Free TIMBER: The Bad Boy's Baby by Frankie Love

my legs.
    We walk past my piles of hewn logs, many covered with tarps but others still in the process of being stripped before I send them to the sawmill. Not that I have any motherfucking plan for all this wood.
    “You cut trees?” she asks. “Like, is that your job?”
    “Sorta.” I shrug.
    “Why don’t you use a chainsaw?” she asks, curiosity dancing over her blue eyes. “Wouldn’t that be a lot easier?”
    “Easier, yeah, but the point isn’t to do something easy.”
    “What is the point, then?” she asks. Her arms are crossed over the jacket she’s now zipped up to her chin.
    “The point is to simplify. Cut out all the crap, the bullshit.”
    “You want things simple?”
    “Yeah,” I say, not sure where she got confused. I’m being pretty damn clear, for a man. “I don’t want drama. I want things easy.”
    “Oh.” Harper stops on the path. We haven’t even walked ten yards and already she needs a breather. “You know, Jaxon, maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I should go.”
    “What are you doing to me, woman?”
    Her eyes fill with tears. I swear there is nothing, no one, more fragile than Harper. It’s like she can’t stand on her own two feet.
    “I’m sorry, Jaxon. I just … I can’t. This is too hard. Too much. I should go.”
    “You aren’t going anywhere and we both know it.”
    She swallows, looking up. As she does, she gasps, points to something behind me.
    I turn and see a deer family. A twelve-point buck, a beautiful mama beside him, a small baby deer between them.
    “That’s beautiful,” Harper says.
    “Sure is,” I agree, knowing if anything is gonna calm Harper down, seeing these creatures will. Our eyes are still on the family, and we don’t dare move, not wanting to scare them off.
    I swear I can hear Harper’s heart beating from where I stand. This girl is so worked up. I take her hand in mine, want her to feel safe. I mean, I’m not the poster child for security but, fuck, this girl came all the way out here to find me, didn’t feel like there was anyone else she could turn to. Might as well not be an ass about it.
    “Can you tell me what you’re doing out here?” I ask her, as quiet as possible so as not to disturb the deer.
    “It’s bad, Jaxon.” Her words are so delicate they nearly disappear in the air before they reach my ears.
    “Nothing can be bad when we’re looking at this,” I say. The deer family stares us at, with the same curiosity we show them.
    Her hand shakes in mine. I squeeze it, trying to calm her. It must work, because she opens her mouth in a whisper and says the words I never wanted to hear.
HARPER
    This morning I already know the truth before I confirm it. I tell my mother that someone has called in sick at the Food Bank and that I needed to go help, right away. I lie right to her face and get in my car.
    I drive three hours. Three hours where my mind is numb and my heart is numb and all I know is that I could never Keep Calm and Carry On . Not now.
    Everything has changed.
    I drive to Jaxon’s cabin, praying to a God who seems to have left me a long time ago, left me to the devices of a church family who will never accept me.
    Where else am I supposed to go?
    Jaxon is right where I left him.
    I park my car, my whole body on fire the moment I see him in the distance. His arms swing, axe in hand, as a massive tree falls to the ground. The heaviness of the trunk swooshing through the air takes my breath away.
    It is so final, so swift.
    It took so many years to grow that tree, and then in a few hours it is chopped down to nothing. A fallen log with no life.
    The same thing has happened to me, and the realization sends tears to my eyes. I spent twenty-one years working hard to grow into something beautiful and good and strong and sure.
    And then one night, one choice, caused my life to crash to the forest floor, just like this tree.
    Timber.
    Jaxon’s chest is bare, his beard a bit longer than I remember. The second I see him, I