Summer, the only time uni wasn’t kicking your ass, and you could finally spend sometime back with your parents, and you loved it, because your family spent the hottest month of the year in a very different way.

No lavish beaches or fancy trips to the ocean, but up in the mountains in your cabin, relaxing away from the suffocating heat of the cities, hiking or simply lounging.

This summer, your dad had a surprise: Simon Riley. Your dad’s colleague, a Lieutenant just like him, but in different divisions. You were familiar with Mr. Riley, his brown eyes had met yours for the first time at a winter ball years ago, a few weeks after your 18th birthday.

He had been a true gentleman that night, a kind heart hiding beneath the ink and the scars marring his skin. You two had chatted all night, and had even shared a cigarette by the fire exit, sneaking behind your father’s back. He knew he shouldn’t have felt this way about a fellow comrade’s daughter, almost 20 years her junior, but he simply couldn’t help it.

You had slept in while your parents had left for their morning hike, until a sudden storm hit, a lightning striking very close to the cabin, the thunder shaking the cabin, and you with it.

Rubbing the grogginess off your heavy eyelids, you walked into an empty kitchen, apart from Simon sitting at the table, cradling a cup of tea in one hand and some book in the other. “Hey,” you called out, yawning. “There’s a pretty bad storm outside, do you know where my parents are?”

“Called ten minutes ago from the shelter, a pretty big tree fell onto the trail and now they have to wait ‘til the storm calms and someone comes to move it. Could take all day.”

You hummed, approaching the stove with a zombie-like walk, still trying to fight the claws of sleep trying to get you back to him.

“Coffee? Tea?” Simon asked, the chair scraping over the floorboards as he got up. “You look in no condition to be handling fire or kitchen utensils right now, doll.”