The storm had passed, leaving behind a low mist that curled around the trees like secrets not quite ready to be spoken. Inside Jack’s cabin, the fire crackled, casting long, golden shadows across the worn wood floors and knotty pine walls. The place still smelled of cedar shavings and smoke — and something more carnal, too. A scent that clung to skin, clothes, and memories.
Jack leaned back on the old leather couch, shirtless, damp hair pushed back from his brow, a lowball glass of bourbon resting in his hand. His chest still bore the faded red trails of fingernails, and his lips — slightly swollen — hinted at how his evening had begun.
Evelyn’s purse was still by the door.
She had left just after sunset, slipping on her coat with flushed cheeks and trembling fingers, giving him one last lingering look that said, “This isn’t finished.”
And it wasn’t.
Not even close.
Jack was still replaying the moment she’d bent over the kitchen table — her voice taut with need, her moans swallowed by the thunder outside — when a pair of headlights sliced through the mist outside his window.
He stood, slowly, something in him already knowing.
The knock came before the engine even cooled.
Three sharp raps.
Jack opened the door, expecting Evelyn again, maybe even Lucius — but what greeted him instead was a shadow from much further back. Cal Monroe.
Thirty years old now. Still boyish in the jaw, but filled out through the chest and shoulders like the years had hardened him. He stood there in dark jeans and a flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves, rain still beading in his close-cut beard.
His eyes flicked up to meet Jack’s — stormy gray and full of something between curiosity and unresolved hunger.
“Didn’t think I’d find you here,” Cal said, his voice low, hoarse from the cold or something deeper. “But I had to see.”
Jack tilted his head, letting the door swing wider. “You drove all this way?”
Cal stepped inside without asking. He always had that way about him — quiet, but certain. The cabin seemed to shift with his presence, as if it knew another current had entered.
“I was passing through,” he muttered, clearly lying. “Figured you might still be here… in this place.”
Jack poured him a drink without saying a word.
They sat across from each other now — Jack in his usual chair, Cal on the edge of the couch. The fire lit them both in warm amber and shadow. It had been what… eight years since they’d seen each other? Nine? Back when Cal was fresh out of college, still figuring out who he was, and Jack had been the magnetic pull he couldn’t name.
“You look the same,” Cal said finally, his voice quieter. “Just… more dangerous.”
Jack smirked, sipping his bourbon. “You always said I looked like trouble.”
“And you always were,” Cal murmured.
The tension between them was thick — not sexual yet, not openly — but something hovered. Ghosts of what wasn’t said. Cal’s gaze kept drifting, not just to Jack’s mouth or his bare chest, but to the fireplace, the mess of blankets on the floor, Evelyn’s coat still draped over the armchair.
“I didn’t come to interrupt anything,” he said, though his voice gave away that he had hoped to.
“You didn’t,” Jack said simply. “You came at the right time.”
He stood up, slowly, walking to refill both glasses. The firelight traced every muscle in his back, the stretch of his shoulders, the line of his waist. Cal watched him — openly now. There was no hiding the look in his eyes.
When Jack handed him the glass, their fingers brushed. A small thing. A big thing.
Cal swallowed hard. “I heard you were up here alone. But… from the looks of it, you’re not exactly starved for company.”
Jack chuckled under his breath. “Company comes and goes. You… haven’t.”
Cal shifted forward, elbows on his knees. His words came slower now, like he was trying not to fall into something too fast.
“You ever think about that night? At my uncle’s lake house?”
Jack’s eyes darkened, smile fading into something heavier. “More than I should.”
Silence again. But not an awkward one. Just loaded.
Cal leaned back. “I didn’t know who I was back then.”
“You do now?” Jack asked.
Cal’s answer was a slow nod. “I know I still think about your hands.”
Jack set his glass down, the clink of it sharp in the quiet. He crossed the floor again, stopping only when he was standing in front of Cal — close enough to feel the heat coming off him. Cal tilted his head up, looking at him from below, unsure if he should stand… or kneel.
“Still curious, Cal?” Jack asked, his voice a low rasp.
Cal’s breath caught. “I am. But… I don’t want to be just another one of them. Another story.”
Jack reached out and gently cupped the back of Cal’s neck, thumb brushing the curve of his jaw. “You won’t be.”
And he meant it.
Because with Cal… the memories went deeper. The connection, the tension, the unresolved. Jack didn’t need to dominate him right away. He wanted to draw him in — slowly, deliberately. To make him ask.
Outside, the wind had picked up again, brushing against the windows like a whispered dare.
Inside, Jack leaned in — not kissing him, not yet — just close enough for Cal to feel the weight of his breath.
And Cal, for the first time in nearly a decade, leaned forward into the pull.
Jack’s Page