by Amore, C. C.
BINGO!
I’d have cup of sweet coffee and be ready to go!
The only thing between me and the coffee shop was a fence that went around the property. I decided to hop over the fence to save some time from being in the coldness than any longer than necessary.
The fence was only about five feet high, and I thought I could easily get over it. I lifted my leg up to it, grabbed the fence with my hands and hopped over it, only to find my grip slipping away from the cold steel.
It didn’t take long for me realize what has happening, but before I could do anything about it, I was face down in the snow on the other side of the fence.
Of course it would happen to me. Why wouldn’t it? It was stupid of me of not to expect it. This was the perfect day for Jessica!
I was face deep in the snow and my emotions rushed back to surface. I sobbed in the snow, thinking what had just happened.
I rolled around to my back and the tears were quickly freezing on my cheeks. My chest moved up and down as the dam that had kept my sorrow at the back of my mind finally gave in.
I cried my soul out lying in the snow.
It was stupid of me to think anything was going to happen between me and him. Why did I even entertained the notion?
The adrenaline from falling on my face made me forget about the bitter cold, but it the shivering was soon back.
I walked up to the door of the coffee house and pulled on it.
It wouldn’t open.
I tried pushing the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
I used both of my hands; pulling and pushing the door, but it wouldn’t move. The door only rattled against the frame.
That is when it hit me.
The friggin’ coffee shop was closed.
I kept tugging at the cold handle of the door, hoping it would somehow open. But it didn’t.
The coffee shop was closed and I was getting so cold my hands were shivering almost uncontrollably. I hadn’t prepared for walking home. Who would have known the turn of events that happened? I was supposed to go back with my roommate, Hannah.
I buried my face in my mittens while I thought what I could do to get out of this mess. Could I send Hannah a text message to come pick me up? Would I want to see her face? But what alternatives there were? Calling Andrew?
No way. No way!
I wouldn’t speak to him ever again.
And that made things clear for me: I would text Hannah, hoping she was done with my brother already.
I took off my mittens, exposing my hands to the freezing winter air. I pulled my phone from my pocket and keyed the cold buttons in the moonlight.
I sent a text to Hannah:
“Could you come pick me up at the coffee shop? I’m freezing and can’t walk back to dorm.”
I sat down in front of the coffee shop and hugged my legs warm myself up. I even buried my face in my chest, hoping to bring back at least some heat back into my frozen ears and cheeks.
It wouldn’t take long for Hannah to get here. She would be soon here.
There was, sitting in front of a closed coffee shop and the damn door kept creaking every time I adjusted my position.
Shut up coffee shop! I don’t need your shit now! I’ve got enough problems of my own!
Only my thoughts kept me company. The constant bickering inside my mind about what I should have done and why I had placed myself in this position again. If I only could tell my mind to shut up the same way I could tell the door to stop creaking.
And the door creaked again.
Ok, I couldn’t even tell the door what to do. Damnit!
Why did he have to have a house here? There was nothing here except this stupid coffee shop. “Which is closed!” I yelled out.
After my temper tantrum was finally over, I tried to get as comfortable as I could. My mind wandered around the history me and Andrew had had. Our special tree climbing competitions in our back yard and the way we had sneaked outside during summer nights just to see who would get on top of the tall oak tree faster.
We would have an alarm go off in the middle of the night just so we could have more time playing in the trees. Our parents had forbidden the nightly climbs, so we had to be quiet. No words were needed as we opened our bedroom window and climbed down from the second floor.
We would run with our bare feet in the fresh grass and the moonlight would light our playtime just enough. We had gone even so far as having separate clothing as to not get caught by our mother in the morning.
However, we never could explain why the bottoms of our feet were green, and I think she must have known. She must have.
The memories of growing up were enough to make the sadness fade away enough that the deep hole engulfing me wasn’t as deep any more.
Hannah would come soon and I could move on with my life. After all, he was the one that had suddenly disappeared on me after the camping trip we had taken with our friends.
“Of course you are here, stupid girl,” a man’s voice said, “stand and let’s get you to the car”. I knew I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t figure out whose it was.
I tried to open my eyes, but something was keeping them closed. It was as if my eyelashes had been clued together.
I tried to say something, but only the faintest whisper came out. I was too cold to think and couldn’t resist what was happening.
I struggled to get up, but legs wouldn’t move.
“All right then, I’ll just take you myself,” the same man spoke again. “Just grab me.”
I was lifted up like I was weightless. Only the crackling of the cold snow beneath me told me that we were moving. The sound of a car door opening was the next thing I realized.
“Scoot in,” he said.
I was gently placed down on something.
“Do you think this was one of your better or worse ideas? At least when you were younger you had a plan that wouldn’t get us into trouble. Now look at yourself shivering.”
He stuck something warm inside my jacket and I instinctively grabbed a hold of whatever the warmth was. My skin was tingling from the sudden source of warmth.
He covered me with something heavy and tugged me inside it.
“You’ve always had a habit for running into the night when you’re not supposed to, but not during the winter. This was a first one,” he said.
A hand brushed my hair and tugged it behind my ear. While I had some inkling of what was going on, I still couldn’t manage to talk or have a clear thought.
A car door slammed and soon after was the sound of him coming in. The car started and I flung backwards against the seat from the sudden acceleration.
“Hold on. We’ll have to speed here a bit.”
The vehicle turned and my head and face pressed against something.
“Where is your hat? I know you had one when you came in.”
He didn’t say something for a while.
“It was that temper of yours, wasn’t it?” He laughed. “You threw that thing away.” He was almost bellowing now. “That’s the sister I know!”
He managed to stop laughing. “That wasn’t wise in hindsight, was it? I bet your ears aren’t thanking you now.”
The sound of his voice was somehow calming me down. He had it under control and he was making sure nothing would happen to me.
I kept hugging the source of heat. The coldness was subsiding with each passing moment and my brain was trying its hardest to tie the pieces of what was going on.
I rubbed my fingers against my eyelashes and the ice melted just enough so that I could force them open.
I pulled the blanket down just enough so that I could see what was going on: I had been laid on the back seat and it didn’t take long for me to recognize the car I was in.
He had come save me once again. He had a habit of doing that, really.
Every muscle in my body was shivering, but it didn’t stop me from trying to speak. “I threw it away after what you did,” I said, my mouth covered behind the blanke
t.
I saw Andrew’s golden hair and his blue eyes hiding behind them looking back at me from the rear-view mirror.
He was quiet for a moment. “After you thought you saw something.”
“I know what I saw.” I pulled the blanket back over my head.
I wasn’t ready for this.
“We’ll have to time talk about later, sis.”
I didn’t have to see his face to know he was only teasing me. The tone of his voice told me all I needed to know.
“I’m just glad you are safe now…But have you realized what is warming you up inside your jacket?”
My hands felt the object that he had given me. It was circular, like a tube of some kind with something at the top that one could unscrew. I knew what it had to be.
I tried my hardest not to smile, but realizing what it had to be nonetheless managed to take some of my sadness away from me. He was still my stepbrother, no matter what.
“It’s my favorite coffee, isn’t it? From abroad? You can’t joke about this!”
He just laughed.
“No, you can’t have!”
“Well, perhaps I did,” he said mysteriously.
We were silent for a few moments. I knew I wanted to be angry at him, but I just couldn’t. It had been my fault for assuming things. He had done nothing wrong. I was the one who was jealous of her own stepbrother for having a love life.
“Thanks, big brother,” I quietly muttered from beneath the blanket.
“What? Did I hear a thank you from your profanity-filled mouth?”
“Yes…You’ll make a nice husband for some profanity-spewing woman someday.” After I said it, I realized I shouldn’t have said it. It was too close to home and it made me cringe on the inside that I had said such words to him.
“You know I had it all ready for you before you decided to storm out like a five-year-old on a tantrum. I thought you had already passed that age, to be honest.”
I opened the container and let the smell of the coffee fill my senses. It reminded me of home. Andrew had kept sending me the coffee for years, and him being on the move so much, it had been almost my only contact with him while.
When the coffee shipments had suddenly stopped, I tried finding it so that it would remind me of him.
Fuck! There had to be some limitations to what my stepbrother can make me feel.
I sipped the coffee and the warm liquid flowed down to my stomach, warming up everything in its path. The shivering of my lips eased a bit after that first sip.
I was so tired that I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep.
“You can’t fall asleep now,” he said.
“I’m trying not to, but it’s getting more difficult with you being here. You’re so boring, you know!”
“C’mon now, I’m the most interesting man in the world.”
I pulled the blanket from me face just enough so that he could see my mouth from the mirror. “You would think so, but all you do is climb some stupid rocks on the other side of the world.”
I stood up from the seat and sat on top of my legs, pulling the blanket tighter around me. The darkness of the winter night I saw from the window was only lit up by the lights of the car.
I would have wanted to forget about the day ever happening, but the words came out of my mouth despite that. “So, what really happened?”
“You know, if you didn’t go all cranky like that, you would have heard me say that your ‘friend’ came onto me and wouldn’t let go of me when you walked in to the bedroom…”
His eyes found mine as he looked at me from the rear-view mirror. Neither of us said a word. Only the sound of the car going through the deep snow filled the air.
No, that couldn’t be! Had I really got it all wrong?
My heart wanted there to have been some reason why Andrew turned Hannah down. That he actually loved me, but I had learned my lesson. I wouldn’t try to ruin our friendship because of my feelings.
I just wanted to go home.
“Can you drop me off at the dorm?” I said with my lips shivering.
“You have hypothermia, sis. I need to get you back to my place so we can warm you up,” he said.
While I still loved him, being near him wasn’t going to do me anything good. If anything, it would only break my heart again.
I crumbled further down on the car seat and pulled the blanket over my head.
Chapter 3
The car pulled up to the driveway and without even asking me I could walk, he decided to carry me inside. My head rested on his neck and his smell brought me back to the many memories of our time playing together in the trees in our backyard.
I might have managed to walk myself, but I couldn’t object to any reason that got him so near me. Even if that ended up hurting me more.
Andrew closed the door behind us and carried me in front of the fireplace, where he laid me down. Large flames were dancing in fireplace, giving back some of the heat that my body ached for.
I was laid perpendicularly in front of the flames, and I placed my body as close to it I could bear. I had warmed up a bit on the short drive home thanks to the warm coffee and the blanket, but my delicate body still shivered.
I watched the flames engulf the birch bark logs while holding the blanket tightly against my face, but it didn’t seem to help.
I needed more.
I didn’t know what else we could do, but the fire didn’t seem to be enough to bring me back from the coldness.
I heard Andrew walk in closer and I turned to see him crouching over me.
“The fire doesn’t seem to be enough as you are still shivering.”
My teeth clattered as I spoke: “B-but what else can we do?”
He seemed to ponder for a brief moment, before I saw in his blue eyes that he had found the answer.
“Well, if we were on a mountain, we might have some better options with our gear, but we aren’t,” he said in a quiet, soft voice while still crouching over me. “The only option we have right now might not be to your liking.”
I kept looking at him, not knowing what to expect. Part of me didn’t want to answer him so that he would continue staying so close to me. If I never spoke again, would he be next to me forever?
“I trust you, brother.”
We continued to stare at each other in almost complete silence for a moment; only the sounds of the fire crackling in the background.
“The only idea that I right now is to warm you up using body heat. Warm bath would have been a good option as well, but I don’t have bath.”
“Body heat?” I looked at him with a puzzling look on my face for a while before I realized what he meant. Despite my shivering, my face blushed the instant I figured out what needed to be done. I turned my head away in shame and covered it with my hands.
“I know, right? But that is what they teach as a solution for warming people up from hypothermia.” There wasn’t even a hint of improper suggestion on his voice. His voice sounded as if he was almost sorry for having to bring it up as the solution.
“S-so,” I uttered, “we just lie here next to each other?” That wouldn’t be so bad, I thought.
He waited for a while before he answered. “It won’t work with clothes on, you know…”
My hands clasped at the blanket so hard my knuckles were turning white, and the world seemed to freeze once again.
I couldn’t let him see me naked, let alone have him lie next to me without clothes.
I had desired to be with my stepbrother for so long, but this was all happening for the wrong reasons. I had fantasized about being with him, but not like this. Not because I had made a stupid mistake of going outside without enough clothes. Not because he had to do it to keep me alive. And not because I had let my temper get the best of me.
I had made fool of myself and now he was forced to warm me up with his body.
I turned my head back to face him and could see that he knew the reservations I had.
“I
know, I know…We can keep on our underwear as the most of the heat will be transferred with my legs and torso anyway. And you can hug me from behind, with your back to the fire. How about that, sis?” His eyes were sincere. He was trying to comfort me into doing what we both knew needed to be done, but what neither of us wanted to do. “Let’s just pretend I’m giving you a piggybag ride, just like the one when we used to play?”
Suddenly, the shivers intensified and my body began to shook against the floor more violently. My hands squeezed the blanket in the dim light of the fire as we looked at each other.
I tried my hardest not to let him know about my reservations and joking seemed to be the best way to do it. “But if you drop me like you usually do, I’ll kick your butt,” I said while my body shook.
He grinned at back at me. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Warm me up, brother,” I said winking at him.
After I had said it, I realized how stupid it sounded. I turned my head away from him again so that I could bite my fingers in shame.
That had been such a stupid thing to say.
Who does that?
Really, ‘warm me up, brother’? That was the thing I decided to say? In this situation?
I heard him walk away from me and I found myself turning around so that I could watch him. I saw him undressing himself one piece of cloth at a time. He took off his sweater, pulling it over his head. His t-shirt had caught up in the sweater and got pulled all the way to his arm pits. Seeing a glimpse of his chiseled back, all the muscles and aesthetic curves made me want him even more.
As I hadn’t seen him without a shirt before since he had grown up, I couldn’t stop staring at him: he was no longer the boy I had grown up with. He was a man with a real man’s body.
I turned my whole body around so that my back was against the fire to take in the view of him with his blond hair undressing in front of my eyes. I had had my fantasies about what he would look like naked, but even in my wildest dreams I hadn’t thought of this. His toned body was so perfect I was afraid I couldn’t be able to contain myself. I would want to touch him everywhere; to feel by stepbrother’s strong body protecting mine.
When he took off his trousers, his cute butt made its first appearance. I might have let out a moan as I saw him crouch down, his round buttocks protruding from below the waist against his boxers. His firm butt cheeks were definitely a defining feature in his toned body.