by Alyse Zaftig
"Oh, goodness."
Jimmy turned off the radio. "Hey."
It felt so awkward now that he had seen me naked. "Hey."
"So, um, I'm sorry about last night. I really didn't mean to..."
"It's okay. I should have brought my pajamas into the bathroom, that's all. It wasn't your fault at all. If anything, it was definitely mine." I tried not to think about the way that he had looked at me.
"Let's just share the blame here." He smiled. "How do pecan pancakes with real maple syrup and bacon sound to you?"
"That sounds fantastic!" I blinked. "Do you want me to help? I can fry bacon and make pancakes. I'm not a great cook, but I can do that much."
"How about this? I'll do the pancakes, and you can make sure that the bacon doesn't burn."
We stood side by side at the stove. I pushed around the bacon, turning it so that it cooked evenly, and he made pancakes that looked like Mickey Mouse. He had a playful side that was at odds with how tall, strong, and silent he was. I liked seeing him like this, and I liked the way that we were a team. He moved pancakes to a platter, and I put the bacon on another one.
I set the table, and I put down the bacon and pancakes.
"Now for the real maple syrup."
"What do you mean by real maple syrup? Isn't all maple syrup real?" I had been using maple syrup for pancakes all of my life.
"No. That water that they sell in grocery stores is vile. You haven't lived until you've had real syrup." He picked up the container. "Ladies first."
I drizzled syrup all over my pancakes. I cut it up. That first bite was absolute bliss. The sweet pancakes slid down my throat. I could get used to this.
I stopped myself. I would never get used to it.
For the first time, we talked during breakfast.
"What are you going to do about the storm?"
"I'm going to make sure that the cows are safe, and I will gather more firewood so that we don’t run out. A man can get lost in a snowstorm only a yard away from his house. Then, I will come in and make some hot cocoa for both of us.”
"Sounds like a plan."
"And you?"
"Just curling up with a book by the fireplace."
"I think that's on my agenda for today, too."
He disappeared out the door, bundling up in a huge coat. I got Trickster's Queen out of the pile, and I got started. Jimmy came back in after less than an hour outside.
He put a kettle on the stove, and he sat and waited patiently until it screamed. He poured out the water.
"Why don't you have an electric kettle?"
"What's that? Sounds pretty fancy. People have been making tea with a kettle on the stove for a long time. I don't see any reason to change."
And that was the difference between us. I wanted the new, the convenient, the shiny. Jimmy was fine with sticking with tried and true, even if it had been tried and true for hundreds if not thousands of years. We wanted different things from the world.
He disappeared into the library, and he took out a book. It was Pride and Prejudice.
"What, you like chick lit?"
"Shh. It's a secret." He smiled. "I don't know. I had to read it for literature class in college, and I really liked the story. There are so many pieces, and you know that it's autobiographical."
"Yeah. I had no idea that guys read Jane Austen for pleasure."
"There's a lot about me that might surprise you."
Looking at the battered Jane Austen novel in his big hands, I believed it. It didn’t fit into my idea of Jimmy Fox.
We fell silent, but it wasn't awkward. It was nice. It was quiet. I could see us doing this as 50-year-olds, just taking a rest, living in our own reality, far away from the snowstorm outside.
I could not even resist anymore. It was like we existed in our own little bubble on an island somewhere. With the snow piling up outside and nobody able to get in or out, we were alone. All alone.
I started breathing heavily when Nawat Crow came back from his mission, and Aly and Nawat made love for the first time. It's not graphic at all, since it's a YA novel, but it is part of the romance that has been built up over the course of both books. I was glad that she had finally succumbed to Nawat's charms. Sure, Nawat had a different view of the world since he was really a crow, but in the end they loved each other...and wasn't that what mattered? You could get married to someone who was a mirror image of you, but where was the fun in that?
I had already had a boyfriend who spoke the sentences that might come out of my mouth. You would think that he would be my soulmate. But he wasn't. It was boring to spend time with him after the initial joy of finding someone who was like me. When you find someone who thinks exactly like you do, it's dreadfully boring, like a conversation that you have with yourself in your own head. After a month, I’d broken up with him. He'd broken up with me. It was a mutual thing. It was good to talk to each other once in a while, but it was not the kind of romantic relationship that would last the test of time.
Nawat and Aly's relationship, on the other hand, might. I had read the follow-up story about their triplets, and I really enjoyed it. I had not thought before how much it would matter that he was really a crow taking care of nestlings before I had read Tamora Pierce's book. It was a good look at the thought of children who were different. My favorite Viola Rivard story was a discussion of human Mila's feelings towards her puppy-daughter. The idea that a parent would not love his or her child because something was wrong was always explored, and I knew that in the end, no matter what obstacles or difficulties a parent faced, the love of a parent for a baby would overcome whatever stood in their way.
I stole a glance at Jimmy in the armchair close to the fire. His legs were out straight in front of him, and a lock of hair had fallen on his forehead. It was endearing. I felt warm. Maybe it was the fire.
"I can feel you looking at me," he said without looking up from his book.
Pictures
Amelia
"Take a picture. It will last longer."
I smiled at him. "No. I'm fine. I can go upstairs if you want." I closed my book, and I stood up, stretching a little. I was stiff from staying in one position the whole time.
"No, it's fine. I like having the company. Since my mom left, there haven't been too many people in this house." He sighed. "She used to throw parties with the neighbors. People used to come over from Madison to hang out all the time. This was a very different home when my dad was alive." He blew away the lock of hair that was on his forehead. "I am just not as social as they are. Were."
I put my hand on his knee. He stared at it. "I understand. I thought that I was so social before I came here, but I think that there is a restful quality to being here. It's as if I can just be myself here. When you are alone with yourself...or just one other person...you can be the person who you are in your heart, instead of what other people expect."
He looked into my eyes, bright blue eyes meeting warm brown ones. Instead of saying anything, he stood up and pulled my close. He kissed me softly on the mouth, then he pulled back and looked at my face.
"Okay?"
I blinked a few times, totally dazed. "Oh." I felt like a sun had exploded inside of my mind. Wow. That kiss was soft and tender, but it blew my mind.
"I'm sorry. I know we aren't like that..."
He went back to his armchair. His worry was cute. He had two little furrows between his brows. He was running a hand through his hair.
I walked over to the armchair and straddled his lap. "I liked it." I kissed him full on the mouth. His eyes were closed now.
Then they opened, and they hit me with the force of a very intense blue spotlight. I felt like I was in a dark room, center stage, with all eyes on me.
His arms came around me. They felt like steel bands around my soft body. He took my open mouth in a searing hot kiss. He forced my lips open with his tongue, and I opened readily for him. I could feel a bulge growing where his crotch and mine met.
; His hand went to my ass, and he squeezed me tightly. I gasped a little bit into his mouth, and it just spurred him on for more. His other hand went to my hair, and my mouth was glued to his, sealed so that there was no room between our lips.
I gave as good as I got. I put my clever tongue in his mouth, too. I changed the angle by tilting my head a little more to the side. My lower body was melting into him. I was quickly becoming boneless in his arms, and we'd been kissing for just a little while. I raised my hips a little bit, and I slid down his rapidly hardening shaft, mimicking what I wanted, what we both needed.
"Stop."
Job
Amelia
I leaned back and blinked at him. "What?"
"I don't...I don't do stuff like this. I go a lot slower than this." He gestured with his hands at his body and mine. "I'm sorry. I was into it, but I just don't....I don't do this."
I got off of his firm thighs and stood up. I would not let him see me cry, even if I felt completely rejected. "Okay."
"It's not you. You're really hot. It's just me. I'm sorry."
"That's okay." My voice was colder than the polar vortex. "It's fine. I am going upstairs now." I picked up my novel.
I walked upstairs, fuming. I was surprised that there wasn't literal steam coming out of my ears. How could he? He started it. He kissed me. I just followed his lead, and he put the kibosh on it before we even really got started. We were kissing, just kissing. How dare he reject me? There were dozens of men in DC who would love to date me, who I could call and have the instant that I wanted them.
Tears dripped down my cheeks, and I put my book on my nightstand. I flopped down on my stomach and cried. I never got rejected, so maybe that was why it hurt so much. I always got what I wanted.
I wrapped myself up like a little burrito in my blankets, and I buried my face in my pillow.
I had five more days here before my jet came back for me. Captain Harris could take me home, and I could forget about smoking hot blonde men who just wanted to tease city girls with their muscular bodies.
Maybe I could just stay here in my bed until the snow was gone, then ask Jimmy to drive me back into Madison and leave me at some hotel near the airport.
I stopped crying. That was a good plan. I was sure that he would be happy to see the back of me. And I definitely did not want to stay with him here, but I could not call the jet back to fly straight into the polar vortex.
I felt more cheerful with a plan and a little more control over the situation. I could run away, maybe not immediately, but a little differently than planned.
I looked at the wet splotches on my pillow. I could have had the jet wait for me at the MSN airport. Captain Harris wouldn't have minded. We paid for all of his time, not just the flight time. I could have made my dad happy without getting stuck here with one guy in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a heavy blizzard in the barbaric north of Middle America.
I stared at the ceiling. I needed to get a job. A real one, not the painting that I did that cluttered up the house with all of my artwork. Daddy seemed to like it being around. People liked the paintings, and I’d had a gallery showing, but that didn't mean anything when it came to making money off of them.
I had two choices: either I could start taking painting commissions where I painted what they wanted me to paint, or I could find a real job.
Laying in my bed, staring at that uneven ceiling, I decided that I wanted to get a day job more than I ever wanted to paint based on commissions. My painting was a hobby, for sure, and it was something that I did for love. I could make a living off of it, but I did not want to. I needed to find something that would not eat my soul and still leave me time for painting.
I stared at the ceiling. I had a double major in Fine Arts and Spanish in school, but I just didn't think that there was very much that I could do with that. Sure, I liked people like Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso, but beyond being in love with a few Catalonian artists and running around the Reina Sofia and El Prado, there wasn't much overlap between those two lives.
When I got out of school, I constantly got emails asking me to become a Spanish teacher. Even if I had gone to become a teacher and get certified to teach little ones, would I have been happy?
What I lacked the most was a sense of purpose in my life. I didn't know where I was going at all. I had lived a low-key, low-commitment life for a long time. I loved my father, for sure, but that wasn't a purpose in life. He spoiled me and indulged my every whim, and I think that the only thing saving me from becoming Veruca Salt was my mother being a sane woman. When she died, those checks and balances fell away.
I made a decision. I would send my resume out to all of those teacher-training programs when I got home and had working Wi-Fi again.
I opened up my laptop. I might be at the end of the Earth and stranded in this snowstorm, but I could poke my resume a little bit. I would show it to my dad when I got home. He hired and fired plenty of people. Even though he had no experience in the education sector, he surely knew someone who did. He would be proud of me for getting a job, even one as simple as working from 9-3 every day in a school with a ton of little kids. I grimaced. I liked kids, but probably I would go insane if I was trapped with them for a straight 6-hour period. Maybe I would try to apply as some kind of assistant for English Language Learners.
When I opened up my Macbook, something popped up on my screen. "Join Wi-Fi network?"
There was Internet in this house? I saw that it was a secured network. I only had the tiniest of the bars in terms of connectivity, but it was there.
I put Visine in my eyes, and I went downstairs to talk to Jimmy. If there was Wi-Fi here, I definitely could overcome my humiliation to get connected back to the real world. Unplugged time was over.
Snowballs
Amelia
I walked downstairs with my MacBook Pro in one hand.
"Hey Jimmy."
He jumped to his feet. “Amelia...I just want to say that I'm so sorry..."
I waved away his apology for teasing me earlier. "It's fine. Why didn't you tell me that this house had Wi-Fi? I don't care that the signal is so weak. I'd just love to get back online and reconnect, you know? Could you give me the password?"
"This house doesn't have Wi-Fi. You must be picking up the neighbor's network, but they live a half mile away down the road. That must be a pretty powerful computer to catch something as tiny as that."
I was a little bit crushed. I thought that I had found a virtual escape from this house and the tantalizing man inside of it. Instead, I was right where I started, only worse, because my hope had been easily stomped by Jimmy. It seemed like that was my theme for the day. I knew it wasn't fair, but I wasn't in the mood for news like this.
"Okay." I turned around to walk up the stairs. Don’t cry, Mel.
"Wait!"
I spun around. I crossed my arms and glared at him. I wanted to be alone to sulk a little more.
"Do you want to have a snowball fight?"
I blinked. "You do that?" That might be a good way to release all the frustration.
"Yeah, of course." He had dimples when he fully smiled. "Do you wanna build a snowman?"
"You've watched Frozen?"
He looked affronted. "Is there anybody in America who hasn't?"
"No, there are plenty of people who haven't. It's a children's movie, you know."
"That song was everywhere. I couldn't stay away."
"Let me grab my coat. I would love to play in the snow. I haven't done it since I was a little kid."
I changed into warm clothes. I had silk leggings that were technically long-johns. I put on a warm underlayer from Uniqlo, then a vest and a scarf. I took out my big winter coat with its water-resistant exterior.
When I came downstairs, Jimmy laughed. "It's like you grew to twice your size."
"Are you calling me fat?" I asked playfully. I was just teasing.
"Nah. Come on. Let's play."
When he opened the d
oor, a few flakes came in. I followed him outside. In a half second, I had a bunch of cold snow hitting me in the face. The snowball fell apart when it felt the solid warmth of my face. It dripped as it melted, and it came down to my neck, dripping into my scarf. I gasped for a little bit, just like all those people had during the Ice Bucket Challenge.
"Oh no you didn't!" I got a bunch of snowball and hurled it at him. In my haste to get revenge, I hadn't packed it well enough. It swirled into the air as the little flakes fell slowly downwards again. It was beautiful, but I saw him launching a snowball at me. I ducked out of the way this time. This was an all-out war.
We stayed outside for at least an hour, smacking each other over and over again with huge bundles of snow. It felt magical to hit each other with snow while the snowflakes fell around us. It was like being inside a snow globe. A very cold snow globe. I liked the look of the snow piling up around us.
Eventually, I just plopped down on my back. I started making a snow angel. I was too pooped to keep throwing and dodging snowballs.
Jimmy came and sat beside me.
"I never knew that the reason why people made snow angels was that they were tired."
He started making one. His arms were so long that he touched my snow angel, marring the perfect, clean lines.
"Hey! You're messing up my angel!"
In response, he buried me in a huge heap of snow. Now my angel was covered up, and I was heaped with snow. I wiggled out from the snow, but Jimmy was on top of me. I saw the light in his eyes from before, and he leaned down and kissed me gently. His mouth was colder than mine. He pulled back.
"Let's go inside."
What was it with him and kissing me and then shutting everything down? He went from hot to cold instantly.
"I'm not coming back inside." I crossed my arms. "I am going to be making another angel, one that you won’t mess up. And I'll go in when I damn well please."
"Amelia, you are soaked head to toe from playing in the snow. Come on. I'll make you some hot cocoa to warm you up."
