Chapter 37: Front Men Make It With Hippie Chics

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This is the radio edit. For the explicit love scene, please see the work Soundcrush Explicit, same chapter title. 

A view of the cabin where Leed takes Ashlynn

A view of the cabin where Leed takes Ashlynn

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 Leed

It takes nearly an hour and half to reach our destination, because Ashlynn insists we stop for food. I don't think she was a bit hungry, but she knows I needed an insulin pill this morning—thanks to MJ's constant baking habit and my weakening will power— and in her gentle way, she's making sure I eat before my blood sugar plummets. Neither one of us want to waste time in a restaurant, so we break the fifty at an Earth Fare, and get some sprouted grain bread, natural cashew butter, almond milk, veggies, hummus and some flavored sparkling waters. Ashlynn feeds me while I drive. We drink out of the milk carton.

It's the sweetest picnic I've ever known, licking Ashlynn's fingers clean as we move higher into the North Georgia mountains. We leave the lighted roads behind. I put the old car into low gear as we grind up a gravel road and the headlights pan across nothing but woodsy switchbacks.

When we finally arrive at our destination—a tiny cabin overlooking Tallulah Gorge State Park— I'm pleased to see that cabin looks just like the pictures. I've been to this spot many times, but the micro-cabin is new. It's a minimal living design design—modern, simple, no more than a rectangle with a glass room projecting off the front. The kitchen, bathroom and tiny table occupy the non-glass portion of the cabin, and the large platform bed occupies the entire glass room—which even has a glass roof.

Vivi went all out, getting it ready for us. She's got the bed strung with fairy lights and swathed in gauzy canopy curtains. Flameless candles bathe the interior and spread warm glow through the glass. There's also a deep soak tub on a separate deck. It's filled, heated and lit, the warm bubbling water steaming into the chilly mountain air.

When I switch off the headlights, the effect of the tiny glass bedroom, lit up in the dark quiet wood, is very romantic. I sneak a look at Ashlynn's face. Her eyes are soft, her lips parted slightly in wonder.

"Thoughts? Like maybe about how wonderful your boyfriend is?" I tease her.

She cuts that adorable grin at me. "This place is...magical, and you are wonderful, but you are also cheating at your own game. This is not a fifty dollar date."

I grab the bags that the driver transferred from the other car, and walk around to open her car door. "Am not. This place didn't cost a dime to rent."

She squints at me. "Because you own it?"

"No. It's just borrowed for a couple of days."

"Oh." She sounds disappointed.

"Would you like for me to own it? I can try to buy it, but I sort of doubt Vivi will sell it to me."

She doesn't answer, because now that she's stepped out of the car, she's heard the waterfalls. We're parked at the side of the cabin and she follows the trail around until she's standing in front of the glass bedroom, which is set back slightly on this cliff. There is a large rock overhang several steps down from the front of the cabin, with man made stone steps added. She skips down the steps and I find myself hissing in alarm, dropping the bags and rushing to follow her, wrapping my arms around her tightly. She maybe doesn't realize how small the overhang is, how close to the edge of the plummeting gorge she is.

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