clad man held a bundle of firewood. He dropped it and gave Jason a hug as Tucker jumped up and down at their feet.
David looked to be around thirty, and he outweighed Jason by an easy fifty pounds. He was tall and bearded, like his brother, and looked exactly like a lumberjack. All he needed was suspenders.
“Look at you, you Hollywood big shot,” David said, holding Jason away from him. “California turned you into a suit. Is that a fucking spray tan?”
“I can’t believe Karen let you out this weekend. Did you barter your balls for your freedom?” Jason replied with a grin.
“Ahh, fuck you,” David said, good-naturedly. Then he looked at me. “You must be Sloan. Nice to meet you.” He put out a hand and gave me a firm shake. “This guy said he had a girlfriend. Of course, nobody believed it. Looks like I just lost fifty bucks at the office.” He slapped Jason on the back. “So what’s a beautiful thing like you doing with someone who won the Ugliest Man in Ely contest three years in a row?”
I smiled and channeled my inner Kristen. “It’s purely sexual.”
Jason snorted and David howled. “Whooooaa, I like this girl!” He put an arm around his brother and knuckled his chest.
Jason beamed. “Where are the kids?”
“The kids are sick. Karen stayed with them. Colds or ear infections or something. I don’t know. They get every damn thing in that school they’re in.”
David opened the trunk and grabbed my suitcase and Jason’s backpack. Jason picked up his brother’s firewood and nodded for me to follow them to the house. Tucker seemed to know where he was. He ran right to the front door and started to whine and scratch.
“Mom’s pissed at you,” David said ahead of us, wrangling my heavy luggage like it weighed less than a gallon of milk. “You were supposed to be here hours ago.”
“We stopped in Duluth,” Jason said.
Duluth had been amazing. We’d walked along Lake Superior. It was so cool. I hadn’t realized our sightseeing came at the expense of time with his family, however. He hadn’t told me we’d been expected earlier.
David pushed open the front door and Tucker ran inside.
“Mom, they’re here!” David called out, pulling off his boots by stepping on the backs of them with his feet. Jason did the same, not putting down his firewood.
I closed the door behind us and began taking off my shoes.
A woman came around the corner. She wore an apron and a red baking mitt on her hand. Tucker followed her and danced at her feet. She had brown hair pulled into a loose bun and soft hazel eyes. She gave Jason a sweet-looking scowl. “Jason! Why didn’t you call me and tell me how late you were going to be?” she asked, looking more worried than pissed, as David had put it.
The entry of the house was a small room with coat hooks on the walls and a single step up into the hallway. Jason’s mom stood on the step with her hands on her hips, still looking up at Jason despite the elevation. She put the hand with the mitt on his shoulder as he kissed her hello. Her eyes met mine over his back and she beamed at me.
“Mom, I said we were landing at one. I told you I’d make it by dinner. And you know I never get a signal on Highway One.”
“Never mind,” she said, waving him off. “I want to meet Sloan now. I’ll deal with you later.”
Jason turned to me, amusement on his face. “Mom, this is Sloan. Sloan, this is my mom, Patricia.”
Having done his duty as far as introductions, Jason edged past his mother with his bundle of wood, leaving us to each other.
Patricia came down the step to greet me, her eyes alight. “Oh, you’re beautiful,” she said, giving me a hug. “Thank God I have another woman here this weekend. We’re outnumbered.” She held me out by the arms and smiled at me warmly. “Can you believe I never had a daughter? Just me and all these men.”
“I bet they can eat,” I said.
“Feeding them is a full-time job.” She laughed. “Come on, let’s go in. I was so excited when Jason said you were coming. I felt like I was getting a visitor just for me. The boys will be doing their own thing for most of the weekend, they always do.” She led me into the house.
The home was thoughtfully decorated, with soft area rugs over the wood floors. The living room we passed was comfortable and rustic. A fire crackled in the fireplace and a deer head was mounted above the mantel. A huge bay window overlooked a lake.
Jason and David were already in the kitchen when we got there.
A man stood over the sink doing dishes. When he looked up, I knew exactly who he was. He looked like an older version of Jason. His beard and hair were salt and pepper, but his eyes were the same clear blue as his son’s.
“Dad, this is Sloan,” Jason said. “Sloan, this is my dad, Paul.”
I was expecting a hand, but I got a hug and a kiss on the cheek instead. It took me by surprise. Jason grinned at me over Paul’s shoulder.
Paul smiled at me. “We’ve heard so much about you, Sloan. The Huntsman’s Wife! Very impressive. We’ve eaten a lot of your food over the years.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you too,” I replied, flustered by the familiar welcome. What was up with Larsen men and flustering?
“And what do you think of our state?” Paul asked.
“It’s beautiful. I see why Jason sings about it.”
Paul smiled at his son approvingly.
David sat in a chair at the table and Jason hovered over a pot, holding the lid.
“What are we having?” he asked, picking up a spoon and tasting the contents.
“Swedish meatballs.” Patricia hit him with her baking mitt. “Get out of there,” she said, running him off.
I smiled.
“Something to drink?” Jason asked me.
“No, thank you. You want help?” I asked Patricia, joining her by the stove. Jason smiled at me and grabbed a beer from the fridge and went to sit with his brother.
“Would you mind chopping some parsley?” she asked, pointing to a cutting board. “It’s in the crisper drawer.”
I dove right in, tying up my hair and washing my hands. I searched the fridge for the parsley and dug around for a knife and began to chop. Patricia looked on approvingly. I faced the brothers as I worked, while Patricia moved around behind me, dropping meatballs into a frying pan.
“Dad wants help putting the dock out tomorrow,” David said to Jason.
“Already?” Jason asked, opening his beer.
Paul spoke over his dishes. “Ice is gone. Been warm this year.”
“How’s the dock?” Jason asked.
David looked over at his parents, whose backs were turned, and mouthed, “Fucked up.”
“The dock is fine. Just needs patching,” Paul said, not turning away from his dishes.
“Hey,” David said, “Jason and I both offered to get you guys a new dock. One with wheels. That you can roll. That doesn’t splinter.”
Jason tossed his bottle cap at his brother. It hit David on the chest and he produced a stoic middle finger. I laughed to myself.
“You know your dad,” Patricia said, not turning around. “He doesn’t like to get new things if what he has can be repaired. And that’s what he’s got two sons for.”
“It’s fine, Mom. We’ll get her out. We always do,” Jason said. “What else needs to be done around here?”
Paul rattled off a list of projects. I saw what Patricia meant about the boys doing their own thing. They were here to work. That was fine by me. I wanted to get to know Patricia better anyway. I wanted naked baby pictures of Jason before this weekend was out.
Patricia and I served dinner like we’d been doing it together for years, plating things and chatting the whole time. I took a seat next to her at the table so we could keep talking. The meatballs were amazing.
When Paul discussed the long to-do list for tomorrow, nobody complained. Nobody cussed in front of Paul and Patricia, and Jason and David refrained from their ribbing of each other in their presence. I liked David. He worked in IT and lived in St. Paul. He didn’t come up very often, mostly holidays. He had three small kids at home and his wife, Karen, worked full-time too.
All during dinner, Paul treated his wife with a reverence that made me smile to myself. He held her hand on top of the table during dessert and kissed her on the cheek both times he got up. It was adorable. It actually reminded me a lot of the way Jason was with me. Always touching me. Always turned to me somehow.
After dinner, the men cleared the table and did the dishes while they went on about walleye fishing and some new lure Paul had.
Patricia and I had a cup of coffee in the living room while we waited for the guys to finish up. Tucker curled up between us on the sofa like he couldn’t pick who he liked better. We were both sitting with a hand on his back, talking, as the men rejoined us in the living room. David threw another log on the fire and I smiled at Jason as he plopped next to me.
“Is that yours?” I asked him, nodding at a guitar propped against the side of the fireplace.
“No. My dad’s. He plays too. He taught me.”
“And your voice?” I asked. “Who gave you that?” Jason had an impressive vocal range.
“That’s all his,” Patricia said, looking at her son proudly. “No idea where it came from. Just a God-given gift. And Jason tells us that you’re a talented artist,” she said, putting her coffee cup to her lips.
“Oh, he did, did he?” I asked, giving him a raised eyebrow. “You lied to your mother?”
He smiled at me. “I’ve never actually seen one of Sloan’s original pieces. But I’ve very much enjoyed the commissioned art I’ve seen her do.”
“So you liked the astronaut cat?” I teased.
“Of course. Who wouldn’t like an astronaut cat?”
“I paint for a few companies that outsource commissioned artwork,” I explained. “I do some freelance stuff on Etsy too. Quick pieces. Birch trees, animal art. That kind of thing. Although, Jason, you have seen one of my original pieces. You did like it very much, actually. You just didn’t know it was mine,” I said, looking at him.
“When?” he asked, his brows drawing down.
“The self-portrait that you like at my house,” I said carefully, looking at him, willing him to know what I was talking about without my having to say, The one of me naked? In my bedroom, over my bed? His family didn’t need that visual.
When shock spread across his face, I knew he understood what I was talking about. “That’s a painting?” he asked, his mouth open. “That’s not a photograph?”
His reaction gave me a swell of pride. I’d forgotten that feeling, the satisfaction that my work brought me when I saw the way it affected others.
“No,” I said, loving the surprise on his face. “I paint hyperrealistic art.”
He sat up, staring at me. “Sloan, that’s—that’s incredible. I’ve looked at that dozens of times, up close. I had no idea that was a painting.”
“Dozens of times? Up close?” I asked with a sideways smile.
Then I turned to his family, not wanting to leave them out of the conversation. “Here’s one of my paintings that sold a few years ago,” I said, swiping through the photo gallery on my cell phone. When I found the painting that I’d titled Girl in Poppies, I handed the phone around the room.
“I don’t paint these anymore,” I said. “They’re very labor intensive. I have to take up to a hundred photos of my subject to work off of, and each one takes me up to two months. But this is what I used to do.”
I didn’t show my art off like this very often, but I sensed Jason wanted to impress his family, and I wasn’t very proud of my current job, if I was being honest.
“Sloan, this is wonderful. You have to keep painting,” Patricia said, genuine awe in her voice. “You have a gift. No wonder you two hit it off. You’re both so creative.”
She was right, I’d never thought of that. His voice was one thing, but his songwriting was something else. His lyrics were where he really shone. Beautiful and deep. They were what I loved the most about his music.
Jason looked at my painting photo last. When he handed my phone back, he stared at the side of my face. And he kept on staring.