Page 35 of Lovesick
“There’s three feet of snow outside.”
He reached for a coffee mug, his hair still wild on his shoulders. “Well, more mountaineering. Trying to see if I can maneuver back to ice-climb the waterfall at the end of the canyon. I think it was probably too low before the cold hit, but I want to see. The snow is four feet deep in some places, so I think I’ll need a snowmobile.”
Naturally.
Because who didn’t do that during their free time?
While he filled a coffee mug with water and shoved it into the microwave, I tried to recover my senses and not swallow my tongue. Ice-climb a waterfall?
Was that athing?
I take my adventure indoors, thanks,I thought of saying.With a side of cream and sugar.Like the adventure of trying a new kind of espresso bean.
The life he led couldn’t be farther from mine. I resisted the urge to slip onto Pinnable and create a corkboard for him. Mountains, grasses, and for some reason, I pictured sage. That would be perfect for him. Wild man, wild places.
No, that would only distract me from the mess I had surely stepped into. Two minutes later he stood in front of me with a fresh mug of coffee.
“Cream and sugar,” he said. “I made assumptions on amounts.”
“How did you know?”
“Your withdrawal is obvious.”
The first sip—perfectly warm—slid all the way into my stomach like we were meant to be. I closed my eyes, savored the smell, and waited for the caffeine to recharge me.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
JJ plunked a tea bag into his mug, then wrapped his hands around it and leaned back against the couch. I purposefully turned away from him, feigning interest in a stack near an old printer. Time to sortpapers that were far away, facing a direction in which I couldn’t possibly sneak a glance at him.
“I finished setting up your cabin this morning,” he said after several minutes. “Took me a while to dig it out and get the power restored, but now I think you’re good.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Do you want me to take you to it?”
“Only if I never have to come back to this mess,” I muttered.
He laughed, set aside his tea, and motioned with a wave. “C’mon. Time for a break.”
“Hold on. I have to note it on my spreadsheet.”
“For what?”
I cleared off the top of my laptop and pulled up another spreadsheet. “For time. I have a feeling Mark hasn’t even thought of my time card, so I just created something.”
“Oh. That’s very ... honest of you.”
I shrugged.
Once I noted the time—it had only been two hours and felt like twenty years—I popped up, slipped on my coat, and followed him outside. A walking path had been cut into the three-foot bank of snow outside. Impressive at any rate, even if it was entirely too cold. I shivered in my jacket and hurried to keep up.
The cabin was a quaint little thing from the outside. A single window and door, with round logs stacked into a perfect square that might be barely big enough for a bed and a small table. Snow, thick and white as a wedding cake, was piled on the roof. Perfect insulation for a chill like this. Weather aside, I predicted it would be warm in there. Lazy smoke drifted upward from a chimney on the left.
JJ opened the door and motioned for me to go in first. Snow flaked off my boots as I stepped inside.
“Oh, it’s so cute!”
