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I blush at his joke. “I didn’t —”
“But the car breaking down, yeah.” He shrugs again. “That’s what gave me away, didn’t it? I did think it was a little too much, but I had to do it if I wanted to bring you here.”
“Here.”
“To this cabin, in the middle of the woods.”
My pulse thumps and thumps away as tingles rush up and down my body. “Ha. Ha. That’s extremely funny.”
“Actually I don’t think there’s anything funny about bringing you to a lonely place where no one can hear you scream.”
“Right. Okay. I’m sorry I said this is likeDateline. Can we just move on please?” I say, rolling my eyes.
Or trying to.
Because I can hardly do it.
I can hardly breathe too.
Not because I’m getting scared by his words. I know he’s joking; I know that.
It’s the other thing.
The thing where I realize — very belatedly — that we’re in a cabin together. During a snowstorm. With the coziest fire going only a few feet away, sipping on hot chocolate and talking without arguing.
And while it may mean nothing to him, it means something to me.
It means everything to me.
To be stuck in a fairytale cabin in the middle of a winter wonderland with the man I love.
So yeah, no breaths. Only racing heartbeats and fluttery feelings.
“So then how do you explain me being at that shithole of a burger place?” he asks, again with a direct gaze.
That’s hard to hold.
But I do it because I don’t think I could look away even if I wanted to right now.
EvenI’mnot that shy or practical.
“Maybe you felt like a burger,” I reply.
“I never feel like a burger when the season’s about to start,” he informs me.
“Maybe your date wanted a burger.”
“Tara would die before touching anything with carbs.”
“Maybe tonight was an exception.”
“Maybe,” he concedes.
Finally.
Finally I canbreathe.
It comes with disappointment, my gulp of air, but at least I can survive to the next moment.
