I’m speechless for a moment as I stare at the drawings of the cabin in my sketch pad. I shake my head at Carrie, having no answer for her. I have no idea where the sketches came from and no memory of drawing them. And at the same time, I know it had to have been me—it’s the same cabin from my dream last night. Just the sight of it raises goose bumps on my arms, and I shudder as I think about the figure I saw standing on the porch, draped in shadows and watching me intently. Why the hell would I have drawn not one, but five detailed sketches of that nightmare?

“Anna, my love, the client is a tech company,” Carrie says, shaking her head at me. “What does that have to do with cabins? What’s going on with you?”

“I honestly have no idea why I drew it,” I admit, unable to take my eyes off of one of the drawings.

“Well, and I say this with love, you really need to come up with something, or we’re screwed,” she says as she stands up from the chair.

“I know,” I tell her, wishing I knew what the hell was going on. I blink a few times, ripping my gaze away from the sketch. “But it’s not all cabins—did you see any of my other ideas?”

“Yeah, and there were a few we can probably work with, but we need more than pencil sketches. Like I said, I’m not angry that you took off to Iceland, but now we really need to get on the ball. We don’t have much time.”

“I know,” I mumble, looking over the rest of my ideas to see if there’s one that stands out.

“Anna…are you jet-lagged or something?” Carrie asks.

“What? No, I’m fine,” I assure her.

“Well, you seem a little distracted. Are you okay? Did something happen while you were on vacation?”

A heavy silence fills the room as I think about my last night in Iceland and the sexy stranger I brought to my bed.

“Oh, um, no, it was just, you know, touristy stuff, and I think maybe I’m getting a cold…”

As I continue to stammer, my excuse falls flat, and I can tell Carrie isn’t buying it—she knows me too well.

“You’re a terrible liar. You’re hiding something,” she says. “Was it something Gavin did or said? Are you sure about getting back together with him?”

“It has nothing to do with Gavin,” I reluctantly tell her. “Well, not really.”

“But that means there is something wrong,” she says, latching onto my admission. “What is it? Come on—just tell me so we can get back to work. You know I’m not going to leave until you do, and then neither of us will get any work done, and we won’t land this client.”

Carrie stands across from me with her arms folded defiantly over her chest and one eyebrow raised, letting me know that she is very serious about her threat.

“Fine,” I groan. “Something did happen when I was in Iceland… I had a one-night stand.”

Carrie stares at me silently for a moment as she blinks her eyes a few times.

“Excuse me?” she exclaims. “You had a one-night stand?”

“Keep your voice down!” I hiss. “Someone will hear you!”

“Who is he?” Carrie demands, not caring about anyone else in our shared workspace overhearing us.

“Just some guy,” I mutter uncomfortably.

“No, no way,” Carrie says, shaking her head. She puts her hands on the back of the chair and leans forward. “I’m not buying it. You had a one-night stand, probably for the first time in your life, and you describe him as just some guy? That’s not going to work for me. I demand details.”

She sits back down in the chair across from me and stares right at me, not about to relent. She’s like a dog with a bone at this point, and I know that she isn’t going to drop it. If I didn’t want to tell her about what happened in Iceland, I should have come up with a more convincing cover story, or else I shouldn’t have acted weird in the first place. I might have gotten away without spilling the beans if the cabin sketches didn’t rattle me like they did.

“Okay, okay.” I sigh, getting up to pop my head out of the tiny office and look around the hallway to make sure no one is lingering nearby.

There’s a lot of turnover in the workspace, but also a lot of people I see on a daily basis, and I don’t want anyone watching and judging me when I come and go. After shutting the door, I sit back down and let out a long breath.

“I don’t know where to start,” I say with a laugh.

“At the very, very beginning,” Carrie says. “Where did you meet him?”

“At the hotel bar, on my last night,” I tell her.

“The hotel bar, nice, I’m impressed.” She laughs. “What did he look like?”

“Um, well, he was tall,” I begin, picturing him in my mind.

“How tall?”

“Well over six feet,” I say. “Maybe six-four? Six-five?”

“Wow, that’s really tall. What else?”

“Thick blond hair, intense green eyes, and the broadest shoulders you could ever imagine,” I continue.

“I can imagine some pretty broad shoulders,” Carrie says.

“And his arms.” I sigh. “They were huge. Just…muscles for days. I think his biceps had muscles of their own.”

Carrie raises an eyebrow at this, looking skeptical about my description.

“Are you messing with me?” she asks.

“No, definitely not,” I assure her. “That’s what he looked like. Plus, he was so good in bed.”

“Now we’re getting to the good stuff!” She’s practically salivating for details.

“It was almost weird—like, he seemed to know exactly what to do and what I wanted,” I tell her. “He was so attentive and…intense. I didn’t know that I liked it a little rough, but he had me up against the wall, and he—”

“Okay, stop,” Carrie says, shaking her head. “Now I know you’re messing with me. You like it rough? He knew what you liked without you telling him? It sounds like you’re just pulling a character and a scene right out of a romance novel. If you really don’t want to tell me about what happened—”

“It’s the truth!” I say defensively. “I know it sounds wild, but it’s true.”

“Oh, really?” Carrie asks, still dubious. “What does he do for a living?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” I reply.

“Where does he live?”

“Somewhere in Iceland?”

Carrie narrows her eyes at me as if trying to peek inside my brain.

“What’s his name, Anna?” she asks, though her words sound like an accusation.

“I don’t know.” I sigh. “Look, I know how this sounds, but it really did happen.”

“Uh-huh,” Carrie says, clucking her tongue. “So you hooked up with a superhero who you know nothing about?”

“Why is that so implausible?” I ask, starting to get frustrated. “People have hot sex with random people all the time without finding out each other’s whole life story. I know you’ve had your share of Tinder hookups. Do you know the bios of every guy you’ve fucked?”

“That’s different,” Carrie counters. “I’m perfectly comfortable playing that game—sometimes I even prefer it—but that’s not you. There’s no way you would do something like that—just jump into bed with a complete stranger on a first encounter. No way. Why don’t you just admit that one-night stands aren’t in your wheelhouse? And that’s okay! I’m not judging you. I just don’t appreciate you making up some story about hooking up with Thor as an excuse for being off your game.”

“Carrie, I’m not—”

“Why don’t you take a day to rest and recover?” Carrie suggests. “Like I said before, you’re probably jet-lagged. Then when you come back, instead of drawing cabins or whatever, you’ll be inspired and come up with something amazing.”

***

Even though Carrie practically threw me out of my office, she can’t stop me from getting work done. When I get home, I grab my sketch pad and sit on my couch, trying to concentrate on coming up with a design for our potential client. I’m trying to get into a tech mindset, but I can’t shake my conversation with Carrie out of my thoughts.

She was so certain that I was lying and that I made up some story about sleeping with a hot Icelandic stranger. The whole way home, I was so angry that she didn’t believe me. Why would I lie to her like that? She’s my best friend; shouldn’t she know when I’m telling her the truth? The more I think about it, though, the more I start to see the situation from her point of view. If I were Carrie, would I believe that I had a wild, everything-goes hookup? Probably not. She is right that the whole experience was entirely out of character for me. I’m not some virginal prude, but even with all the sex I’ve had, I’ve never tried anything so wild as letting a total stranger fuck me against a wall. In fact, I’ve never done anything like that in my life.

Putting my sketch pad down on the coffee table, I lean back against the couch and wonder if the whole thing—meeting a nameless lover in a bar and inviting him up to my room—is nothing more than a fever dream, spurred on by my frustration over Gavin. After all, I did dream about him last night before the weird burning woman and creepy cabin turned it into a nightmare.

On the other hand, I woke up knowing that that was just a dream. Yesterday morning in Iceland was different. I remember how I felt when I woke up next to him. He was really there, I’m sure of it. I can still recall all the little details about his face, the way he touched me, and the feel of his lips on my body. That can’t all be a product of sexually frustrated wishful thinking.

My mind starts to wander back to the way he held my wrists in his one hand and pinned them up over my head. My whole body feels weak thinking about it. Is it possible that our encounter was just as amazing for him as it was for me? Could he be somewhere right now, thinking about me and wondering who I am?

Stop, I tell myself, sitting up again and grabbing my pad off the table. I have to stop dwelling on what happened. I may not have much experience with one-night stands, but I know that’s not how they work. You don’t look back; you don’t expect anything. There’s a reason why it’s called a one-night stand.

With my pencil clutched tightly in my hand, I try to get back to work, but with each passing minute, and lack of a good idea, I start to grow tired. Carrie is right—I’m definitely jet-lagged, and I’m not going to come up with some amazing idea while I’m only half-awake.

I close my eyes for a second, trying to relax until I remember that I still need to figure out what I’m doing with Gavin. I don’t know what to do about getting back together. When he asked me about the one-night stand, I told him that he was right—it meant nothing to me. I said I had too much to drink and wasn’t thinking clearly. But even as I was saying it, I knew it was a lie.

The truth is that in the three years I’ve been with Gavin, he’s never made me feel this way. Of course we’ve had plenty of fun together, and the sex has always been good, but this is different. It feels like the night changed something about me, and I’m not sure I can go back to the way things were.

I’m starting to drift off on the couch, so I decide to put my work away and head to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will bring more clarity and I’ll be able to do my job properly. Carrie is counting on me, and I can’t let my partner down. After brushing my teeth and washing up, I get in bed and turn out the light, quickly falling asleep.

***

I blink my eyes a few times and realize that it’s the middle of the night and I’m out of bed, standing in front of my bedroom window that looks out over the San Francisco Bay. It takes a second for my eyes to focus, but there’s a strange green and pink glow to the sky that reminds me of the northern lights I saw in Iceland. I squint through the glass, looking harder, knowing that it’s impossible. San Francisco is too far south to see the lights. There must be something going on in the city, a light show or a club opening or something.

With a yawn, I’m about to go back to bed when my eyes drift to the windowpane I was just looking through. I didn’t notice it when I was looking out at the bay, but now I see an outline of the cabin drawn in the condensation. My jaw drops as I stare at it in shock. Just like with my sketches, I have no memory of drawing the structure. Something is making me do this…but why?