Page 50 of Mistlefoe
She makes a lot quicker work of it than me, just dropping a baseball in the middle of a felt square, gathering up the corners, and wrapping them with twine. Then she glues a strip of golden felt around the mess to make it look like the top of a Christmas tree ornament and you know what? It looks damn near perfect, whereas my creations look like a drunk kindergartner tried crafts for the first time.
But that’s not the issue, I’ll get the hang of it eventually. What’s making a bead of sweat form on my forehead is Sierra.
It’s like she’s avoiding me, which is hard to do when she’s at my house and there’s literally no one else in a three mile radius.
“Hey, Sierra.”
She flinches.
What the hell? Was my voice too loud?
I lower it to ask, “Can you please slow down for a second? I need to see it again.”
She sighs, but starts from scratch slower. Snap, that’s the part I was missing. I was just gathering up the felt corners and tying them, but she makes a quick twirl that really brings the felt together at the top. That trick I can definitely adopt. I can’t mimmic the deftness of her smaller hands for this kinda stuff, though.
“Cool, thanks.” I better pick up because she has a much bigger completed pile than I have.
For a while, the only sounds are the crackling fire consuming the logs in the fireplace, and the rustling of felt against our hands. I keep checking on her from the corner of my good eye, but she’s so focused on what she’s doing that it’s almost like I’m not here at all. A little wrinkle appears between her eyebrows as she concentrates on tying up the twine. She bites the corner of her lip ever so slightly as she works and I have the most feral urge to lean over the coffee table and bite it for her.
I should’ve kissed her earlier in the elevator. The problem is, I was deathly afraid of my face not hiding consequences from our coworkers.
Focus on your baseballs, asshole, I say to myself.
“How many of these are we making?” I ask when I can’t stand myself any longer.
Sierra hums from deep in her throat and I don’t know why suddenly that sound makes me boneless. I have to make a conscious effort to keep sitting upright.
“I’d say we should fill that whole box. With use, the felt will start peeling off and making the balls too hard to latch onto the velcro tree.”
“Makes sense. We do want people to win sometimes for it to be fun.” I lean back against my couch. “How do we know this even works, though? Should we test it?”
Finally, for the first time since we started working on this, Sierra lifts her head and blinks up at me. “Oh, you’re right. That’s a good idea.”
“Okay, to the shed.” I smack my thighs and shift myself to stand. I pause at the door, grabbing my full winter gear because I’m pretty sure my nose hasn’t lied to me. It’s going to snow tonight and if not, pretty soon. The last thing I want is getting sick and leaving Sierra to pick up my slack so close to the freaking event.
Bundled up in scarves, beanies, gloves, and thick coats, we trudge through the gravel with the help of my camp flashlight. The frigid wind howls through the branches of the pines around them. Ahead of me, Sierra shivers and my free hand twitches. I stuff it in the pocket of my jacket to prevent it from reaching out again. I don’t think she’d welcome me putting my arm around her, even if it’s not for nefarious purposes.
“Hold this.” I pass along the lantern to her so I’m the one working the latch and pushing the big door open.
Standing at the threshold, Sierra says, “Wait, this is kinda creepy. You didn’t bring me here to murder me, right?”
“No, this isn’t my murder barn. That one’s deeper in the woods,” I respond with a hefty dose of sarcasm.
With the weak light of the lantern, I locate the light switch and flip it on. The inside bathes in bright yellow light. There are a bunch of bags and boxes blocking the way to the massive velcro tree, and I push some of them out to the corner.
Meanwhile, Sierra turns off the lantern. “I admit it looks a lot less creepy now, thank you very much.”
“Please, as if I’d ever hurt you.” I’m only a teeny tiny bit hurt that she’d remotely consider that notion.
Her eyes flash to me for a second. “You do routinely kill trees, though.”
“That’s only because I can’t shoot pucks at someone’s face anymore.” I sigh and stretch out my hand. “Pass a ball.”
She fishes around the plastic bag hanging from her hand that carries some of our creations, and lobs one at me. After catching it, I take a glance around to see what the best distance would be.
Earlier in the afternoon, I finally contracted the carpenters who will build the booths for our event in record time—thanks to paying them double for the effort. That included sharing a blueprint of their dimensions and look that Sierra and I put together last weekend, so the measurements are still fresh in my mind. I walk around the tree and all the debris around it and it checks out with what I expect the size of the booth to be. Next, the booths will be propped up against the wall in the hallway bordering the ice rink, and people will basically have to use the remaining width for the throw, which is about where I stand now.
I throw the ball and it slides off the curvature of the tree, falling to the floor without mercy.
