Page 79 of Before Eve

I don’t think anything ever sounded so good. “Just you and me? Alone? No Anne?”

His lips curve up. “Yes.”

“Um, okay, I guess.”

“Great!” He gives me one last kiss and walks off.

Anne waits until he’s out of earshot. “So, here’s what I want you to do. A little homework assignment and report back. I want you to kiss his tat from top to bottom. I want you to lick his chest. To reach down in his pants—”

“Anne!”

“Kidding! But do we need to have a birds and bees talk?”

“No.”

“Hm.” She puts her index finger to her pursed lips.

“What?”

“Do you know how to use a condom?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, no.” I sigh.

“Listen, you and me, tonight, we’re going to have a little talk about testicles and vaginas and condoms and the stork and blowjobs and orgasms and—”

“Anne!”

CHAPTER 38

West rents a SUV,and early Friday afternoon, we pull into the small town of Mountain Lady, North Carolina. Village more accurately describes it, like something straight out of a centuries-old novel.

We cruise our way through the community, and I check out the various shops—leather, glass-blowing, taffy, iron works, and many more.

“I had Omar stock the kitchen,” West tells me. “We’ll be good to go for the weekend. Won’t have to leave unless we want to.”

“Omar?”

“He takes care of the property.”

We cross railroad tracks, and I catch sight of a grocery store. Across the street is a log cabin restaurant that seems to be doing good business. Down the road is a post office. Beside that sits a doctor’s office.

“This place is adorable.”

West turns onto a gravel road and points to a snow-covered mountain in the distance. “Across the hills and to that peak is where we’re going.”

“Seems far away.” Seems perfect.

He turns on the radio, and for the next thirty minutes or so, we wind back and forth on the gravel road through the winter trees and to the top of the mountain. I imagine with a good snowfall, this place is impassible, and in the summer it’s probably so covered in green you can’t even see the cabins dotting the mountain.

We cross a creek and hang a left. West points to a small cottage with a beautiful greenhouse on the left. “That’s where Omar lives.”

A little farther up, and the trees open to reveal a cleared area. A log cabin sits built into the slope of the ridge with half of it extending out on stilts. Underneath sits a Jeep, a dune buggy, and two motorcycles.

West pulls up and cuts the engine. “Here we are.”

I open the SUV door, climb out, and just stand taking in the scenery. From down below, this mountain had looked thick and uninhabitable, but from up here, it looks out over snow-filled valleys with other cabins spotted here and there. Way in the distance sits the tiny town we had arrived in, with a bubbling river weaving through it all.

“It’s like something out of a magazine.”