“What are you doing?”
“I want to see Louisa’s old room.”
“Don’t go in there.”
“Why not?” I asked, jerking my head around.
“You’re not allowed.”
I choked back tears. “I know she was your sister and you had a special bond, but we were friends too. I just wanted to see where I slept when we had those sleepovers all those years ago.”
“That’s very sweet of you.” He said the words, but it didn’t sound like he meant them. “But you’re not allowed in there.”
“What’s in there now?”
“I’m making chili. Do you want some?” he asked, clearly sidestepping my question.
“No.” I crossed my arms, and decided I was going to channel Elaine. Little but fierce. “Why won’t you answer my questions? Why did you leave the other day when you were making out with me on the kitchen counter? Do you have a girlfriend, or…?”
He chuckled. “No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Thanks for asking, though. So, that’s a no on the chili? I thought you’d be pretty hungry by now. And I make damn good chili.”
Lifting his eyebrows, he waited for my answer. “Yes, please. I’ll have some,” I finally relented. I was getting hungry, after all.
“Alright,” he said, heading down the stairs. “I’ll wait until tomorrow to cash in on the sandwich offer.”
“The sandwich offer? Oh. Right.”
I paused at the top of the stairs and watched him on his way down. He was wearing grey sweatpants that couldn’t help but accentuate his muscled legs. His royal blue tank top that hugged his back tightly and showed me the outline of every rippling muscle of his upper body.
“Nice books,” he said as I walked into the kitchen, tipping his head toward the paper bag of literature I’d left in the living room. The smell of chili took over my nostrils, making my stomach growl.
“Oh yeah? Are you a fan of Edith Wharton?” I asked.
He nodded while he poured a glass. “I am, actually.”
“You’ve heard of her? I’m shocked.”
“Read her in one of my lit classes before I dropped out of Michigan State. Do you want water? Or something else?”
“Do you have any wine?”
He shook his head. “I don’t usually drink. Especially not wine.”
“You don’t? Why not?”
He seemed agitated. “Here’s your water, then.”
“You’re a mysterious man, Shane North,” I said as I watched him stir the chili.
He turned around, and his glacier-colored eyes were full of the same fire that they’d had before he’d lifted me up onto the kitchen counter yesterday.
“Oh really? Tell me more about myself. I like this.”
I felt the heat growing all throughout my body. He backed me up into the refrigerator.
“What kind of a man does what you did yesterday? What were you thinking?”
“What part of yesterday are you confused about? Seemed like we both needed some release.”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“It’s in your eyes, Florida.” He glared at me, and need flared through me again like déjà vu. His arm pressed into the refrigerator, level with my eyes. “I can see it.”
“So why didn’t you, you know…?”
He smirked. “Go all the way?”
“Yes. And why do you avoid talking about it as much as you can?”
“You want the truth?”
“Of course.”
“It’s complicated.”
I rolled my eyes, while he turned around and filled two bowls with chili, sprinkled them with cheese to melt, and handed me one bowl and a spoon. He led me onto the couch and we sat down.
“I don’t care if it’s complicated. You intrigue me, Shane North.”
He shrugged. “Why do you need to know every little detail going on in my head? In reality, we barely know each other and you’re giving me the fifth degree.”
I decided to ease up on my line of questioning, since I was seeming to get nowhere with solving his mysterious behavior from last night.
“Maybe you’re right. Tell me what you’ve been up to. Catch me up on your life. What do you do now?”
“A little bit of this and that,” he said.
I wanted to slap him. His evasive answers were getting annoying. “I’m being serious. What do you do? I don’t care how complicated this story is. We’ve got plenty of time.”
He nodded, glancing past the Christmas tree, through the main front window to the thick white snow falling outside.
“What’s there to know about me? Fine, I’ll tell you. I dropped out of college in the middle of senior year last year to move back here. My favorite movie of all time is The Mighty Ducks. I believe being rich doesn’t make you as happy as having a good community will. I think everyone should have an outlet to blow some steam off. For me, that’s hockey. I love the defeated feeling of the opposition when I score a goal on them. And yesterday, when we kissed, I’ve never felt anything like that in my life. I had dreams last night about the things I would do to you. Very bad things, Natalie.”
I swallowed down a bite of chili, trying hard to process his monologue. Nerves racked through me as I wondered what kind of things he had imagined doing to me.
Could they have anything to do with the things I imagined him doing to me?
I decided I needed to ignore that comment. We were all alone in a house by ourselves, and addressing it might push us somewhere that I wasn’t ready for.
“This is delicious, by the way.”
“Thanks,” he grinned, and took a big bite himself.
“There’s a lot to unpack there. I’ll start with, why did you drop out of college?”
“My mom needed me--she was going through some stuff after her last break up a year ago. After both Louisa and my father passed away, we’ve become a really tight knit two-person family.”
“I feel so bad for not keeping tabs on you all somehow.”
“Your parents really kept you in the dark about the happenings back here in Black Mountain, eh?”
I shrugged. “Yes, I guess they did. I was too young to know that I should have kept in touch with everyone myself. I think my mom…” I stopped short.
“What?”
“I think my mom tried to block out Black Mountain after we left. When we moved to Florida, she embraced life in the sunny state. She rarely even talked about our friends back here for a few years. Said it would be more fun just to stay in Florida. At the time, I was too young to put up a stink about everything. But I really regret the way I detached from life back here. And, God, I feel just awful about all of this. Your father and Louisa.”
“Wow. I didn’t know that. I figured--” he brought his eyes back to me. “I figured you thought you were too cool for this place, or something.”
My throat caught with emotion. Shane seemed reluctant to give details, which was understandable. Talking about death wasn’t easy. But I needed answers.
“I’ll always have part of my heart here. So you stopped a half year short of graduation? Have you thought of going back?”