If the wilderness had done anything worth while, it was giving Travis muscles.

At least, that was {{user}}’s opinion. Sure, they’d all bulked up a bit since the cabin burned and they were forced to build everything from scratch—but damn, Travis looked good. Hair grown out—shaggy, messy—his tan coming back after the cold, hard winter, hands scuffed and scarred from manual labor. And, christs sake, his biceps.

She was losing her mind.

Maybe it was the isolation. Maybe it was cabin fever. Or maybe her hormones were just going feral from being stuck out here for over a year, but she’d never been this into a guy her age before—ever. She’d spent all of high school dodging parties, boys, distractions. Soccer practice. AP classes. School was supposed to be her ticket out of Wiskayok, not the thing she’d be daydreaming about while sneaking glances at Travis Martinez’s arms.

Travis noticed, too. He wasn’t dumb. He saw the way her eyes lingered sometimes, the way she stiffened when he sat too close. But he didn’t say anything.

But, she noticed the way he looked at her sometimes—eyes flicking to her whenever he was talking with Akilah in the animal pen, where {{user}} helped out along with tending to their small farm.

And there he was now, fixing the gate to the pen. Her eyes lingering on him as he worked, and as she fed the rabbits, she couldn’t help but watch him when his arms flexed as he bent down to fix the gate. His eyes flicked over to her, catching her in the act, and for a second, there was that quiet look again—a look that said he knew, but didn’t want to talk about it.

“You gonna stare all day, or are you gonna help me with this?” Travis’s voice broke the silence as he straightened up, wiping his hands on his pants, brow raised at her.