Page 13 of Against All Odds

I try counting to stop the numbness from the frozen ice shower I’m currently taking, but nothing is keeping my mind off it.

This is going to be the first thing I fix. Well, that’s not true. I need to get the heat on first.

“Fuck it,” I say, turning the water off. I let whatever product didn’t rinse out just stay there and grab my towel.

I shiver and climb out of the bathtub, wrapping it around me and rushing into the bedroom, where the fireplace is blazing. I stand, dripping wet, in front of it, letting the heat start to thaw my limbs.

After a few minutes, my teeth stop chattering and I run to my bed, grab my clothes, throw them on as fast as I can, and go back to the fire.

I need to get the radiators to work again. I just don’t know how. I tried turning the valves, but it was so late, already freezing, and I heard a howling noise that made me not want to be outside if it found its way to where I was.

I forgot just how cold it gets in the mountains at night. At work, someone said they thought it’ll snow by the end of September.

Southern California weather is far superior to this.

Thankfully, there was a pile of firewood against the house that Grandma always kept in case the heat went out, which it did often, apparently, and I set a fire in the wood-burning stove downstairs and one in the fireplace up in my room.

Knowing that I can’t just keep burning the pile of wood since it goes fast, I’m going to have to bite the bullet and ask for help.

I get in my car and ride the half mile over to what I hope is still Everett’s house. I make the right down the drive, feeling like I’m fifteen all over again, only not on a bike this time.

Time feels as though it stood still in Ember Falls. His home is the same, burnt-orange siding with brick on the lower half. The rocking chairs still stand on the left of the small porch. God, so many nights Everett and I would sit there together.

My smile is automatic as the memories come forward.

As I park and get out of the car, the front door opens and he exits.

Our eyes meet and there’s a familiar flutter in my stomach, the one I always got when he looked at me. My hands rest on the top of the door, and I lift my hand to wave. “Hey.”

“Hi,” he says and then clears his throat.

“I was hoping you still lived here.”

He pulls the front door closed. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be buried on the land here.”

“Oh. Do they do that? I mean, I didn’t think that you could just bury someone on their land. Although I’m not a lawyer, so maybe you can. I’m going to look that up.”

I really wish my brain would work right and I didn’t babble around him. My chest is tight as I look at the boy I once loved and could talk to so easily. Now there’s a strange tension between us.

“Are you okay?” he asks as he steps down off the porch.

I feel so stupid, but it’s either I swallow my pride and ask for help or freeze to death. “Actually ... I was kind of hoping you could help me? I hate to come here and ask. Trust me, if it wasn’t dire ... I wouldn’t.”

“What’s wrong?”

Everett steps closer, now just in front of me, and I do my best to slow my heart rate.

You’re too close, you’re still hot, you’re not supposed to still make me weak in the knees.

I don’t say any of that, though. “I can’t get the heat to work.”

His brow lifts. “And you thought I could help? I’m one of the least handy people here.”

I give him an awkward smile, one that’s more teeth than anything. Great, now I look like an idiot as well as sound like one.

“It’s the propane tank. I couldn’t get the lever to turn, or maybe it’s something else. I don’t know, but it’s freezing and I don’t have enough firewood for another night.”

“You used firewood?” Everett asks in surprise.

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