by Lucy Snow
He stayed quiet for a moment, then cracked that smile again. “I saw the patch on your jacket, Naomi. I know where you go to school. That’s a rich kid’s school.” He sat back in his chair, interlocking his fingers behind his head as he stared upwards. “I’ve seen the people at that school. It’s a country club for rich Meridian kids.”
I pulled my hand back, and took a bite before saying anything else; I was so mad I was almost shaking. “Listen,” I fumed. “You don’t know anything about me, alright? We’re strangers. You don’t know anything about my life, and I don’t know anything about yours. Let’s keep it that way.”
Alex pulled back, holding up his hands, palms facing me. “I come in peace, jeez, alright?” That smile again. “Take a cue from outside and chill for a bit. We’re gonna be here a little while together, and unless you want to hang out with Marty and Clara till this storm moves on, we might as well get a little more civil.”
“I have no problem with civil, Alex,” I replied. “Whenever you’re ready for that you let me know. Until then, Marty and Clara are at least more…respectful, than you are.”
Alex gave me a pained look. “I thought I was being pretty respectful when I saved your pretty little ass from that bus. Or when I stopped you from going back inside to get who knows what.”
Again, I saw red, waves of sadness and anger washing over me for not keeping my sister’s diary on me instead of my bag. Now it was gone forever, even though it was still right there. I could feel it calling to me even from this distance away.
Waiting for me to respond, Alex smiled confidently and went back to eating. I sat and kept fuming, unable to put together the right words that I wanted to find to put him in his place once and for all.
“Relax, Naooooomi,” Alex said, drawing my name out super obviously as if to make sure that I noticed he wasn’t calling me princess anymore. “Eat your food, or hand over your plate. I can’t get enough of this stuff.”
I looked down at my food and my mouth started watering all over again; I’d forgotten about it since Alex had gotten me all riled up over nothing. Why did I let this guy have that effect on me? Get a grip. I picked at it, ravenous, but not wanting Alex to know that he was right about at least that.
Eventually, though, I couldn’t help myself, and eating was way better than talking to Alex, so I focused on my plate and we found some blessed silence for a little while.
“What were you doing out there?” I couldn’t resist - I had to know. “Not the best time to be out on the road, you know.”
Alex set his fork down. “I could say the same about you,” he quickly added, before pausing. “I was going to see someone.”
“Sounds serious.”
Alex waved his hand and then picked up his fork and grinned at his plate. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
We ate in silence for a minute.
“So, then, Naaaaomi,” he started again. “I gotta say I’m a little curious. What were you willing to go back all that way for?”
I left my fork stabbed into a mound of mashed potatoes on my plate and gave him my best withering look, despite how gorgeous he was. It really was a shame that such a hot guy was so terrible. “Don’t bring that up again.”
Alex took another bite of food. I’d managed to finish my plate and I was debating going back for more. I still felt like I could eat a supermarket’s worth of food. It was as if the storm outside had amplified my hunger over and over like the driving snow.
“You still won’t tell me what was in there.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “What was so important that you’d risk your life to save it?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, my appetite suddenly gone. I stood up and gathered my plate, knife, and fork, taking a last sip of my tea before hauling all of it back to the kitchen. I handed it all back to Clara, thanking her profusely for the amazing meal.
And then I went back to my room.
This storm couldn’t end fast enough.
I needed to get out here.
I needed to get away from him.
CHAPTER 08 - ALEX
“We’re moving out. End of the week.” He said it over breakfast one morning.
“OK, where to next?”
He paused. “Nowhere, for you. We’re tapped out on resources for the time being. You’re staying here.”
“In Shanghai? There’s nothing for me here.”
He shrugged. “You don’t have to stay here, of course, but we’re not paying your way anymore. You’re much better at this than I thought you’d be, Eames, but times are tough and we just can’t keep anymore staff on. Find a job. We’ll be in touch if we need your help anymore.”
And that’s how my first stint as a relief volunteer ended.
I spent a couple days wandering around the streets of Shanghai, getting by with the few phrases I’d learned over the short time I’d spent here. I felt out of place, and unlike in other places, in Shanghai the daily hustle didn’t stop for more than a few cursory moments when I arrived in a new building or turned onto a street.
They’d seen people like me before and I didn’t come bearing gifts. I wasn’t anything special here.
I was running out of money when I finally found my way to the docks and managed to get a job hauling crates back and forth, just like I had a years earlier in the Caribbean. It felt good to use my hands and back again, but this time it was for commerce, not aid.
At the end of each day when I collapsed into my meager bed to grab whatever sleep I could before waking up early the next morning, I felt a curious sense of peace. I was so tired I didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to search for myself.
It was wonderful.
After a few weeks my Chinese improved from the chatter back and forth with the other workers, and after a few more the business crystalized for me and I understood the context of moving crates back and forth all day, what each side of the giant warehouses meant, and I started to see the inefficiencies in how the system worked.
Six months after that I was running my own warehouse, getting off the ground, but still spending as much time as I could working with my hands and my back.
And then one day I was walking through the electronics district of Shanghai after a short lunch and I stopped in front of a store selling notebook computers. I’d sold the one I’d started my trip with because I didn’t see the need for it when I could help so many people with the money I made getting rid of it.
And that’s when everything changed.
Well, THAT went well.
She walked away from the dining room without looking at me, wearing that dress from the 70s, just a little too tight on her, accentuating all those curves I’d gotten a glimpse of for the first time a couple hours ago. It was tough for me to think about anything else but how sexy she was.
I hadn’t been able to get my mind off her since we’d arrived here, and that thing in the bathroom had just been an added bonus. The horny dude inside me had hoped she’d have stuck around a bit and helped me deal with how turned on she made me, but no cigar.
We weren’t that close yet. If anything we were getting further and further apart.
But back in that bathroom, the way she’d looked me up and down…yeah. I knew she wanted me, even if she didn’t want to admit it. I knew I wanted her, even though I would never have admitted it to anyone under pain of death.
Something about the two of us — the sparks were there, but each time we were around each other, the sparks turned into just the wrong kind of fire. I couldn’t figure out why that was, and it haunted me.
I shook my head and went back to my food, chastising myself for getting worked up over some girl I’d just met a few hours ago. I looked around the cozy inn, feeling a warmth I’d never thought I’d feel again when we were trekking up here in the snow.
The large window put the fury of the storm on display, and as I watched through it, I saw a tree on the other side of the street, a small fir, crack and fall over —
luckily, away from the street.
I finished up my food and looked around the empty dining room, trying to imagine what it must have been like full of happy patrons eating Clara’s delicious food.
They’d be back, once this storm passed and the snowplows came through and the world rediscovered this place, whatever it was called. I’d make sure of it - I’d tell everyone I know, not only about the food, which was some of the best I’d ever eaten, but also about the lovely people who owned the place.
The storm.
It would pass soon enough, even if looking out the window tried its hardest to convince me that it was here to stay forever. And then, when it did, what next? What would I do?
I mean, after I made it back to Meridian and saw my father. He would take some convincing, but I already knew that I would put up a good fight on my side — as much as he wanted it to be otherwise, his business was not my life, and there was simply no way I would be able to make it such.
Not when I had my own life to life, my own business to run. I wouldn’t be able to do as he asked - I wouldn’t be able to take over the family business, not if it meant staying in Meridian and becoming a fixture of society. And not if it meant marrying someone just to solidify the business’ future.
That just wasn’t going to work for me.
The last 10 years had proved to me in stark relief that I was not the settling down type. I was meant for the road, meant to travel the world, wandering around until I found somewhere that I could help, somewhere that I could make a difference. It had started in disaster relief, then branched out into business, with adventures before, after, and in between, but try as I might, I couldn’t wrap my head around staying in one place for too long — it just didn’t seem natural.
Not when there was so much out there to see, so much to experience. Sure, Meridian was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, but even when the world’s cultures and riches came to your city to put themselves on display, there wasn’t a perfect translation — something was lost.
I couldn’t live with that loss.
So I needed to go to the source.
I knew it wasn’t the life for everyone - I’d met people along the way, throughout the years, who started out as wild-eyed and ready to see the world as I was, but after a few stops, after seeing some of the bad things that went on regularly all over the world, the fire in their eyes dimmed a bit, and they packed their shit up and headed back home, satisfied that they had seen all they needed to, that a regular life was what was in store for them.
I’d seen lots of people reach that conclusion over the years, but I never had. The light hadn’t dimmed in me - I was always ready for what was around the next turn.
That wasn’t to say I didn’t enjoy my stops in each place - I just knew how to frame things in my mind so I could move lightly between them without getting bogged down.
It helped that I’d managed to separate myself from the day to day dealings of my business — now all I had to do was check in every week or so and the machine I’d built hummed along as it should. It wasn’t quite the backbreaking manual labor I enjoyed so much, but at the same time, it did give me the time, energy, and means to keep my adventuring lifestyle going.
Of course, while I’d managed to find fleeting happiness in various places around the world, something was missing from all of it, and it was something that I couldn’t quite place my finger on — it had eluded me all these years.
Just thinking about all of it, I started to understand why my father hadn’t been able to see things my way. He’d grown up in a different time, with less personal freedom, and he’d had to work right away just to keep himself and his family eating and under shelter.
Things were different now — it was possible for someone to start with nothing, and with a healthy dose of luck, find themselves in the right place to build something special. I could see how that would make some people uncomfortable — it had certainly felt weird the first time I realized that I’d built something that didn’t need me anymore.
What was next for me? I mean, after this storm petered itself out and I was able to get back to Meridian, have that conversation with my father, and free myself once and for all from the chains of my family?
I used to have a list of places to go, places I hadn’t been before. I’d looked at it so many times while holed up in that cabin that I’d memorized it: Dubai, New Zealand, Madagascar, Chile, and so on. I knew that I’d get to each of those places in turn, just as soon as the current place had clicked for me and I knew that I’d found whatever I was looking for there.
Thinking about the list now, though, something felt different. The pull to get away from here and go to one of those places didn’t tug at me as strongly as it had the day before.
I sat back in my chair in the dining room, pushing my empty plate toward the center of the table even though there was no one else around. Far off in the bowels of the inn I could hear Marty and Clara yelling good-naturedly at each other.
The ceiling creaked every so often, localized to one spot, and I knew Naomi was up there.
Awake.
Hating me.
I shook my head, trying in vain to clear her from my thoughts.
I tried to focus on the list again — just a couple more days and I’d be free, and then I could randomly pick a place and see what I found there.
Nothing worked.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how she riled me up and frustrated me, how I had to constantly keep from teasing her and collapsing around her.
And maybe, just maybe, the list of places I wanted to go next didn’t hold any appeal to me anymore because I wasn’t willing to admit to myself that where I wanted to be was right here.
I wasn’t used to even the idea of letting someone in. And now for the first time in years I’d found someone that intrigued me enough to think about it, to consider it.
That scared the shit out of me.
And now that the thought had occurred to me…what was I going to do about it?
I knew one thing — what I was doing wasn’t working. Even if I didn’t know what exactly I wanted from her.
I had to change things up.
I just didn’t know how.
CHAPTER 09 - NAOMI
Closing the door to my room felt like sealing myself off into my own cocoon of warmth and safety. I paced around for a bit, watching the snow fall out the large window across from the bed, wondering just how much snow the world could gather all in one place before the entire state of New Hampshire just collapsed and sank into the ground under all its weight.
Clara knocked once as the evening set in to see if I needed anything, but I told her I was all set. She gave me a warm smile, which faded a bit as she saw the look on my face, then she quietly closed the door behind her and left me alone again.
The next time I looked out the window it was dark, and in the middle of nowhere like this, there weren’t any buildings lit up to light the night up, only a few streetlamp that weakly proclaimed that this wasn’t completely forgotten wilderness.
The snow kept coming down, a soft sound as the building whined and moaned every few minutes as if adjusting to larger people sitting on either side of it on an airplane.
After a few minutes more of watching snow fall, I shook my head and browsed the shelf of books, picking one to read while lying on the bed. I didn’t have a plan, didn’t know what I was doing; all I knew was that I wanted to be alone right now.
I especially didn’t want to be around Alex. I loved the way he looked at me, and thoughts of those strong hands running up and down my body made me moan to myself, but everything else about him, just…ugh.
Even though we’d had a late lunch by the time I heard sounds coming from downstairs my stomach had started rumbling again, and as exciting as the romance novel I’d picked up was, I knew that I had to get some more of Clara’s incredible cooking in me before the night was up.
I
lay there on the bed, trying to read and ignore my protesting stomach as more of the smells of her cooking wafted their way through the porous walls of the old inn. This must have been how Clara announced mealtimes when more people stayed here — just open the lid of the pot and everyone would eventually find their way down to the dining room.
It was an effective plan, and after a while it worked on me - I couldn’t resist any longer and threw the book onto the bed, jumping up and checking the dress again in the mirror before taking a deep breath and heading downstairs.
Keep it together, Avery. Be nice, be cordial, eat your food, and come back upstairs. The sexy duke in the romance novel was just about to confess his love to the distant maiden, and I didn’t want to leave them hanging too long, as if the plot of the story would change if I did. I couldn’t deny those two lovebirds their happily ever after, now, could I?
I crept down the stairs, trying to announce myself as little as possible, which I realized at the bottom of the steps was weird, since as far as I knew there were only 3 other people in the building.
Marty and Clara were nowhere to be found, but the kitchen lights were on, and the smells came from in there. Alex sat in the same place as a couple hours ago, a big plate of food in front of him. He perked up when I entered the room. “She made lasagna,” he said, after taking a huge bite. “It’s the best I’ve ever tasted, but don’t let my mother hear me say that. They should have a restaurant in downtown Meridian.”
“Maybe they like it out here in the middle of nowhere,” I said, peeking into the kitchen and seeing the heaping tray of mouth-watering lasagna sitting there next to a pile of plates, like they were expecting more than just Alex and I.
After scooping as much of the goopy mess onto a plate as I thought I could stand, I filled up a glass with tea and headed back to the dining room. I glanced at the table I’d sat at before, away from Alex, then thought different and moved to sit across from him.
