“Me too, Banksy.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Roughing It
Winnie
The cabin looked better in the photos.
I’m standing in the doorway with my overnight bag and what I hope is an open mind, taking in the exposed wooden beams, the stone fireplace, the general aesthetic ofa man chose this, and I think—okay. Okay, I can do this. I love Banks. I love the outdoors, technically. I do yoga outside sometimes. This is fine.
“Well?” Banks sets our bags down and looks around with the satisfaction of a man who has delivered something excellent.
“It’s very…” I search for the word. “Rustic.”
“It’s perfect.”
“The shower is outside,” I point out.
He shrugs. “It’s an outdoor shower. That’s a feature.”
“Banks, it’s fifty-eight degrees.”
He puts his arm around me. “I’ll keep you warm, baby.”
I press my lips into a line because the last thing I want is to sound spoiled or ungrateful. Heplanned a romantic weekend away just for us—just because. It’s the thought that counts, right?
The fireplace works, which saves the first hour. Banks builds a fire with the focused energy he brings to everything, and I sit on the sofa with a glass of wine and watch him do it and think, fine, this is actually nice. The wood pops and the light goes warm and golden, and he drops down next to me and pulls me into his side, and I think—I overreacted. This is romantic. I’m a person who can appreciate simplicity.
Then I go to investigate the kitchen, including the coffee situation for in the morning, and discover there’s no coffee machine.
“There’s a French press,” Banks says from the couch, where he’s reading something on his phone with the total serenity of a man on vacation.
“I see the French press.”
“So—”
“So, I don’t know how to use a French press, Banks.”
He looks up. “You just push the thingy—”
“I know mechanically how it works. I’m saying I’ve never had to.” I look at the French press. It looks back at me, completely unhelpful.
By hour three I’ve made peace with the coffee situation and I’m actually having a good time, mostly because Banks is funny when he relaxes, which he only fully does away from the city. We take a walk through the woods and he identifies trees by name, which I didn’t know he could do, and I file that away in the growing folder of things that surprise me about him. He holds my hand overthe uneven ground and points out a hawk circling overhead and looks—happy. Genuinely, quietly happy.
I take a photo of him when he’s not looking.
By hour five I discover that the Wi-Fi is, and I cannot stress this enough, theoretical.
“It says I have two bars,” I tell him.
“That’s fine.”
“Banks, two bars means I can receive texts but I can’t actually open them. I tried to look something up and it loaded for four minutes and then gave me an error.”
“We don’t need Wi-Fi.” He’s entirely too calm about this. “That’s the point.”
“I need Wi-Fi. I have to check in with my sub for my Saturday morning class, and I told Tori I’d send her the paint color we picked for the—it doesn’t matter, I just need to send one email.”
