I didn’t know they invited her, but then again, they don’t need my permission, nor do they gotta run their plans past me. It’s their cabin, after all.
And as much as I’m enjoying watchin’ her try to pull open her door while her feet are stuck, I know the longer I watch without helping, the worse off I am. Because pretty soon, she’s gonna realize I’m watching and that I’m the only one here. So I pull my hair up quickly, tie it into a mess, flip my collar up and run out to help her.
The snow falls down the collar of my coat, leavin’ drops of icy cold drippin’ down my back. I shrug it away as I jog to her.
“Grab my shoulders,” I say loudly over the stormy, snowy sky above. Shit, this weather just took a turn. For the first time, probably in her life, Goldie doesn’t argue. The snow is comin’ fast now, and something tells me those little jeans of hers ain’t keepin’ her warm. She grips my shoulders, gorgeous green eyes searching mine. She wants help, and even though I’m helping her, I can see she’s afraid to admit it. Afraid to ask.
I wrap an arm around her waist, and goddamn, she’s tinier beneath me than I imagined. With my other arm, I pat her leg. “Wrap this one around my waist, then the other.” She blinks a few times, and her mouth opens and closes like she wants to protest and argue. I shake my head. “Just do it so we can get dry.”
She nods, and a second later, Goldie’s body is flush with mine as she clings to me. Her lips tickle my ear. “My bag, it’s in the backseat.”
Carryin’ her weight easily, I trudge two extra steps back and open the rear door. Grabbing her fancy leather duffel, I knock the door closed with my hip. With one hand in the center of her back and the other holding her bag, I make my way up to the porch. It’s only fifteen feet or so, but with the snow comin’ down hard and fast, it’s a treacherous fifteen feet. Especially if I were wearin’ Converse. Thank God I’m not.
I lower her to the porch, then open the door to the cabin. With an outstretched arm, I usher her inside. We make it two steps inside before I drop her bag to the floor and shut the door. Her puffy coat, while making a valiant attempt at looking warm, clearly isn’t doing shit for her. Dark and drenched, her long, lean fingers struggle with the zipper as her teeth chatter loudly.
“I didn’t; I didn’t know it would be so w-wet and c-c-cold,” she ambles, still tryin’ to get her fingers to work. “The heater in my car is out. It got c-cold like, f-fifteen miles ago.”
“Fuck,” I groan, droppin’ down to a knee in front of her. I grip the zipper at the bottom of her coat, batting her hands away. “That’s how people get pneumonia,” I hear myself sayin’, soundin’ more like my Mom than I ever have. I work the partially broken zipper up, get to my feet, and finish it. “Turn,” I tell her, and when she does, I slide the heavy, wet coat off her, hangin’ it on the rack behind us. I take my jacket off and do the same with mine.
“Get your shoes and socks off, too,” I tell her, nodding down to her feet. She sits on the bench lining the wall, and we both take off our socks and shoes in silence. I hold my hand out and say, “socks.” She looks at my hand, then looks down at her wet, crumpled socks in her pale hands.
“But you don’t want to touch my dirty socks,” she says slowly, blinking up at me.
I roll my eyes. Not typically my move, but come the fuck on. “They’re socks. I ain’t scared of socks.” She places them in my hand with hesitation she’s wasting her energy on. Walking to the fireplace, I lay all four socks out against the warm brick. When I turn back to her, she’s wearing a foolish smile. “Oh, thank you,” she says, realizing I was only going to dry them, not sniff them and get a laugh.
I look at her feet, white and wrinkled. “You got an extra pair?” I ask, thinkin’, of course, the answer is gonna be yes ‘cause we’re at a cabin in the snow. The woman had to have packed more than one pair of socks. But when she bites into her bottom lip, and her eyes flick to the side, analyzing her bag on the floor, I have my answer.
I walk down the hall and find the room with my bag on the bed. Unzipping, I dig around until I find a pair of thick, gray wool socks. My favorite to wear in the snow with my boots. Never been cold in them, not once.
When I come out, Goldie is standing but still next to the bench by the front door. She seems nervous, and I never thought I’d see this little firecracker uncomfortable. I hand her the socks. “They’re clean. Put ‘em on.” I don’t look back as I walk through the small space toward the kitchen. “Come have some coffee. It’ll warm you up.”
And I don’t know why I’m relieved when she enters the kitchen, but I am. I guess maybe a part of me thought she’d fight me on everything because that seems to be her way. Or maybe,just maybe, I like her company. Though it’s been so fuckin’ long since that’s been the case, I don’t know if that’s what it is. Maybe I just didn’t feel like fighting, and since she’s in here, she’s not being combative.
I’m pullin’ out two mugs from the cupboard when her phone rings. Which makes me remember I got mine stuffed in my bag. Her voice is softer than I remember when she answers.
“Hello?”
I can hear the pitch and tone vibrating through her cell, and the cabin is small, so privacy is non-existent. I’m fairly certain it’s Beck, from what I can tell. I fill one mug, keepin’ my finger pressed to the stainless top of the carafe.
“Seriously?” Goldie asks, her voice rich with shock and disappointment. As the storm grows angry outside the cabin, I suspect I got an idea why Beck’s calling.
“Yeah, no, of course not. I wouldn’t want you to take Jett out in this weather.” She bites into her bottom lip, and her eyes hover on mine. “Yeah, I just got here.” Beck says something. “Just Atticus.”
It’s the first time I’ve heard her say my name. I never thought my name would sound good again. I loved the way it sounded when my kid sister said it. Like no matter how I was feelin’ about myself or whatever, she’d say my name with so much importance and respect that I couldn’t help but feel good.
Goldie doesn’t say my name the way Mere did, but with those doe eyes looking up at me, the shiver still running through her from the weather, and the crack of the fire popping off behind us, I feel the same way as when Mere said it… like no matter what I do, I matter to her.
“Okay, I will. Yeah, I will,” she nods to me a little as if to say she wants to hang up. And it’s our first private moment.
A thing we share. Her wanting to get off the phone and sharing that with me, unbeknownst to Beck and Beau. And it’s nothin’ really. But I haven’t had a private second with anyone but Beau in years. I rub the back of my neck to get that tingly feeling to go away. She ends the call a moment later.
We slide into seats at the table adjacent to us, and I slide a mug of coffee to her. “Don’t know how you take it,” I say, staring into the steaming black liquid.
“Just like this,” she says, surprising me. But before I can start a fight over the fact I thought she’d take it with frothed milk and fancy fuckin’ syrups, she drums her nails on the table. “And I guess you probably figured it out, but… no one else is coming.”
Looking out the window on the back door, all I see is white. It’s fuckin’ beautiful, but the sight across the table is, too. “I figured that much.” I stroke a hand down my stubble before taking a sip of the extremely strong coffee. Fuck, this is so strong my mouth puckers a little. I pull my focus from the snowfall to Goldie, who is drinking her coffee without a single look of disgust on her face. I nod to the mug. “I used too many grounds. It’s too strong.”
She takes another sip and wrinkles her nose. “When I get coffee out, I love syrups and flavors of fall and, oh, whipped cream. But at home, I like it black,” she takes another sip like I asked her about her exact taste in coffee, which I didn’t. I also ain’t mad to hear it. She takes another sip. “I don’t think this is too strong. I like it bold.” And I don’t know why her likin’ strong coffee is some dumb pleasant surprise, but it is. But since I got no business being pleasantlyanythingover her, I ask about the call.