Free The Favor by Megan Hart

Andy.”
    “Too bad, huh?” he said.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Too bad.”

NINE
    Then
    “EVENTUALLY, I’M GOING to get a generator out here. Propane tank. Maybe some solar panels—I read in Popular Mechanics how it’s the wave of the future. Self-sufficient houses.” Gabe flips the light switch up and down. Nothing happens, of course, since the wires in the walls, which still aren’t covered with drywall, don’t connect to anything.
    Janelle shivers. Her breath puffs out in front of her in a silver plume. “I can’t believe you built all this yourself. How long have you been working on it?”
    “A long time. Years. My dad used to take me hunting with some buddies, but they stopped going when I was about twelve. And I missed it. So...” He shrugs, pretending it doesn’t mean very much. Anyone else would’ve made him feel stupid about all this, but Janelle never does.
    “Is that a loft?” She’s already put her foot on the ladder and is halfway up before Gabe can think to warn her off. Janelle peeks over the edge of the railing, then twists to look down at him. Her giggle sends heat all through him, welcome in the unheated room.
    “Nice,” she says. “Porn-o-rama.”
    It’s just a collection of old skin mags and a beat-up mattress with a sleeping bag. A camping lantern. He’s slept out here only a few times. Eventually, he’ll make the loft into a full second floor, maybe with a couple bedrooms.
    “Do you bring other girls out here?” She disappears over the edge of the loft.
    He can hear her shuffling around up there, and goes to the ladder. “No.”
    Janelle peers over the edge. “No? Really?”
    “Really.”
    She dangles her feet. He could grab her ankle if he wanted, she’s that close, but Gabe only climbs the ladder halfway.
    “How come?” Janelle sounds serious, not smug.
    He wonders if she’d have been jealous if he’d said yes. Sometimes a few buddies, sometimes his brothers. But no other girls. “There isn’t any girl I’d want to bring out here.”
    “Seems like a great place for a party,” she says. “I can think of loads of girls who’d like to come out here with you.”
    “I don’t have parties.”
    “I know you don’t, Gabe.” Janelle rolls her eyes. “But if you did, you could have them here. Who owns the land?”
    It’s a practical question, and he shouldn’t be surprised she asked it. She’s a practical kind of girl. “My dad. He started this place. It was really just a storage shed where he kept some hunting supplies. He always said he was going to turn it into a real camp, but he didn’t. So I did.”
    “What does he think?”
    Gabe climbs the rest of the ladder to sit next to her with his feet hanging over the edge. Below them is the square room without dividers, a space blocked out for a kitchen. He’s planned on a small camp stove, a propane-powered fridge. There may never be indoor plumbing—that’s beyond what he thinks he can do—but there is an outhouse in the back and he’s done some research into composting toilets. The work’s been haphazard, piecemeal, and cobbled together from scrap lumber and scrounged materials. It’s garbage, most of it, but he’s done his best and it’s not too shabby a job.
    “He doesn’t know.”
    She twists toward him. “What do you mean, he doesn’t know?”
    Gabe shrugs. “There’s a lot the old man doesn’t know.”
    “He doesn’t come out here anymore?”
    “Not really. If he does, he’s never said anything. And he would, if he knew about it.” Gabe’s sure about that.
    Janelle pulls up her feet and scoots backward. She stands, her hands on the railing, to look over it. From this angle, she looks so tall, but he knows she’s not. She’d fit just under his chin, if he ever hugged her.
    She takes a few steps back to the mattress and sits. She flicks through one of the ancient magazines and pushes it aside. “I’m cold. You’re always so warm. Hot-blooded, Gabe. That’s you. Come here.”
    The