Snowed In

by Jenna Bayley-Burke

  She heard the couch settle, the soles of his boots jam against her floor, and then quiet. Unnerving stillness.

  “Marissa, you can’t play the victim when you’re the one causing the tragedy.”

  Her eyes flew open, finding him fully clothed in the middle of her living room, his bag over one shoulder and keys in his hand. She didn’t respond, not sure if she was capable.

  “I want to be with you. And when no one is looking you want to be with me. But I don’t understand why I am some dirty little secret, why you care more about what your so-called friends might think than how I feel.” The pain in his voice shredded her soul.

  She hadn’t wanted to hurt him in any of this. She’d tried so hard to be straightforward. Honest. She loved him today, and for always. But she had to love herself more.

  “Say something,” Scott whispered.

  She hated seeing him like this, his features pinched and his eyes stunned and glassy. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too.” His lips tried to curve, but flattened as if he’d forgotten how to smile.

  She closed her eyes so she didn’t have the image of him leaving, but the slamming door and footsteps pounding on the stairs outside filled it in for her. This was the right choice, the smart choice. But damn if it didn’t feel like nothing would ever be right again.

  16

  “Hi, Scott.” Tanya peeked into his office. “Got a minute?”

  “Not really.” He focused on the building supply order because he didn’t want to forget anything that might stall out his renovation weekend. Extra trips to town only made him stop and think, and his mind wasn’t a good place to be right now.

  “Darby said you were busy when I asked for you.” She stood in his doorway in her pastel pink business suit, as if he’d invited her in. “Are you going to see Marissa this weekend?”

  Her name hit him like a slap. He hadn’t heard from her since he’d left her apartment two weeks ago, and at this point he doubted he ever would. “I’m working at the condos.”

  “I was hoping you could talk her into coming back here for a few days.”

  He didn’t respond, just stared at Tanya’s worried expression. She obviously hadn’t talked with Marissa since he had last. She surely would have told her that she’d dumped him like a bag of trash.

  “She’s not talking to me. Which you probably know. This is her usual, she’ll ignore me until she’s over it and then everything will be back to normal. But I need her to call me. And I know you probably don’t want to get involved, but—”

  “We’re not together.” And he doubted they ever had been, except in his imagination. He’d read the entire situation wrong. Or maybe right. He really didn’t know at this point.

  “What? When did that happen?”

  “Thanksgiving.” His head started to ache, like his temples were trying to squeeze together.

  “But the girls saw you there.”

  “I was there.” He gave her a look he hoped read Cease and desist. If he knew what happened, he could fix it. He could fix anything, but not this.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know. When she’s upset with someone she goes all radio silence until she gets over it, then she acts like nothing happened.”

  “Tanya?” The ache pulsed through his head, tensing his shoulders and tightening his neck.

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t care.” He reached into his drawer for his ibuprofen, but the bottle was empty.

  “Right. Sure. I get it.” She let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry it didn’t work with you guys. I wanted it to, for whatever that’s worth.”

  It wasn’t worth a damn, not to him. He turned his attention back to his monitor and the mental calculations for how much flooring to order. And baseboards.

  His office door clicked close before he relaxed his shoulders. He would not worry about where Marissa was, if she was okay. She had friends who would check on her. Just because she wasn’t talking to Tanya didn’t mean she’d disappeared.

  From anywhere but his life.

  Marissa sat on the floor of her almost empty apartment and set her drive-through salad on a box labeled kitchen. Once she’d decided to save money by renting a room in a house instead of her own apartment, she’d sold her couch and table. In two weeks she’d only have room for her bed and a dresser, so she’d started getting rid of as much as she could.

  She speared the lettuce with a plastic fork and wished she hadn’t sold her cake pans. A nice chocolate Bundt cake would be good. Or a Better than Sex cake. Which she now knew wasn’t, but since she wasn’t having any, it would’ve been something.

  Scott was right, chocolate did not help sexual frustration, but the sugar high numbed her to missing him. Kept her hands busy so she didn’t pick up the phone and ask what he was doing, who he was seeing now. Knowing he’d moved on would be a dagger through the heart, but then she’d know she’d made the right choice.

  She’d made it through the last weeks by keeping her mind occupied at work. But every night they closed the place down and she had to go home. Alone. Running only made the pity party worse. So she’d tried to find an exercise class and actually punched herself kickboxing. Her butt was still numb two days after spin class, the stillness of yoga only had her recalling lazy afternoons at Scott’s place, step aerobics made her think of running up the stairs at the cabin searching for condoms, and the suggestive moves in the cardio salsa class reminded her of all the sex she wasn’t having.

  She’d even tried her hand at painting, but the instructor decided they should create a snow scene with trees and a cute little cabin in the distance. Marissa excused herself to go to the bathroom and never came back. She kept trying, though. Time spent staring at walls, replaying that damned conversation, had started to make her think she’d lost her mind.

  Ending things with Scott was the smart choice. And yet she couldn’t help thinking of him whenever she was off guard. When she woke up, as she fell asleep, while waiting in her car to pick up food she couldn’t really seem to eat. They’d been apart longer now than they were together, so her feelings were unjustified and out of proportion. And yet there they were, niggling little memories about sweet kisses and quiet laughter and falling in the snow.

  A knock on the door made her jump, upending her dinner all over the floor. She shook her head as she got up, knowing it would be one of her girlfriends intent on dragging her out to live up a Friday night. Only she’d tried that and every guy who talked to her was patently not Scott. Being out, even as Amy’s drink bait, made her feel like she was doing something wrong.

  She hoped whomever thought to stop by would think she was already out and keep on moving. She wanted to enjoy her privacy while she still had it and spend some quality time watching movies that let her cry appropriately. She craved the release.

  The door lock scraped and she jumped up, not sure if someone had a key or was picking her lock to rob her. They’d be so disappointed. Her pulse kicked up as she hunted for a weapon, but with so little left she had to choose between the heel on her shoe or hurling the box of kitchen stuff.

  The door opened and she tossed the box at it, hitting the wall. The noise of breaking glass and shattering plates filled the room as silverware spilled onto the floor. Tanya peeked inside, annoyance apparent on her face.

  “That’s one way to pack.” She stepped inside like she had every right to be there, and since she still paid half the rent, she did. She closed the door and looked around for somewhere to put her bag. “Did you already move out?”

  She shook her head. “I have until New Year’s Eve. What are you doing here?”

  “If you would have answered my calls, or called me back, you’d know. But you’re being pissy, and rather than yelling at me and getting it out, you’re avoiding me. We’ve been friends for years, I know how you operate.”

  “You don’t want to hear what I have to say to you. Which is why I haven’t called.” She knelt on the floor and picked up the sad bits of lettuce, tossin
g them in the bag.

  “So, say it. I’m a big girl.”

  Okay then. “I can get a job on my own merit, you don’t have to talk me up like I’m some kind of event genius. You need to stop pairing people with jobs they don’t need in towns they don’t want to live in.”

  “You’re welcome. You rocked the phone interview, by the way.”

  Marissa tied the mess of her dinner in the bag it had come in, then set the bag outside the door.

  “Did you get rid of the trash can too?”

  She had, but she wasn’t about to admit it while Tanya was giving her tone. She was a master of diffusing confrontations at work, but in her personal life she’d rather avoid them altogether. And so she strolled through her bedroom to the en suite bath. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and sighed. She would miss having her own bathroom.

  “What happened with Scott?”

  Marissa jumped for the second time in ten minutes. “Did you really follow me into the bathroom?”

  “I want to know what went down.” Tanya met her gaze in the mirror, cheeks rosy and face shining, happiness practically spilling out her pores.

  “It didn’t work out. Our past is complicated and long-distance relationships aren’t my thing. Plus he wanted me to get a job in Bend and move in with him.”

  “Move in with him? When?”

  “Two weeks ago. He stood in my kitchen and said I should just leave with him because he could load everything I owned in the back of his truck. I tried to explain why he needed to slow down, why I could never let someone else be the North Star in my life.”

  “You broke up with him?”

  “Thanks for thinking he dumped me.” She crossed her arms over the Mooseltoe cartoon nightshirt she only wore during the holidays.

  “I’m flying blind here. When I left for my honeymoon you were smitten.”

  “I wasn’t smitten.” She turned to face the worst friend in the whole apartment.

  “A smitten kitten. That’s why you slept with him. I mean, come on. You have an eight-date rule about sex.”

  And few of the men she dated lasted that long. “There was nothing better to do. We were trapped up there by the snow.”

  “I call bullshit.” Tanya stood there, all smug and perfect in her pale pink suit.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Bull. Shit.” She left the bathroom as if that were the end of the conversation.

  Marissa followed her into the bedroom, where Tanya sat on the bed like it was her own. “Did you come all the way here to piss me off? That’s fun for you?”

  “I came here because you need to come to Bend and do your interview and land a better job. You’re too close to throw it away. Word in town is that you’ve also interviewed at the resort and they’re offering you more money.”

  “You come to the homes of everyone the hotel hires?”

  “You want the job.” Tanya shrugged out of her cropped suit coat and laid it across her lap. “You wouldn’t have bothered with the phone interview if you didn’t. They loved your questions, your ideas.”

  “I did the interview because event planning interests me. It’s a hipster hotel offering everything from concerts to brewfests. It’s fascinating. That’s why I did the interview.”

  “And the interview with the resort?” Tanya pushed off her sling-back heels, letting them fall to the floor.

  “I wanted to share my thoughts on the challenges with your wedding weekend.” She pulled a nightshirt from her dresser, because Tanya seemed intent on staying. “Their planner was in over her head and I wanted to tell them the training she needed.”

  “Aha! I knew you’d interviewed with them too. Are they offering you more money? Because there is wiggle room with salary, and I know our benefit package is better than theirs.”

  “Tanya, stop. I don’t have any job offers. Just requests for in-person interviews, which I’m not doing because I’m not moving. Well, I am moving, but not to you.”

  “Why would you stay here, make less money, and pay more to live? I know how determined you are to pay off your student loans. You could do that so much faster if you took the job.”

  “Okay, again, I don’t have the job. I don’t want to move to central Oregon where I could get stuck in snow or broiled by the summer heat.” She would not ask how much more money Tanya was talking about. Because she couldn’t take the job, and financial temptation was always her weakness.

  “Are you reluctant because of Scott? You broke up with him, so you should be fine with it.”

  Yes, she should be. And yet here she was, wishing he hadn’t pushed so hard, and that she hadn’t pulled away. “I don’t like snow.”

  “We have four seasons. And Scott Zimmermann.”

  “I’m not with Scott.”

  “Well, why the hell not?”

  “Because the more I’m with him, the more likely I’ll give in. And if I did, I would lose myself again. I can see clearly how his life would consume mine. And sometimes I wonder if I can trust him. He knew Chris cheated and didn’t tell me. Didn’t warn me, and I never guessed he was lying to me.”

  “The whole team kept his secrets. We went through this when I started dating Matt last year. And you’ve moved past it with him.”

  “I barely knew Matt, but Scott was my friend. He let it happen, and I know he regrets it and would change it if he could. But it takes time to build trust back, and he wants everything right now. I tried to ask him to slow down, and I could tell he was inches from an ultimatum.”

  “So you ended it first. Usually the right move, except you’re both miserable.” Tanya changed into the nightshirt with a giant grizzly declaring DON’T FEED THE HIPSTERS! “Teams are like a family. If Scott had told you, the dynamic of the team would have shifted. Chris might be a horrible person, but he’s a great player.”

  She knew that better than anyone. “I can’t build a future with someone who didn’t want to rock the boat to save me, and so he let me drown.”

  “You didn’t drown, though. You saved yourself. You didn’t need him to be your white knight. It would have been easier if he’d given you a heads-up, but it wouldn’t have been better.”

  The thought stopped her cold. If he’d told her when she got to campus, she would’ve been embarrassed and left school. Without Chris to assure her money wouldn’t be an issue once he went pro, she never would have had the guts to take out the loans she needed to pay for it. She would have run home and lived a life like her parents. She wouldn’t have a degree, or have found her passion for event planning by organizing the sorority parties and her would-be wedding. And without the pressure of the mountain of student loan debt, she wouldn’t have been determined to land a good job, to excel at it so that she could be a success.

  “I like you much more now than I did back then. And I’m a professional judge of character.”

  “You didn’t like me?”

  “Little Miss Perfect who had a fifty-year plan when I couldn’t figure out a five? You were going to start having babies right away while the rest of us weren’t sure we could handle taking care of a cat. I never would have asked that girl to move in with me. I couldn’t live with that kind of pressure.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She sank onto the bed beside her friend.

  “I didn’t like Marissa, athlete-wife-in-training, because you were playing a role for someone else. We’d see glimpses of you, but most of the time you were annoying as hell.”

  Since when had Tanya become a rudester? “Oh yeah, this makes me want to live closer to you.”

  “Once you got rid of that piece of shit, you were just Marissa, all the time. And I love you. You’re an amazing friend and a hard worker, you love to clean and have amazing taste in ice cream. Perfect roommate. You should give Matt pointers.”

  “Matt’s pointer got you to move. He doesn’t need tips from me.”

  “True. But it’s your fault I left so quickly.”

  “I am the perfect roommate. I have references.”
<
br />   “Dynamite. When I was all mopey because Matt moved you said that if the only thing keeping me from being with Matt was a job, I ought to get a new one.”

  “I was half kidding. And half wanting you to stop eating my chocolate-mint cookie stash in the freezer.”

  “You told me chocolate helped sexual frustration.”

  “I was wrong about that.”

  “You think? Anyway, I’m saying you should take your own advice. If there is something between you two that you can’t get around, get over it.”

  “Of all people, I can’t believe you’re telling me to move to a city I don’t know, where I don’t have a job or a place to live—all over a guy? I took that trip once, it dead-ends.”

  “Nobody goes through life without making mistakes. It’s why we make them and how we handle them that make us who we are. I mean, I probably made a mistake by sending your résumé for two jobs you’d be great at, but I wanted you to have the opportunity. And I drove all the way here on a Friday night just to spend the weekend with you. Because you can’t let being mad at me get in the way of a great career move.”

  She couldn’t argue that the jobs in Bend weren’t better than what she had now. But they came with a town where a man lived who she didn’t think she was ever going to get over, or get around.

  “Listen, I don’t know if Scott’s the guy for you. But this is the right job.”

  Bend had become the land of opportunity. Jobs, money, and a man who made her feel all the feelings—good and bad. She needed to think, to make lists of pros and cons and weigh everything, because on paper she knew what to do.

  Her heart was another matter entirely.

  Scott followed Matt into the neighborhood and parked along the curb in front of the newly built Craftsman-style house. The landscape lighting and perfectly manicured shrubs made the house look more like a model than an actual home. After another long weekend of hard physical labor stripping the condos down to the drywall, he just wanted to go home and sleep. But Matt had tapped his latest homebrew, a triple-hopped citrus IPA that sounded promising. Scott grabbed the insulated growler he kept behind the seat of his truck, and then followed Matt inside.