by Emerson Rose
I’m trembling under my blanket, mouth hanging open and stunned. He likes me? And so does his daughter? I don’t know why I’m so shocked to learn he’s an upstanding guy. He helped me with my backpack earlier today, and he didn’t have to. He brought us all into his home in a snowstorm. He didn’t have to do that either. The sign of a good person is when they do nice things with no expectations of being repaid.
“Clover?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I understand. And thanks for liking me. We would have been screwed without you, and you’re being so nice, I shouldn’t have been suspicious.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being careful. I’m glad to know you are.” He turns away from me and crosses the room to a wardrobe. When he opens it, it’s lumberjack flannel for as far as the eye can see. He snaps a heavy shirt off a hanger and takes a pair of drawstring sweatpants from a drawer and hands them to me. “Here you go. You’ll swim in them, but it’s better than being cold and wet.”
“Or naked,” I add.
His eyes do a quick head-to-toe scan of me before he answers in the affirmative. “Or naked, yes. I’ll leave you alone to change. Come down when you’re ready.”
He leaves me in his bedroom to change closing the door softly behind him. Alone, I take advantage of this opportunity to have a look around. I’m surprised to find the only other piece of furniture is a king-size bed made up neatly in the center of the room. How he got a mattress that size up this mountain is a mystery. There is a massive window on the opposite wall showing the snowstorm as if it were a show on a big screen TV.
Photographs of his daughter fill every available space on the walls along with two beautiful paintings of the mountain he lives on. There are no other family members in his photos, no wife or mother, no parents or siblings, and no friends either. They’re all of him and Adley from her infancy to today.
Dropping my blanket on the bed, I remove my damp panties and bra. I step into the soft, worn sweatpants pulling the drawstring tight and slide my arms into the flannel shirt. I cross the room buttoning the shirt as I go and stop at the window watching the snow falling from the sky. The moon is full making it easy to see the giant snow puffs in the dark. I feel like I’m inside one of my Aunt Heather’s Christmas snow globes, it’s beautiful and still and quiet.
I hadn’t realized how tired I was until this moment. The dim light, warm, cozy clothes, and fatigue from marching around the mountain in a snowstorm for hours have caught up with me.
Gage’s bed is too tempting. I can’t resist lying down just for a few minutes. Once I’m prone with my head on his pillow inhaling the faint scent of a manly soap and a throw over my legs, it’s hopeless. I know as my eyes are closing this isn’t going to be just a nap.
I whimper when my dream of skiing down a mountain with Gage is interrupted by the mattress dipping behind me. “I don’t wanna…” I mumble although I have no idea what I don’t want, and I fall right back to sleep.
Daylight, if you can call it that, wakes me in the morning followed by my stomach growling so loud I cover it with my hands.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” a gruff, masculine voice says from behind me, and I flip over and sit up so fast I see tiny specks of light before my eyes. “Whoa, calm down, I didn’t mean to scare you. You’ve been out for almost eleven hours.”
I look around frantically for a clock. “What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Where is everyone? Oh my God, they must think… I don’t even want to know what they think.”
He reaches out a muscular tattoo-covered arm and squeezes my hand. I try to catch a glimpse of what the tattoos say, but he’s too fast. “Nobody thinks anything. I put everyone in different rooms to sleep and told them I was sleeping on the couch.”
“But, you didn’t. You’re here and…” I stop sifting through my sleepy memories to pull the one where I felt the mattress dip behind me in the night. “You slept here with me, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I slept in my own bed, but I did it over here, and I never touched you. You do make some cute noises in your sleep, though. And you talk, too.”
“What? I do not.”
“How would you know, you were asleep.”
True, I guess I wouldn’t. I sleep with the door shut at home in case Freda has late- night company.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You don’t snore or anything. It’s more like whimpering with a few random thoughts here and there.”
“Random thoughts?”
“‘I don’t wanna,’ that ring any bells?”
“No, I must have been dreaming,” I lie. I remember saying it but don’t remember why.
“Come here,” he says patting the mattress next to him. He’s shirtless and his long sun-streaked hair is hanging down over his muscular shoulders. He is utterly mouthwatering. I know if I get any closer than I am right now, these clothes will be in danger of spontaneously combusting.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I won’t bite, promise.”
“Where’s Adley?”
“Still sleeping. We made soup last night and played cards with your friends until way past her bedtime. Her virtual teacher, Miss Kitty, is going to have a hissy fit. I’m claiming the storm knocked out the Wi-Fi signal.”
“How do you get Wi-Fi all the way up here?”
“I have my ways.”
“That sounds mysterious.”
“I’m a mysterious guy. Now come here.”
This request was more of a command, a command I can’t resist. I crawl across the bed to where he is propped up on several pillows, and he tucks me under his arm placing my free arm over his washboard abs and my cheek against his chiseled chest.
I take a deep breath and try to concentrate on conversing with this sexy-as-hell woodsman to keep myself from straddling him like a horse. “So, you said you’ve lived here all of Adley’s life?”
I swear he growls, and before I can sort it out in my mind, he’s flipped me onto my back, and his mouth is covering mine. Stunned, I don’t move a muscle, not that I could if I wanted to. Gage is made of solid lean muscles from the top of his head to his toes.
Our lips meld together, slipping and sliding, exploring until I relax and open for him. I expect him to slide his tongue into my mouth, I’m aching for him to do it, but he doesn’t. He stops and raises up caging me in with his forearms.
“Yes, we’ve lived here since she was born. It’s not my favorite topic to discuss, though. Now, I know you’re hungry, what do you like for breakfast?”
“Do you have more of that coffee you made last night? I never got to finish mine.”
“Of course, but you need food. Pancakes? Eggs? Bacon? What’ll it be?”
“Whatever’s easy, I don’t want to be a bother.”
He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “What?”
“You show up at my house with your entire class in the middle of a snowstorm, sleep in my bed and borrow my clothes, and now you’re worried about me making breakfast?”
“You know I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
He taps me on the nose with the tip of his finger. “You’re right. I’m glad you got lost. Come on, pancakes it is.” He rolls off of me and bounces out of bed grabbing a t-shirt and pulling it over his head.
I watch him dress missing the sight of his firm body kept fit from hard, honest work the second it’s covered. I scoot off of the bed to follow him downstairs where Adley is crawling onto a barstool at the island in the kitchen.
“Clover! You’re still here!” she says when she sees me coming out of her father’s bedroom. The house has two levels, and the upper floor has a walk-around balcony that overlooks the floor below.
“I sure am. Sorry I fell asleep so early last night. Must have been more tired than I thought.”
“It’s okay, we had fun playin’ cards.”
I glance out the large picture window over the sink in the kitchen and see it’s
still snowing. “It looks like we’re going to have plenty of time to get to know each other. It’s still snowing pretty hard out there.”
“Yay! I hope it never stops. You and your friends can stay forever.”
Gage is pulling things from a cupboard, and he snorts. “What? You don’t want fifteen new roommates?” I ask sitting on the barstool next to Adley.
“Nope, that’s too many bodies breathing my clean mountain air. I don’t mind a few days, but that’s about as long as my hosting skills last.”
“Daddy, you never hosted nobody up here before, how do you know?”
“Anybody, and I just know.”
I like this kid, she’s spunky.
“I like having company, it’s fun. Clover can come whenever she wants, though, right, Daddy?”
He lifts his eyes to me, and I squirm in my seat. “Yes, Clover is always welcome here.”
Adley eyes the ingredients he is placing on the counter. “Pancakes?”
“Yep, you hungry?”
“Uh huh, want me to wake everybody up?” she asks.
“No, let them sleep. If the smell doesn’t wake them, they aren’t ready to get up yet,” he says.
“Can I help?”
“Yes, I’d love a hand.” His words are innocent enough but being around Gage is giving me a dirty mind. Visions of the two of us naked, tangled in his sheets with our hands all over each other run through my brain as I stand up and round the island.
“There’s a griddle in the cupboard over there,” he says pointing at a cupboard over the stove. “Can you grab it?”
“Sure.” I retrieve the griddle and place it on the counter. “Are you following a recipe or do you have one memorized?” I ask, and he taps the side of his head. “Okay, what else?”
“Heat up the griddle and spray it with cooking oil. I’ll do the rest.”
“What about coffee?”
“Oh yeah, you can do that if you want. Coffee’s in the pantry, filters are in the cupboard over the coffeepot.”
“Okay.” I’m secretly thrilled he’s allowing me to make the coffee. His was great, but I make it stronger, and I could use a good pick-me-up.
When the smell of coffee and pancakes is wafting through the air, my classmates begin filtering downstairs. Gage knows what he’s doing in the kitchen, and the food smells divine.
“How’d you learn to cook for a crowd?” I ask, and he shrugs.
“Nowhere special. I triple the recipe and cross my fingers.”
“Daddy used to cook for his band, didn’t you, Daddy?” Adley says from her perch on the barstool.
“I wouldn’t call it cooking, honey. More coffee?” he asks trying to glide over the fact that his daughter just mentioned he was in a band.
“Yes, please. You were in a band?” He turns his back to me to fuss with something on the counter. “It was a long time ago, not worth mentioning.” He leans across the island and takes my coffee cup filling it to the rim remembering I like it black, and I don’t need room left for cream or sugar. I try again to eye his tattoos, but they are mostly flowers and abstract art with a few illegible words mixed in.
“He plays the guitar,” Adley offers, and Gage turns back around.
“Go wash up for breakfast and brush your teeth,” he snaps. Adley looks wounded, but she doesn’t argue retreating from the kitchen to go upstairs.
“Did I hit a nerve?” I ask when she’s out of earshot.
“It’s a time in my life I’d rather forget is all.”
I get it. There are times in my life I’d rather not remember, too, like when my house burned down when I was ten years old. I’m interested in music, and I’d like to pick his brain about playing the guitar, but out of respect, I keep to myself.
He flips three pancakes onto a plate and adds two sausage links before sliding it across to me. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I’m going to shower. I’ll be back in a few minutes. If anyone else wakes up, the batter is in a bowl in the fridge. Tell them to help themselves, I’ll leave the griddle on.”
“You’re not eating?”
“Lost my appetite,” he says taking the stairs two at a time leaving me to eat alone.
“Well, this sucks,” I mutter just as Carl enters the room. Carl has had a crush on me since freshman year. He asked me out so many times I can’t keep track, but this year he finally took the hint, and he stopped asking.
“What sucks?” he asks entering the kitchen looking ridiculous in Gage’s clothes. Carl is tall and skinny with sandy brown hair and glasses. He is the stereotypical nerd type. I always wondered why he majored in adventure education instead of something more techy. Carl’s slim body swims in Gage’s big clothes, but then again, mine does too.
“Eating alone. Join me?” I may not want to date Carl, but we are friends now that he doesn’t ask me out every time we are in the same room together.
“Sure, what’s the woodsman got cooking this morning?” he says jutting his chin toward the counter.
“Pancakes. The griddle is hot, and the batter’s in the fridge. Oh, and there’s fresh coffee in the pot, too.”
“Cool. He’s not eating?” he says opening the refrigerator.
“No, I think he was going to help his daughter or something,” I lie.
He pulls the bowl of batter from the shelf and brings it to the island where the griddle is smoking hot. “Don’t you think it’s kinda weird that he lives all the way out here with his kid? Like, doesn’t she need to go to school and stuff?”
“She attends virtual school online.”
“Yeah, but what about social interaction? Kids need other kids to be friends with and bully. She’s gonna be a hermit.”
“I don’t know, she seems to be pretty extroverted to me.”
He shrugs, and I hear a door open behind me. Michelle appears wearing her own clothes. “Hey, morning,” I say.
“Hi, God, what a nightmare, right? Like, Mark was totally trying to get us killed.”
I think Michelle time-traveled from the eighties. She sounds like what I imagine a Valley girl would have back then with her ‘like’ and ‘oh my God’ and ‘gag me with a spoon.’ She’s also a shit-disturbing gossip.
“I don’t think it was intentional. The school has been breathing down his neck to make sure everybody graduates on time with high GPAs so they can keep some accreditation or something.”
“You would defend him,” she says, disgusted.
“She’s right. I saw a letter on his desk last week when I turned in my extra credit project. It was almost threatening,” Carl says.
“Whatever, he’s an idiot. What’s the point in high GPAs if everybody’s like, dead?”
Carl and I exchange exasperated looks, and he changes the subject. “Where’d you find your clothes?” he asks Michelle.
Her eyes turn all dreamy when she says, “Mister Hottie Mountain Man left them outside the door to my bedroom. He’s like, so yummy. I want to lick his tattooed body all over.”
Mentally, I add slut to my earlier shit-disturbing gossip description of her. I may have thought about tracing his tattoos with my tongue, but I sure as hell wouldn’t say it out loud.
“You’re such a whore, Michelle,” Carl says what I’m thinking, but she doesn’t take offense.
“I’m like, way in touch with my sexuality. There’s nothing wrong with that. You should totally try it sometime, Carl. You might get laid before you graduate college.” Her inflection is in all the wrong places making her Valley-girl talk even more pronounced.
“Michelle, if you’re hungry, there’s pancake batter in the silver bowl on the counter, and the griddle is hot.” I’ve learned with Michelle it’s best to deflect her attention somewhere else rather than cave to her insults.
“Ooo, yes, I’m like totally starving. Hey, how long till we can like, go home?”
“Home? I’m pretty sure as soon as the weather lets up, we will be resuming our sixty-day wilderness excursion.”
&nb
sp; “No way, you think they’re going to make us do it after we totally almost died out there? Like, Mark’s probably going to get fired, and he should. I’m going to have my daddy talk to the school board about giving us a pass on this experience.” She says ‘experience’ like a dirty word. Michelle’s family is rich, which is a good thing because she’s as dumb as a box of rocks, and there’s no way she would have ever survived in the wilderness. From what I have gathered over the years, I think her parents sent her to college here so she wouldn’t wander away into the woods and get lost. She’s that damn dumb.
“I want to do it. I hope they don’t cancel it because of one mistake.”
Mark enters the kitchen. His room must have been behind the stone fireplace because I didn’t hear him come downstairs. “I’m sorry, Clover. I’m sorry to all of you. They’ve canceled the class.”
3
Gage
Standing at the top of the stairs, I listen to the conversation going on in my kitchen below me. Their instructor, Mark, is talking.
“I was notified this morning that they’ve canceled the experience, and you will all be receiving an A in the class as an apology for my actions.”
“Woo hoo!” The girl sitting next to Clover yells. I can’t remember her name, but I haven’t forgotten how hard she came on to me last night. I knocked on everyone’s door last night passing out his or her dry clothes, but I left hers outside her door to avoid any more of her unattractive Valley-girl flirting.
She’s a pretty girl with an ugly personality that I find difficult to tolerate even in small doses. I’ll wait until she’s done eating to go down and have my breakfast. I feel bad for abandoning Clover to eat alone, but I couldn’t risk any more questions about my dead music career.
Just in case someone out there still remembers me, I want to keep my identity under wraps. I’ve successfully stayed hidden for six long years, and I don’t want to fuck it up now.