by Elle Casey
“Serious?” he asks. “Kind of. Maybe. Maybe not.” He grins at me, his face delightfully pink now.
“Trust me, Jeremy, if I wanted to woo you, as you put it, I wouldn’t do it with chicken-fried steak.”
He pushes off the sink and takes a step closer to me. “Oh yeah? How would you do it, then?”
I take a step to the side, trying to act like my movement is totally casual and not in response to his coming toward me. “I’m not going to tell you.” I place my mug down on the island counter as I step around to the end of it.
Jeremy keeps coming at me, reminding me of a jungle cat stalking its prey. “Why not? You afraid?”
“Afraid? Of what? You?” I snort. “Not likely.” Now I’m on the opposite side of the island from where I started.
“Where are you going?” he asks, grinning like a fool, taking another step in my direction.
“Nowhere. Where are you going?”
He takes a giant step around the island, and I squeal, running in the opposite direction.
“Don’t chase me!” I scream, a giant ball of laughter welling up inside me. My dad used to chase me down the hall to bed at night, and I can remember with absolute clarity the thrill of it and how it would make me screech with laughter at almost getting caught before I leaped into my bed and burrowed under the covers.
Jeremy pulls up short, his smile falling away. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
I’m breathing heavily, holding onto the edge of the counter for support. My entire body is shaking with adrenaline. “I’m not scared.” I bite my lip as I take in his giant shoulders, trim waist, muscled forearms. No, I am most definitely not scared.
A slow grin lights up his face. “Well, okay then.” And like lightning, he launches himself at me, yelling like a caveman.
I scream like a woman being chased by a madman and run for the front door. I don’t know what I’m thinking by escaping outside; all I can focus on is escape, and this seems like the most expedient route.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jaws scrambling off the couch just as I’m getting to the door. I fling it open and I’m halfway down the front steps in the freezing cold, when Jeremy’s shouts of pain and anger reach me, stopping me in my tracks.
“Ow, ow, get off me, you crazy mutt!”
I turn around and race back to the door where I find Jeremy just inside the entrance with Jaws attached to his leg.
“Oh my god, no! No, Jaws! Bad dog!” I feel terrible that I caused this. And also a little proud of my little pound puppy who felt the need to protect me from my crazy, temporary roommate. Even just the thought of it makes me want to giggle. Roommates.
“Bad dog?!” Jeremy yells. “That’s the best you can do?! He’s trying to eat my leg!”
I grab the dog’s little body and hold him out to the side. “Let go, Jaws. Let go right now!”
Jaws releases Jeremy’s pant leg and turns his head to look up at me. His tongue comes out and I swear to God, he smiles at me.
I can’t help but smile back as I cuddle him to my chest. “Oh, you sweet boy, you came to my rescue.” I nuzzle his neck in an effort to share affection without getting a mouth-licking.
Jeremy’s voice is an octave higher than normal. “You’re praising him for attacking me. Unbelievable.”
I peek out at Jeremy and smile. “Did Jaws really hurt you, you big baby, or are you just being dramatic again?”
“Again? Since when have I been dramatic?”
“Oh, pretty much since the moment you stepped foot inside this cabin.”
Jeremy slams the door shut and the stares at me, his hands on his hips. “Feisty,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“Observant,” I say back, my chin again in the air.
“Fussy.”
I glare at him. “Creative.”
His head tilts to the side as he stares at me. “Unique.”
I blink at the compliment. It feels like too much. “Normal.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Never normal. Normal is boring.”
We both smile at each other.
“Peace?” he asks, holding his hand out.
I put Jaws down at my feet and take his hand in mine. “Peace.
I never should have done it.
I never should have touched his skin to mine. As soon as our palms touch and our fingers wrap around each other’s hands, sparks light up my chest like a bunch of fireworks on the 4th of July. Boom! goes my heart.
Both of our smiles fall away and we take a step closer to one another.
“Pretty,” he says, his voice gravelly.
“Sexy,” I say, hating myself the minute the word is out of my mouth.
“You’re telling me,” he says, lowing his head toward mine.
It’s just as we’re about to kiss that Jeremy jerks his head away and shouts, breaking our contact by yanking his hand away.
“Goddammit, Dog!”
I look down in horror as Jaws is once again latched onto Jeremy’s leg.
Chapter Twenty-Two
AFTER CLEANING THE SMALL BITE-wound on Jeremy’s leg and laughing our way past the awkward moment our out-of-control sex drives created earlier, we part ways and go to bed, Jeremy in the little room off to the side, and me on the couch again.
I toss and turn for an hour before I finally give up and go back to my easel. I can’t paint in the bad lighting conditions, but I can sketch onto the canvas what I will paint. The image rapidly takes shape from my earlier attempts.
There’s a man, sitting on a stool, reading from Wuthering Heights, with a dark expression on his face, as a small dog sits on the ground and stares at his leg. I giggle as I fill in some detail.
Just a little paint, I tell myself an hour later, just to get a little outline going.
And then another hour later, I have to see more of it. I drag a lamp over from the family room and take the shade off it. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the pale overhead light. I fill my palette with the muted colors of Fall and being painting over my sketch in earnest. I don’t fully realize what’s going on until I’m up to my elbows in it. I’m painting tonight. This is happening. I want to sing with joy.
My back aches and my neck is stiff, but still I continue. I haven’t felt this energized in years. I think it could possibly be sexual frustration fueling my muse, but who cares. This is amazing.
As I fill in the detail around the man’s face, I think about Jeremy and how he made me feel — when he was talking to me, open and vulnerable, when he was joking, when he chased me out into the cold. I get warm running through the memories. There’s just something about that man. He’s so broken and yet so tough, too. He looks strong enough to lift a house.
I can’t figure him out. He’s mourning the loss of his wife, but he’s flirting with me. I can’t deny the obvious truth of that any more. And I’m flirting back, as crazy as that is. Is it wrong to do that? Am I taking advantage of his vulnerable situation? It makes me feel like a heel, making it easier to fill in the darker parts of the painting, the mood that I sense surrounding the man and the dog.
A noise outside, the large cracking of a splitting, frozen tree, wakes me up to the fact that the sun is rising. I check my watch, and my eyes bulge out as I realize I’ve been painting non-stop for about seven hours.
Placing the palette down on the small IKEA table, I massage the back of my neck. There’s still some paint to put down, but the major elements are in. It’s a much darker piece than I thought I’d be creating before I arrived here, but right now it feels exactly right; the last couple days have been pretty dark, after all.
When I hear Jeremy moving around in his room, I quickly move to put the sheet over the canvas, careful to keep it from touching the wet surface in front. No way do I want him seeing this. Just as the material is falling into place, I hear his voice behind me. I turn to face him.
“Wow, you’re up early.” He rubs at his head, scratching his scalp. His hair is so horrible, it’s cute.<
br />
I long to walk over and smooth it down, but I don’t dare. I’ve decided; I can’t take advantage of his vulnerability. I’m not that kind of girl. I look down at the ground to keep myself from drooling over his hot, well-muscled body, easy enough to see through his thin T-shirt and loose, baggy jeans. I can’t imagine how he stays so fit with the amount of alcohol he drinks. If I drank as much as he did, I’d have to wear yoga pants 24/7.
“I haven’t gone to bed yet, actually.” I unbutton and slide out of my painting blouse, leaving it on the stool behind me.
“Are you kidding? You stayed up all night working?” He walks closer, his gaze on the covered painting.
I slide over sideways to block his approach. “No peeking.”
He stops short, frowning at me. “What do you mean? I can’t look at it?”
“No.” I shake my head for emphasis.
He grins. “Why? Did you paint me?”
I can feel my face burning immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m painting the dog.” It’s not a complete lie, anyway.
“Why don’t you let me take a look, then?” he acts like he’s going to go around me.
I grab a palette knife and hold it up at him. “Don’t even think about it. I’m not kidding. No looking. It’s a rule.”
“Not my rule.” He looks down at the knife. “Uh-oh. Are you going to stab me with your one-inch, painter’s knife?”
I lower the tool to my side. “No. Not if I don’t have to.”
He laughs and moves away, heading for the kitchen. “You want some coffee?”
“No. I need to go to sleep, and the caffeine will keep me up.”
“You should use the bedroom,” he says, banging around in the kitchen with pots and pans. “It’s quieter.”
“Promise you won’t peek at the picture?”
“Nope.” I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Then I guess I’ll be sleeping out here.”
“Oh, don’t be such a hardass. I won’t touch your precious painting.” He turns around and grins. “I didn’t figure you for the sensitive creator type.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes at him, confused as to why I’m annoyed. I probably just need to brush my teeth. Bad breath always makes me cranky.
I’m rinsing my mouth out with mouthwash when Jeremy shows up in the doorway.
“I peeked,” he says, taking a sip of coffee.
I check his expression, and when I see it, I know he’s lying. I’m not a total egotistical diva, but I’d know if he saw himself in that painting. He’d definitely have something to say about it.
I shrug. “Told you it was just a dog.”
“Why are you so worried about me seeing it?”
“Because, I don’t like anyone seeing an unfinished work.”
“Superstition?”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “If you want to call it that.” I brush my hair slowly, wondering if I can get away with not washing it today. I’m going to be sleeping the majority of the daylight hours. Maybe Jeremy won’t notice it’s a little greasy. And why do I even care what he thinks about my hair? Stupid. I have to stop playing this game with myself. I slam the brush down on the counter and glare at my reflection.
“I take it you’re not a morning person.”
I turn my glare on him. “I’m a great morning person, usually, it’s just that I’ve been up all night and I’m being harassed by someone I’d rather not be looking at right now.”
Argh, he makes me say the stupidest things.
He backs away with a hand held out in surrender. “Okay, okay, I get it. You know, Laura wasn’t much of a morning person either.”
“Do not compare me to her.” The slow burn of anger bubbles up in me, but I have no idea where it’s coming from. It feels way too much like jealousy to be comfortable.
“Why?”
“Why? Because she’s dead and I’m not. She was your wife, and I’m not. Because it’s not healthy, that’s why.” I go back to brushing my hair because I have nothing else to do and apparently my mouth has gotten away from me once again. I’d run out of the house to escape my embarrassment, but it’s too damn cold outside.
Jeremy walks away quietly, leaving me to my misery — a sadness that is compounded by the fact that he isn’t fighting back. It’s like I’ve beaten a puppy or something the way it’s making me feel about myself.
When I’m sure he’s really gone back to the kitchen, I sneak out of the bathroom, let Jaws outside to do his business, and then go right into the bedroom without saying a word, locking the door behind me. I obviously need to get some sleep, and then when I wake up, I’ll apologize. I’ll make him see that I’m not a horrible person who should have her mouth taped shut with duct tape.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SLEEP, GLORIOUS SLEEP. THAT’S ALL I needed. I wake up with a new outlook, ready to fix what I broke this morning when I should have been sleeping and not talking to another human being. Jeremy didn’t deserve my snark. I need to apologize, assuming he’s even going to talk to me.
The smell of something cooking greets me when I walk out into the living room.
“There she is. Sleeping Beauty lives.” Jeremy glances up for a second before going back to his frying pan. He doesn’t sound angry, at least. That’s a good sign.
“What time is it?” I ask, trying to smooth my hair down. I probably look terrible, but it shouldn’t matter. It’s probably better if he sees me ugly; then he won’t be tempted to flirt with me anymore and vice versa.
“Six. You slept for ten hours.”
“I guess the snowplow didn’t come.” I look out at the white expanse beyond the windows. The last bit of light exposes the snow-covered everything. Only a few branches are showing through.
“Nope. Probably tomorrow, though.”
I sit down at the kitchen island and try to see what he’s up to.
“You feel like eating spaghetti?” he asks.
“Yes.” I frown at the stovetop. “Is that a frying pan?”
“Yep.”
“Are you frying the spaghetti?”
“No, just the bread.”
He flips the buttered slice onto a plate and shows it to me. “Garlic bread, Oliver style.”
I lift it from the plate and take a bite. “Nice,” I say, my mouth full of garlicky goodness.
“I do it diner-style, basically. Like it was done on a griddle.”
“I’ll bet you’re good with a pancake,” I say, before I realize it sounds like flirting again.
“You don’t even want to know. Pancakes are my specialty. You’ll gain five pounds in one meal.”
I look down at my stomach, regretting the fact that I probably shouldn’t indulge in these famous pancakes of his anytime soon. I’m pushing maximum density as it is.
“Not that I’m saying you can’t stand to gain a few pounds.” He’s looking at me, obviously concerned he’s said something he shouldn’t have.
I grin, not ready to let him off the hook yet. “Nice try.”
Ack! More flirting! I really need to stop.
“Seriously, you’re not fat. You’re thin. You’re beautiful, I promise.”
“Beautiful?” I look up at my bangs that I know are flying north, south, east and west.
“You’re suffering from a little bedhead, but that’s nothing a brush can’t fix, right?”
I act like I’m going to throw the rest of my bread at him and he ducks, but I don’t want to waste it. It is pretty good, this diner-style garlic bread. I drop the last bit on the floor for my faithful hound who’s sitting at my feet. He gobbles it up before it even hits the floor.
I’m supposed to be apologizing to Jeremy for my earlier mean-girl act, but now it feels like it would turn the atmosphere awkward, so I put that plan on hold.
What I really want to know is how he’s maintained such an amazing body when there’s no gym anywhere around here. His back is practically twice the width of mine and his arms are as big around as my thigh
s, well muscled with veins showing everywhere. But I know what kind of trouble that question would get me in, so I stay with the boring conversation topics.
“So, where’d you learn to cook spaghetti?” I ask, working hard at keeping the conversation going and on neutral, non-sexy ground.
“My wife. Laura. It was a family tradition. We used to do it every weekend, on Sunday. Everyone would come to our house and Laura would serve it up. My sister would bring the garlic bread and my brother would bring the wine.” Hearing him call Laura his wife, like she’s still alive, makes me sad again. And jealous. I want someone to feel that way about me. Someone who would want to keep my memory alive long after I’m gone. Laura was one lucky girl.
“Sounds awesome,” I say. I imagine doing weekly spaghetti dinners with a family, alongside a man I love. I could totally get into that scene. I picture Jeremy and Cassie and his siblings and my friend Leah.
When I realize I’m imagining myself as Jeremy’s plus-one, I quickly pull my head out of that fantasy and change the subject.
“So, what do you do for a living?”
He shrugs. “Not much.”
“How are you surviving out here if you don’t have a job?”
“I have money. Why?” He looks over his shoulder at me and grins. “You worried about me?”
“Maybe a little. I know your family tried to track you down and couldn’t find a trace anywhere.”
“That’s how I wanted it.”
“But you must be using credit cards or something.”
“Nope. Just cash. When I run out, I go back to Manhattan and pull some out. No big deal. I don’t live large or anything. The electricity bill is practically nothing, and I live on burgers and fries pretty much.”
“That’s horrible for your health.”
“Not something I cared about for a long time.”
“You said ‘Cared.’ Past tense?”
He shrugs but doesn’t answer.
I get a shiver of happiness when I imagine it might have something to do with me being here, with my influence. But then just as quickly I slap myself down. Could I have a bigger ego? I don’t think so. So what’s the reason for the use of past tense? Why does he care now? I’m burning to know, but I don’t want to seem desperate. Better to stick to less personal questions.