Page 110 of Flipping the Script

With a grateful-sounding sigh, he wrapped it around his shivering shoulders.

“Let’s get some clothes,” I said, needing the moment to end before I said or did something I regretted.

He followed me out of the bathroom and down the little L-shaped hallway. We passed two closed doors and went into the room at the shorter end of the hall.

“Is this your room?” He looked around the space, but I wasn’t sure how much of it he saw in the dark.

“Yup.” I went to a dresser and rummaged through the drawers.

The room wasn’t fancy, but it was comfortable. A queen-sized bed with an ornately crafted headboard was against one wall, and a large fireplace was across from it. Against the same wall as the fireplace were a couple of dressers, and a recliner sat facing the giant wall of windows and the door to the balcony that wrapped around the back of the property.

“Here.” I shoved a bundle of clothes at him, then grabbed some for myself.

He dropped his towel, and we pulled them on.

“Really?” he asked, pointing to my high school band’s logo on the hoodie I’d given him.

“What can I say? You look good in my clothes.”

I’d meant it as a joke, but the words didn’t come out right. They sounded husky, not teasing. “Come on.” I waved the flashlight beam at the door. “I’ll start a fire downstairs, and we can check the weather and the outage map. See when the fuck we can get out of here.”

Wordlessly, he followed me out of the room and back downstairs. The air was still chilly, but now there was a dampness that hadn’t been there before, making the cool air feel dense, like humidity but not hot.

When we were back in the main room, I pointed to the couch. “Sit. I’ll start a fire.”

Surprisingly, he sat without sassing me or pushing back at all.

“This is dangerous,” he said.

“What is?” I glanced over my shoulder and chuckled when I saw him slumped on the couch. “Yeah.” I turned back to the fireplace and arranged sticks and logs in it.

The couch was big and squashy, and sitting on it was like sinking into a cloud. “I’ve gotten stuck there more than once. And slept on it more times than I’ve meant to.”

I could feel Jesse’s eyes on me as I started the fire, blowing on the flames until it was roaring.

“How long do you think we have until it gets too warm in here?” he asked.

I held my still freezing hands up to the flames to get some of my circulation going again. “Should be okay as long as we don’t stoke it.”

When my hands felt like hands again, I flopped onto the end of the couch with a weary sigh.

“Are you okay?” Jesse asked, breaking the silence.

“Fine.” I stuck my hands in the front pocket of the hoodie, my eyes on the fire. “Are you going to lecture me about forgetting to replace the spare?”

“No.”

“What about my phone running out of battery?”

“No.”

“How about?—”

“I’m not going to lecture you. For one, I’m not your dad. And two, shit happens. No point being a dick about things you can’t change.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with Jesse?” I shot him some side-eye.

“Like I said, it’s been a weird day.”

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