Pride and Pancakes

by Ellen Mint

  Tristan directed a blue-eyed gleam at Beth and her dismissive tone melted in spite of herself. They’d used those preternaturally blue eyes to sell his first album. Nothing more than a close-up of them staring intently at the buyer, dark hair with bleached tips sweeping in from the sides. Those were the only thing that hadn’t dimmed with age, somehow growing more piercing instead.

  “Hmph.” Tristan gave his first hint of life in an hour. “That’s a rather good-sized bed for a cabin.”

  What do you know about cabins?

  Did you stay in many?

  Were you homeless as a child and forced to survive in the woods?

  Are you living in one now because you spent all the money from your music on golden jaguars and silk pants?

  Beth swallowed down the preposterous thoughts. Some might have been accurate, but there was no chance she could get him to cough up an answer. He wouldn’t even tell her why a Christmas album, the very damn thing he was out promoting. Why does anyone put up with his acidic tongue?

  “It’s their honeymoon suite,” she said instead, digging a hand into her hunched shoulders to try and fish out a decade-old knot. He didn’t even know where he was holding her hostage.

  “Had to be difficult to transport something that size through the trees,” was his response.

  “Better to suffer the broken branches and taillights than the harsh reviews of unhappy couples,” Beth said, letting her stark pessimism free.

  Tristan snorted—whether in laughter or derision, she couldn’t tell. Tipping his head back with his eyes closed made his pronounced Adam’s apple dip. “Vows never include mention of having to stack together in a twin.”

  A laugh tried to rise in response to his joke, but Beth shook it off. She was growing weary of the games. She needed to get this damn article started or suffer the wrath of her editor. And the subject was proving to be a brick wall.

  “Why do you have that?” he asked, a long finger jabbing to her lap.

  She tapped her pen thrice upon the notebook, watching him nod that that was what he meant. When she wasn’t forthcoming with an answer, he explained, “Shouldn’t your recording be more than enough?”

  “It cannot capture your emotions”—not that you seem to have any—“your body posture”—like a man facing the electric chair—“or your habit of flexing your fingernails into your knees to hold your tongue.”

  At that, Tristan yanked his hands clean off his thighs. Beth smirked from the first real wound she’d gotten under his armor. He whipped his fingers through the air as if the blood had fled from them, trying to pretend that was why.

  “And, if you must pry,” she continued for no good reason, “I find comfort in it.”

  “In the act of writing, or the feel of paper in your hand?”

  That sounded rather romantic. Interesting. Not surprising given his oeuvre, but she’d never seen mention of him preferring the tactile sensation of writing. Beth scribbled down her thoughts on the subject. Perhaps a dive into older millennial musicians and their approach to songwriting? It could be…

  Her skin prickled with the prey-sensation of a jaguar staring at its next meal through the thick grass. A jaguar with sapphire eyes. “I feel reassured that my notebook will never lose power or catch a virus,” she said, slamming shut any thoughts he might have on them sharing a single trait in common.

  “Sensible.” Tristan tipped his head as if he’d sacrificed a rook to move his knight. It was foolish, but a warm beam of pride hatched in her. So she’d impressed one man? So what? An obstinate, pain-in-the-ass man with sparkling eyes. “Did you learn that trick at some social media influencer symposium?”

  Beth gripped so tight to her pen that her knuckles popped bone-white. The thin plastic cracked, but it was better to take her anger out on an easily replaceable pen. For a beat, the image of her cramming the nub into his eye flashed through her mind. Instagram model? Ha! She did most of her work in her pajamas at two in the morning with stress playing her nerves like a xylophone.

  But no. All he could think, assume, was that any woman struggling to work in this cut-throat, shriveling industry had to have shown off her tits and ass.

  The urge to impale him grew stronger. Beth moved to place down her pen when she read over the nuclear option she’d laid out in her research, the reporter inside her trying to not lick her chops in anticipation.

  “Mr. Harty,” she began, circling the cracked pen over the name as she spoke. “While you are clearly less than willing to discuss why you returned to music…”

  “Hmph,” he snorted.

  “Perhaps we should begin with why you left in the first place.”

  His lackadaisical posture snapped tight in an instant. The face that’d been scanning the room for the hundredth time scorched through her. She watched his lips mouth something. It looked like no, but she couldn’t hear it. Taking a moment to write out a few choice curse words across her pad, Beth let him marinate in what was coming.

  “Sash—”

  She couldn’t even finish the name before Tristan leaped to his feet. A grumble rolled from his not-so-stoic lips. “This interview is over!”

  Beth’s body moved of its own accord, trying to block the frustrated man from leaving. It wasn’t until she stood between him and the door that she noticed that his form, while lean, was taut with strength. And how he had nearly a foot on her height, on top of the biceps straining as if he wanted to yank his hair out.

  “Sit down, please.” Her voice didn’t tremble, her hands digging into her notepad and her shoulders down as if she was unimpressed by his sudden outburst. But her fingers remained wrapped around her pen, ready to defend herself.

  “For what purpose?” Tristan asked. “To allow you to…to peck and prod at matters left in the past? To defame me for…” The flames in his eyes faded to an indescribable pain. Was it from the loss written in red in his history or because questions related to it wouldn’t cease?

  “You’re a vulture,” he grumbled, covering his face with a hand. “All of you are. A flock of them flitting about the successful, chewing upon the bones and viscera of whoever crosses your path.”

  Beth’s eyes rolled as she muttered, “Melodramatic.”

  “Excuse me?”

  God, how did this go so off the rails so quickly? She’d known he’d be cold to the point of hostility, but her hard tactics weren’t winning her anything but a pink slip. Damn it, why hadn’t she tried sweetening him up first?

  “You are melodramatic, as are all artists who hide away under the umbrella of ‘it’s for my art.’ One slight hiccup and you gnash and wail as if the world’s coming down around you. As if you’re better than everyone else in the world.” Yep, so much for that article. So much for that job. Beth could feel it all slipping away. Her shit desk in that open warehouse, her boss demanding more and more sensational clicks with each article, the unending pressure to go viral with each post.

  Tristan reared back as if she had jabbed him with the pen. His face flared so alive he stopped being that snooty bookstore owner who vanished with the wallpaper. His thin lips cranked into a snarl, a white canine tooth prodding out as if he was about to turn into a vampire. “And what are you supposed journalists?”

  “Vultures, apparently,” she spat back, not caring what he thought of her.

  A snort answered her, as if he was mad she’d stolen his chance to play his greatest hits. “Scum, pathetic posers with a phone camera sitting outside children’s soccer games in order to upend their lives. Worms who root through a person’s words and twist them about until you have your hot take to burn them alive. All you care about, all you live for, is appeasing your ad revenue overlords. And the bodies you crush in the process, they’re not even given a second thought.”

  Beth growled deep in her throat. “I have never—”

  “None of them have ever. Somehow it’s always the other reporters that do despite the proliferation of such pain.” He rose above her, steam snorting from his nose
. She too took a step closer, her head craned back to glare directly into that callous face. Heartless didn’t even begin to describe Mr. Harty. Contempt leeched from his pores and castigation dripped off his lips.

  “You know…” Beth began, taking another step closer. In doing so, her trusty notebook smacked into his gut. There wasn’t much give below the crimson vest, but neither combatant glanced down.

  A smirk knotted up his mouth and he stole her words, “‘Nothing’? Where have I heard that one before?”

  “This interview is over,” she ordered, snapping her notebook closed and yanking up her phone. Jamming on the button to stop the recording, she noticed its poor battery life was nearly spent. How long had they been at this?

  Tristan tugged on his hair as if confused to find it gelled. “Finally,” he sighed, shaking his head and sending more dandruff cascading to the carpet. She hadn’t intended to mention it before, but her hand itched to include it along with every malady on his aging body. Stop the presses! Once-Teen Star In His Thirties Doesn’t Look Like A Teen Anymore.

  Cursing at herself for the stupid headline, she watched Tristan tug out his own phone from his pants pocket. After finding the number he wanted and cupping his cell to his ear, he stared hard at Beth. She deliberately turned her back on him, not caring what he was thinking or had to say. Let him stew in his own juices. Let his manager chew him out for bungling this simple press junket.

  She’d get enough of that when she called her editor.

  “Barry?” Tristan’s venomous voice drained as he spoke to someone it was clear he could stand. “We’re done. Come and get me.”

  Her skin tingled at the leopard once again staring her down. Beth risked potential mauling by glancing at him. When he caught her look, Tristan mouthed, “Thank God I will never see you again.”

  “Ditto,” she whispered back.

  “Yeah, Tris, about that…” the phone answered, causing the man to press it tighter to his ear as if to make the conversation private.

  “It’s just a little snow, Barry. Please, please get up here to…” Tristan swallowed what might have been a plea for rescue and instead said, “Screw your courage to the sticking place.”

  “You are aware that’s what Lady Macbeth told her husband and therefore doomed them all in the process?” Beth muttered to herself while packing up her things, but it was loud enough to ensnare the beleaguered artiste.

  “Yes, yes, and you’re my Birnam wood come to Dunsinane,” he deadpanned before returning to his phone. “Not you, Barry.”

  She hated to admit it, but she was surprised he knew the reference. Sure, he wore his haughty pretentiousness like a bespoke tux, but in her experience, most with their noses in a snoot survived by knowing only a handful of things. They’d then bombard a person with them endlessly for praise. People who tour the country with boybands in high school don’t tend to correlate to those possessing vast pools of knowledge. Has dandruff, knows Macbeth. She thought about writing it down when she caught Tristan’s stricken look.

  “Do not play games, Barry. I mean it. I need you here, now.”

  “Is your manager abandoning you?” Beth snorted, her overloaded purse tucked under her arm. She gave a quick once-over of the room, having no intentions of returning to this cabin or coming near it again. She opened the bedroom door and glanced back at the fretting man. “Your team will be contacted when the article goes up.”

  She expected that to be the final shot across the bow, but Tristan snickered. “Do you think you’re leaving?”

  “Yes, and with my tattered dignity intact, no less.”

  “Well, good luck then.”

  She tried to shake it off, to ignore him, but Beth’s hackles wouldn’t cease rising. Her opinion cemented that he was pricklier than a porcupine, she headed for the exit. For a brief second, she was about to point out the fireplace and how someone needed to put it out. But that was his problem.

  Perhaps he was hoping she’d offer him a ride, as if being trapped in a small vehicle with the man for the twenty-minute drive to civilization was in any way appealing. With a smug smile on her lips, Beth glanced back at him. You’re on your own, artist.

  She cracked open the front door and walked into a sea of white. No.

  No!

  Freezing cold air blew the white flakes fat as erasers into her face.

  “Seems the storm blew in already,” Tristan mused while they gazed out at the snow blanketing away every tire track, hint of the road, means of escape. And it was climbing higher.

  No!

  Chapter Four

  He shouldn’t laugh, but watching her trudge, coat open to the elements, through the rising drifts of snow to glare at the uncrossable roads was rather hilarious. Heavy flakes built up in her jet-black hair until it looked star-speckled, but despite the white swarming across her shoulders and head, she wasn’t about to give up for anything. Which seemed even more farcical when he caught what she’d driven in with.

  “What are you doing?” Tristan asked, looming in the doorway. He should close the door before the last of the heat vanished from the cozy cabin, but he didn’t want to be pulled into her madness either.

  “Leaving,” Ms. Cho snorted, naked fingers grabbing onto the freezing metal of the door handle. To his surprise, she didn’t even flinch while cranking it open. Perhaps rage was heating her body.

  He waited until she fell into her driver’s seat before risking a step into the blizzard. That was a bit of a misnomer. He’d seen far worse storms in his younger days, but the snow was heavy from the humidity and clumping the second it struck. That led to dangerous driving conditions he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.

  Also, the last thing he needed was people asking about the reporter run off the road after interviewing him.

  Clomping down into the snow, he tried to match her footprints through the cold blanket, but she’d marched with such a long stride Tristan lost it. Gripping the car’s roof, he leaned closer to the woman trying unsuccessfully to dig out the snow that had followed her in.

  “It won’t work,” he said.

  “Then the heater will melt it,” she sneered, swinging her legs inside. Tristan waited for the door to come slamming into his fingers, but all she did was wring out the no-doubt frozen steering wheel.

  “What do you think the chances are of you making it down this mountain alive in little more than a sheet of plastic attached to a metal frame? Who even drives something so flimsy in the winter?”

  “Sorry we can’t all afford military-grade Hummers for day trips,” she said, but still the door didn’t slam.

  Tristan chuckled to himself at the idea of owning such a thing. A standard truck would do much better in this. Though… He gazed down the fog-coated path, the back of his neck prickling when he realized he couldn’t even find the road. Perhaps nothing short of a tank would make it through this storm.

  “Come inside,” he sighed, feeling the sub-freezing temperature whistling through the linen shirt. The cruel northern wind found its way past the suit coat and drew chills up and down his chest.

  Ms. Cho harrumphed and dug her obstinate heels in. Metaphorically. Even she knew better than to try to push on the accelerator without starting the engine.

  “At least to wait out the storm. No one can see in this, never mind drive.” Tristan couldn’t believe he was arguing to keep her around, but it was preferable to causing her death, albeit indirectly. God, he wasn’t certain if he had the strength to pluck her recalcitrant body out of the car and back inside.

  “I’ve got a better idea.” She crammed her key into the ignition and turned the engine over. Tristan slid out of the way, fearing she might suddenly ram on the reverse to take him out. But the door still remained open as she spoke. “I’ll wait it out here. Without you.”

  He glanced at the mound of snow swept up over the tailpipe and only growing higher. “As you wish, but it sounds like a good way to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  A sneer knott
ed up her cherry lips, her little nose crinkling in disgust. For a foolish second, his heart wondered if there was someone in her life who’d kiss that pile of wrinkles away. What did he care? The storm would pass in an hour, a few at the most, then he’d be free of Ms. Cho.

  Her fingers continued to flex and claw at the steering wheel as if she really thought she could plow her way through the snow. His best guess was that she’d make it maybe twenty feet before either losing traction and sticking or spinning off the road into a tree. Either way, he’d be forced to walk to her car and rescue her.

  “Fine,” she spat, honestly surprising him. After the display from before, Tristan had been counting on her smashing into a tree and him plucking her unresponsive body from the wreckage into his arms and carrying her to safety. With that much fire in her belly, her body had to be particularly warm.

  The cold was getting to him. He sneered at his foolish thoughts trying to impede common sense, but it was clear she read it differently. “I’m not happy about this either,” Ms. Cho said, silencing her car and rising to her feet. She wobbled once her heels struck the snow and, on instinct, Tristan reached out to grab her.

  Ms. Cho gripped her car’s roof as she steadied herself without his help. They stood dangerously close, his hands hanging on to the open car door and the roof. Hers nearly bumped into his to keep herself upright. Steam buffeted between them, Tristan enthralled as snowflakes built up on her eyelashes. They fluttered above her deep brown eyes and cheeks paling from the cold. She looked both as fragile as a snowflake and impenetrable as ice in the same breath.

  “Will you move?”

  “Sorry, sorry, I…” He scampered away, his face burning at the treachery of his body. Once away from the corona of her being, he was able to take in the cooling air of common sense. “I take it you do not intend to risk the elements like some female Jack London.”

  “Ha.” She gathered her things and tucked them tightly to her body as if they were both a protector and a balm. Stomping to the house, she muttered, “I hope you don’t expect me to pull you out of a river.”