Theknockonthedoor came just as I was winning at the card game Maya had taught me last week. I looked up from my hand, confused. We didn’t get visitors up here. That was kind of the whole point of living on a mountain.
“You expecting someone?” Maya asked, setting her cards face-down on the coffee table.
I shook my head, my eyebrows drawing together. “No. Maybe it’s a ranger? Or someone from the tow company about your car? But Marco said he’d help you.”
I stood, padding toward the door. Through the window, I could make out a familiar massive silhouette and a smaller figure beside him. My confusion deepened as I pulled the door open.
“Everest?” I blinked at my friend. “What are you doing all the way up here?”
Everest stood on my porch, snow dusting his brown fur despite the clear afternoon sky. Must have been residual from the trees. Beside him was a woman I’d never seen before. She was a petite human, with dark curly hair pulled back in a messy bun, wearing a thick winter coat that looked about three sizes too big for her.
“Hey, Geoff.” Everest shifted his weight, and I recognized the gesture. He was nervous. “Sorry to drop by unannounced. This is Heidi. She needs a place to stay, and I thought... well, I live in the store’s basement, so that’s not exactly an option.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but I wasn’t sure what to say when Maya appeared underneath my elbow.
“Heidi!” She squeezed past me, pulling the smaller woman into a hug. “Oh my God, you actually came!”
“Surprise?” Heidi’s voice was muffled against Maya’s shoulder. “I know I said I’d wait a few more weeks before the plan went into action, but things got complicated.”
Maya pulled back, holding Heidi at arm’s length, her expression shifting to concern. “Complicated how? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m good.” Heidi glanced at Everest, then at me, then back to Maya. “Can we maybe talk about this inside? It’s kind of cold out here.”
“Right, yes, of course.” I stepped back, gesturing them in. “Sorry, I’m being rude. Come in, both of you.”
They filed past me into the living room, and I caught Everest’s eye. He gave me an apologetic shrug that saidI’ll explain later.
Maya was already clearing the coffee table of our game, making space. “Sit, sit. Geoff, can you put some water on for tea? Or coffee? What do you want, Heidi?”
“Tea would be great.” Heidi unwound a massive scarf from around her neck. She’d clearly borrowed it, probably from Everest given the size. She looked exhausted, I realized. The kind of tired that came from more than just a long drive.
I moved into the kitchen, filling the kettle and setting it on the stove, but I kept my ears tuned to the living room. Maya had settled beside Heidi on the couch, while Everest had taken the chair I’d been occupying, looking comically large even in furniture built for someone my size.
“So,” Maya said. “Complicated?”
Heidi let out a long breath. “I left Jamie.”
“Oh, thank God.” The words burst out of Maya before she could stop them. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, that was… I mean.”
“No, you’re right to be relieved.” Heidi managed a weak smile. “I should have done it months ago. Years ago, probably. But you know how it is. He wasn’t always bad, and when things were good, they were great, and I kept thinking maybe if I just tried harder, or was more patient, or,” she stopped, shaking her head. “Sorry. I don’t want to trauma-dump on you guys five minutes after showing up.”
“You’re not trauma-dumping,” I said from the kitchen, surprising myself. “You’re telling friends what’s going on. That’s allowed.”
Heidi looked over at me, and something in her expression softened. “Thank you. That’s... thank you.”
The kettle whistled, and I busied myself with making tea. Maya bought several kinds on our last trip to the store. She even had three mugs in the cupboard.
I brought out four mugs on a tray with steaming water, the tea still in their individual packets. Heidi chose chamomile, Maya green, Everest picked black, and I chose the breakfast blend I preferred even in the afternoon. When I returned to the livingroom, Maya had pulled out one of the board games from the shelf.
“Okay, here’s what we’re doing,” she announced. “We’re going to play a game, drink tea, and have a normal, low-pressure conversation like civilized people. No intense heart-to-hearts unless Heidi wants them. Deal?”
Heidi's smile was more genuine this time. “Deal. What’s the game?”
“Cooperative mystery solving. We all work together, so there’s no competition, just teamwork and wild speculation about which suspect is secretly the murderer.”
“Perfect.” Heidi accepted her mug of tea, wrapping both hands around it. “I’m great at wild speculation.”
We set up the game, and for a while, we just played. It was comfortable. Everest and I had been running game nights at the store for over a year now, so we fell into the familiar rhythm of explaining rules and making terrible jokes. Maya was brilliant at connecting clues, while Heidi surprised us all with her attention to detail, catching things the rest of us had missed.
