Whiteout blizzard, Alice texted. Tell me you’re back at the lodge.
I’m back, he texted. Josie is here, too. We’re fine.
Okay. Storm’s supposed to get worse until tomorrow morning. Stay in. I’ll check in later.
He sent her a thumbs-up and went downstairs to assess the damage he’d done with that moment of silence.
And the plan. That stupid plan. Have sex with her and forget her. What was wrong with him?
Josie was sitting on couch in front of the empty fireplace, a blanket over her shoulders and her laptop open on her lap. She didn’t even look up when he came in.
“Airports are closed,” she said. “There’s a twenty-car accident on the highway.”
“Wow,” he said. Because he was the king of conversation. The prince of cool. “Have you talked to your family?”
“Max was ready to put on the snowshoes and come look for us.”
“You stopped him.”
“Barely.”
The moment seemed warm, a thaw between them, and he laughed. She did not.
“Josie—”
“I don’t know how to talk to you Cameron. About this. About…us. So how about we don’t?”
“Don’t talk?”
“You did it to me before,” she said, looking him straight in the eye, stone cold, and for a second he was impressed. How cool she was. How she worked so hard at indifferent. But he’d just tasted her body. Felt her breath break as she came. He knew this was pretend. The fury of her was all right there, shrouded in ice. “I have work to do,” she said.
“No,” he said.
She laughed. “No?”
“The truth is…I freaked out for a second. I wasn’t expecting you to be a virgin and it…it threw me.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
“It’s the same way you’re freaking out right now,” he said. She looked back down at her laptop and he saw what she was going to do. How she was going to freeze him out.
He’d messed up. Sure. But they weren’t going to go out this way. Not again.
He crossed the room and leaned down, bracing one arm on the couch beside her head, getting so far into her space that she had no choice but to look at him.
“I can still taste you in my mouth,” he whispered and watched her eyes dilate, her lips part on a breath. “I can feel you against my body.” He flexed his fingers. “On my skin. And I know you feel the same way. Because I know you…” She swallowed audibly and blood pounded to his dick. “You need a second. Okay. I can give you a second. Because I needed one, too. But we’re not done. We will talk about this. We’re not going to do what we did last time.” He stood up, watching her face. Watching her heart pound in that part of her neck he’d coveted for so long. Now he knew how she tasted there. How that heartbeat felt under his lips. Against his tongue. “We have so much to talk about.”
We’re not done. We are far from done.
“You hungry?” he asked.
She blinked but was stubbornly silent. Oh, the Josie silent treatment. I remember it well. Childish but effective.
“You work, I’ll be back.” He turned toward the kitchen. There were the cinnamon rolls to start, and he thought about Josie and what he knew she’d eat.
But he also knew what she would love. He smiled. For almost every person the path to their heart was through their stomach. And for Josie, that path was made with cheese.
“Hey…Cameron?” He turned to see her. So small on the big couch, swaddled in the blankets. Her pale skin surrounded by the fall of her dark auburn hair.
“Yeah?” What do you need? he wanted to ask. What do you want? Because he would do it for her. Anything. For her.
“Can you…” She looked at the huge stone fireplace, cold, the fire long since out. “Do you know how to build a fire?”
“I do,” he said with a smile, and he walked back over to the hearth. “And I learned the same time you did.” Max had taught them.
“I haven’t made a fire in years,” she said.
He sat on the stones, stirred the ashes to see if there were any embers. And there were. Hot and pink. He gathered kindling from the basket, built his teepee and blew gently, coaxing the embers to glow brighter. Hotter. The kindling caught and he slowly, patiently, fed it larger pieces of wood until it was kicking out proper heat and crackling away.
“There,” he said, standing back.
“Thank you.”
She was flushed and unable to look at him, and he walked out of the room wondering what kind of fire they were building. The kind that blazed hot and then turned to ash? Or one that would last?
And which one did he want?
Alice’s kitchen was bigger these days, but not much else had changed. Everything was in the same general spot. Properly labeled. He pulled the stand mixer out and began making two doughs. The first, once prepared, he set to rise in a bowl covered with the old tea towel that had always been used for such things. Then he started on the cinnamon rolls. When that was done he blanched little purple potatoes he found in the cupboard. As well as some asparagus. He started mixing up goat cheese, feta, and shredded cheddar with a little bit of water.
When the first dough had doubled in size he punched it down, rolled it out, and created an odd-shaped boat, filled it with the cheese, brushed it all with melted butter, and put it in the oven to bake. He sliced up apples and found some cornichon pickles, carrots, and a couple of red peppers for dipping.
He made this food for her and tried hard not to think about all the years he’d dreamed of cooking for her. How long it had taken him to stop thinking Josie would love this after he tasted something new that blew his mind. Years. It had taken years for the ghost of her to stop traveling with him.
And now, after today, how long this time? he wondered. Before he stopped thinking about how she felt in his arms. Before he stopped thinking—oh, I’ve got to tell Josie… More years? Forever?
Could he survive that again?
Did he want to?
He took out the bread boat filled with melty cheese, slipped a raw egg yolk on top with a hunk of ice-cold butter. Loaded the dippers onto the tray with the bread boat and took it all into the living room.
“Something smells amazing,” Josie said, looking up with a careful smile. He laid a tea towel on the ottoman, set the cookie tray on it, still hot but loaded with vegetables and potatoes and fruit, and then whipped the egg and butter into the cheese until it was all stretchy and perfect.
“What in the world is this?” she asked with the kind of wonder that made him happy.
“It’s based on a Georgian dish that I had a million years ago. I’ve bastardized it here with the cheese Alice had, but the idea is all the same.”
“A melted cheese bread boat?”
“Basically. The bread bakes while the cheese melts.”
She dipped a slice of apple into the cheese, put it in her mouth, and closed her eyes with a moan. He smiled and looked away, fiddling with a pickle. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About earlier. The truth is, Josie, I’ve spent—” he shook his head “—years thinking of what I would say to you after making love. Years. And in the moment…I freaked out.”
He laid down his silence against her and waited for her to lay down hers. Talk to me, he thought.