Then there she was in those pink pajamas, getting this giant bowl of mashed potatoes, and going on about that movie and her tradition of watching it.
I wanted to tell myself that the only reason I wanted to watch it was because I was finding that I was enjoying new traditions, that I had been missing out on some awesome parts of the holiday season, that I wanted to see what more it had to offer.
The truth was, of course, that I really just wanted an excuse to be close to her, to see more of the things she enjoyed, to know what made her happy.
It was cheesy. Especially for me. No one would ever accuse me of being a romantic.
Yet that was how it was.
I wanted to see her favorite holiday movie.
I wanted to know if it was something I would like as well.
As it turned out, I did.
She had good taste in all things.
Really, I hadn't been fostering any ideas that something might happen between us because we were alone and in close proximity.
I wouldn't have let my mind go there.
Because it couldn't happen.
But then it did.
Fuck.
It was everything I imagined.
More, even.
I couldn't have known that Jett would be the sort of woman who instigated, who went ahead and took what she wanted. But, God, I had been given a treat.
I always figured that Jett would be the sort of woman who kissed like she fought. With everything in her.
I wasn't wrong.
Demanding, taking.
Grinding down against me.
Whimpering against my lips.
Every part of me wanted me to flip her over onto the couch, rip off both our bottoms, and bury deep inside her, get an end to the need that had been clawing at my system since the first time we'd argued with each other.
I might have, too.
If things stayed quiet, dream-like, a fantasy world of our own building.
Then the clock ruined it all.
Brought me back to reality.
Reminded me that this couldn't happen, that she was off-limits, that I couldn't let it go any further.
Regret and anger at the situation overtook my system, making me lash out, be harsh, needing to get away from her before I decided to screw the rules.
That didn't mean I enjoyed the look of shock on her face.
I damn sure didn't like the hurt and rejection that followed.
So then I paced.
There was no end to the anxiety, though, it seemed. My brain just kept racing around in endless circles, never settling on any solution, just replaying the whole thing until my brain and body were too exhausted to stay up for another minute.
When I woke up, I hadn't come to any new conclusions either.
The only solution I could come up with was to just act like nothing had happened. Just move on. She would be pissed at me, I figured. That seemed to be her go-to response to uncomfortable situations. At least regarding me.
Anger, I could live with.
Then she had walked into the kitchen with swollen eyelids, red eyes. Telltale signs of crying.
Crying.
I could handle pissed.
I couldn't handle upset.
I didn't even think I was capable of making her upset.
But there was no denying that was what she was.
I wasn't sure the last time I had felt quite as deflated as I did as I carried my breakfast into the dining room. Food prepared by the mother of a woman I had hurt. To sit down with the father of the girl I had hurt.
Everything Kathy made tasted like gourmet. But the food might as well have been cardboard to me. I forced it down because of manners alone. I washed it down with hand-squeezed orange juice—something I'd never had before—and wasn't in the right headspace to appreciate right then.
"Heya, Trip," Mitch said as he followed me into the kitchen. "What do you say the two of us maybe do a little fishing?"
I didn't want to go fishing. I wanted to run up the stairs, barge into Jett's room, talk it out, apologize, tell her that I had never meant to hurt her, that it wasn't about her at all, that it was because of her father, because of my relationship with him, my respect for him.
I was starting to think I knew Jett enough to know, though, that she wouldn't be receptive to me being in her room. That she would not accept excuses or even an apology.
She would just yell.
Which would tip off her family that something was wrong. That, God forbid, something inappropriate had happened between us.
If I wanted to screw up a family Thanksgiving, I was pretty sure telling Mitch and Kathy that I had been dry humping their daughter on the couch in their family estate was the way to do it.
I couldn't talk to her.
At least not so soon.
I would drive myself crazy if I sat around all day thinking about it, too.
"Yeah, Mitch, that sounds like a good way to spend a few hours."
It was, too.
We talked business, about the future, about the upcoming holiday season.
We caught nothing.
But it did manage to drain most of the stress from my body.
By the time we got back to the house, I was ready to face Jett again. Only to find Kathy alone in the kitchen preparing the leftovers for dinner.
"Where's my girl?" Mitch asked, pressing a kiss to the side of his wife's head.
"Oh, she's got a migraine. The poor thing. I told her I would make her a plate for her to warm up later if she feels better."
It was entirely possible, of course, that Jett did, in fact, have a migraine. I doubted it, though. It was more likely an excuse to avoid seeing me, dealing with me.
I wanted to be annoyed at her. For being a brat. For avoiding her family just because she couldn't be an adult and face me.
Those were words I would usually toss at her about the whole thing, too. Because it would give me the reaction I wanted from her.
Just this once, though, I decided to let it slide.
If I hurt her feelings, she deserved the space to be able to pull herself together about it. It wouldn't last forever. We still had several days around each other. She would have to face me sooner or later.
Or so I thought.
Dinner moved to dessert which moved to a couple drinks in front of the TV before Mitch and Kathy decided to call it a night around eleven.
Me, well, I couldn't sleep.
It was the chill that eventually dragged me out of bed. The supply of firewood in my room was down to nothing, making me make the trek from the deck and back inside to stoke my fire back to life.
The house was gorgeous, but it was drafty, poorly insulated. The fire barely managed to ward off the chill.
Once I got my fire going, my mind went back to Jett.
Up in the room that was likely even colder.
If I was out of firewood, she likely was too.
Or, at least, that was the excuse I gave myself as I fetched more firewood, as I climbed two sets of stairs, as my knuckles gently knocked at the door.
Hearing nothing, I decided to let myself in, silently get her fire going, then slip back out.
With that, I pushed open the door, feeling the cold wall of air hit me, letting me know I was right to worry about her fire going out. Judging by the temperature—cold enough to make a shiver rack my usually overly warm system—it had been out for a long time already.
I tried to keep my focus on the task.
Given the initial darkness, this was not hard.
But by the time the fire was crackling happily, casting the room in a warm orange glow, there was no denying the fact that my gaze finally slid over to the bed, finding Jett buried beneath a giant pile of blankets, only her head and one full arm exposed, the arm cocked up over her forehead, pressing.
I knew that position from a mother who had suffered with seasonal migraines. The 'pressure makes it feel better' move.
She hadn't b
een lying about her headache.
And I felt like an ass for thinking she was so hung up on what happened with us that she was hiding away in her room.
Realizing I was invading her privacy, I went to make my way toward the door, foot catching the floorboard I often heard her step on when she was moving around, one that made a wince-worthy groaning sound when you put pressure on it.
Jett was not an overly deep sleeper.
She jolted almost violently awake, voice gasping inward as she shot up in bed.
"It's me, Princess," I told her, voice soft, reassuring.
"Trip? What the hell... why are you here?" she asked, making me take a step to the side, allowing her to see the fire dancing around happily, already filling the room with warmth that hadn't been there a moment before.
"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you. I ran out of firewood. I wanted to check if you did too. You did."
"You... you built me a fire?" she asked, brows pinching over swollen, unfocused eyes.
"I know it gets cold in this house," I told her, feet shifting, a little uncomfortable with her penetrative glance.
"I... thank you," she said, looking over at the fire, wincing.
"Did you take anything? Want me to grab you something?"
"Nothing works," she said, shaking her head, telling me the same thing my mother used to. "They just make me even more nauseated. I can usually sleep through them. What time is it?"
"A little after ten," I told her, watching as she calculated how long she'd been asleep.
"I slept all day."
"Pretty much."
"I'm still tired."
"Go back to sleep," I suggested, shrugging.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're standing there staring at me," she said, eyes rolling a bit before she fell back on the pillows with a grumble, throwing her arm over her forehead once again.
"Good night, Princess," I murmured, making my way to the door.
"Thank you, Trip. For the fire," she clarified.
I closed her door feeling a wave of relief wash through me.
If we could be civil when she suddenly found me invading her personal space without permission, I had a lot of hope for the next several days.
We would be able to get along well enough to fool her parents.
And then we could all just go back to our lives.
Or so I told myself.
So I thought.
As it turned out, fate had other plans in mind.
Well, fate.
As well as Kathy and Mitch.
CHAPTER TEN
Juliette
Crippling, soul-sucking migraine gone, I woke up feeling like a new person, which was usually the case after a headache put me down in bed unable to open my eyes because when I did, my stomach rolled and threatened to empty its meager contents, for half—or a whole—day.
My eyes still felt a little swollen, I was dehydrated, and I was starving, but I felt great as I rushed through my shower, got dressed, then made my way down the stairs, ready to head straight to the fridge to have leftovers at six in the morning.
Not even the sight of Trip already in the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee, leaning a bit over the island—and likely ready to pick at me about something—was enough to dull my mood.
"Hey, Princess. We got a problem," he said, pushing a sheet of paper across the island toward me as I approached.
One glance told me my mother had left a note. I had seen her handwritten notes on the island hundreds of times over the years in that swirling, perfect penmanship that made my own chicken scratch look like a child had done it.
"Problem?" I repeated, grabbing the note.
Pudge & Trip - Sorry to have to leave so abruptly, but we had a pressing issue sprung on us all of a sudden. We would have waited for you two to wake up, but the weather station claimed we were in for an unexpectedly intense snow shower. We needed to get on the road early to get ahead of it. Please stay for the rest of the holiday. Finish up the food. Enjoy the ambiance. We will call when we are back home.
Love always, Mom and Dad.
Something about the phrase 'unexpectedly intense snow shower' had my stomach twisting.
Now, I loved snow.
I loved snow as much as a kid who woke up to watch the news to find their district had closed for the day.
But an 'unexpectedly intense snow shower' sounded like it might be the kind of thing that would make it absolutely impossible to avoid Trip should we start butting heads once again. Which, given our history, seemed more like an eventuality than a possibility.
"'Unexpectedly intense snow shower,'" I repeated aloud, glancing up to find Trip turning to walk toward the living room.
"Already on it," he told me, grabbing the remote, flicking on the TV to the weather station.
Without even grabbing a coffee first, I moved into the living room, waiting for them to finish a rambling about the snow preparedness, before getting back to the actual snow forecast.
"That can't be right," I blurted out, seeing the numbers.
"This is Maine. We're like a skip and a jump from Canada here..."
"Yeah, but there is never snow like that at this time of the year! The most we have ever gotten is like two or three inches over the Thanksgiving holiday. Ten to twelve inches is insane."
Ten to twelve inches sounded like—even if we managed to shovel out the giant, sprawling driveway—we might have to wait three or four days at least before the main road was cleared since it was practically a private drive given that only my parent's home was off of it, and it was clearly not going to take top priority.
"Well, at least we know we won't starve," he said, shrugging it off, not the least bit concerned about the possibility of us strangling each other at some point in the very near future because we were trapped together with no one else to buffer our tumultuous moods and outbursts.
Food was the least of my worries as I made my way back to the kitchen, pouring a coffee, putting my usual sugar and syrup in it before going to the fridge to get the milk
It was right about then that I realized something was amiss.
That maybe my sainted mother was not quite so innocent after all.
Because we had been on the last half of the milk.
But now there was an extra gallon tucked away in the back.
The rational part of my brain told me that I was probably being paranoid, that I likely had just missed the extra gallon of milk, that there had been so many leftovers tucked away that I may have missed it.
That rational part of me wanted me to believe that because I had never known my mother to be a liar. In fact, she was honest to a fault. I learned the truth about Santa because, at seven, I had asked a really innocent question about why she had wrapping paper in her closet that matched my Christmas presents. Whereas other parents may have fumbled before croaking out something about how Santa asked them to provide wrapping paper this year, my mother blushed and cried and told me the truth right then and there.
The other part of my brain, though, felt like something was off, and went in search for confirmation.
It didn't take long.
There were more oranges. When my mother had complained just the morning before that she was out.
There was a new—sealed—tub of whipped butter.
And fresh bagels on the counter.
My father always watched the weather before bed.
He had to have known this was coming.
He would have shared that with my mother.
Who then hatched a plan to—what—escape while they could while leaving us to fight it out?
That did not sound like her.
But what other excuse could there be?
They had to have left before the sun was even up, gone down to town, come back with supplies, then packed up and left.
To what end, though?
"What's that look for?" Trip asked, head cocked to the side as my mind raced from here to
there and back again.
"I, ah—" I mumbled, not wanting to implicate my mother in case I did happen to just have it all wrong. "I need to get out of here," I decided, wondering how quickly I could get my bags re-packed, get down the hill, and even just, I don't know, get a hotel room until the storm passed so that I could go home.
"Too late, Princess," Trip told me, making me turn back to my race up to my room.
"Too late?" I repeated, finding him waving an arm out toward the windows.
And, sure enough, there were the fat tufts of snow already steadily starting to fall from the sky.
"Noooo," I whimpered, shoulders falling.
It was coming down hard already. Even if I did grab my stuff and head out, the roads would already have a coating. Driving on them even in good weather was nerve-racking with their narrowness and tendency toward twisting at obnoxious angles.
I maybe didn't want to be stuck with Trip—alone—but I didn't want to escape it only to end up in a coffin either.
"I thought you liked snow?"
"I love snow," I corrected. "I am not too keen on being trapped because of it," I admitted.
"Trapped with me, you mean," he clarified, but didn't seem offended either.
"Well, yeah," I told him, shaking my head. "I mean, you can't be thrilled about this either."
"Thrilled, no. Especially if you are going to be a pain in the ass about it."
"I am not being a pain in the ass! We can hardly even discuss the weather without arguing, Trip. The weather. The most innocuous topic known to mankind."
"We aren't arguing about the weather. We are debating the implications of being stuck with each other. Which is a different topic."
"We are probably going to be trapped for days, Trip."
"Yeah," he agreed, nodding. "That seems likely."
"And you're okay with that?"
"I recognize that there isn't anything we can do about it. So there is no reason to stress out about it. And grind your teeth about it," he added a bit pointedly.
There was always a reason to stress out about things. Or, at least, that was how my mind liked to operate. I could always find something to freak out about, to keep me up at night, to keep my mind occupied until I worked myself up to an anxiety attack.
There Better Be Pie Page 11
