Page 19 of I Will Always Love You (Maybe)

Oh… heat. Glorious, glorious heat. I tug off my mittens, rub my palms together, and then press them onto my exposed cheeks. God, it’s cold out there. The prickly sting of cold skin from damp pants clinging to my legs sends shivers through me, and I quickly tug them up and blow the warm air vents at them.

My heart pounds against my chest. I need to leave. I need to get the hell out of here and take a shower and have a good cry, and seriously, why is there so much damn snow? Even on max speed, sitting in Colby’s driveway, my wipers can barely keep up.

I blow out a deep, ragged breath and slowly ease down the driveway. The car pushes through the thick, heavy snow. “Come on, come on,” I say, and someone tell me why I thought a tiny little sedan was a good vehicle when I live in Northern Minnesota. I lean as close to the windshield as I can to try and get better visibility, and pray that I don’t make a sudden stop and face-plant into the glass. The wipers squeak against the windshield as they drag the heavy accumulation to the side.

Visibility is so low it’s disorientating. Thank God Colby doesn’t live on a cliff where I could go over the side. I can’t tell where the gravel drive ends, but if I follow the tree line, I should be good. All moisture in my mouth has zapped away, and my body quickly starts overheating. I throw my hat to the side, grip a solid ten and two on the steering wheel, and inch my way towards freedom.

A small dip in the road, along with the howling wind, edges my car into a small snowbank and I stick. “No…” My teeth grit. No, I am not stuck. I can’t be stuck. There is no way the universe would be cruel enough to let my car get stuck on Colby’s property after everything that happened last night. I press on the gas, and tires spin. I put it into reverse. Spin. Neutral, then drive, spin.

This is not happening. I swipe the beads of sweat lining my forehead and put my car into park. Every swear word that I know, and a few that I picked up from my seventeen-year-old nephew, comes flying out of my mouth. “Think, Josie.”

There’s no chance in a frozen hell that I’m going to stay here. I refuse to let my walk-of-shame nightmare turn into a stuck-in-shame nightmare.

I’m not giving up. I grab my gloves and hat, pop out of the truck, put on my boots, and grab my mini shovel.

I have an idea.

TEN

COLBY

The bright cedarwood ceiling in my bedroom is staring back at me, judging me. I heard Josie get up and tiptoe around the house. And as quietly as I’m sure she tried to be, even Kona, under her pain meds and antibiotic fog, heard her. Not that Josie was loud, at all, but living in total solitude for six years, then having another body here is jarring for anyone. I calmed Kona from wanting to go inspect and calmed myself for not wanting to face what I’d done.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. I heard Josie shut the front door, heard her start the car, can hear her now out there, scraping something as her car runs. And the kind, honorable, decent thing to do would be to go outside, help her with whatever she’s doing, and bring her a hot coffee.

But instead, I’m lying in my bed like a chump. My stomach knots, my heart aches, and my brain is fatigued from not shutting off the entire night. “Ugh.” I shimmy down the bed and tug the comforter over my face.

Last night was good. Amazing, actually. A tension release, a memory release, and something in me stirred to life. Last night, after so many years, I felt feminine and sexy and wanted. After all these years, I had no idea how good it would feel to orgasm with someone else, and not alone. Being touched, touching, kissing, everything felt wonderful. My skin is still flushed with desire, a sort of lust hangover, and I both want to totally forget what happened, and run out there and do it again in the cushioning snow.

I had no idea how much I’d been missing touch over the years, and Josie filled that void. It was so messy and hot and frantic, clear that both of us were needing something in that moment, but I’m not sure either of us found what we needed.

But right now, I’m consumed by the guilt of my actions. There’s this tug in me, this deep pull, where I want to hug Josie, and make sure she is okay, and I want her to hug me and ask if I’m okay. I want to run into the recording booth and record a journal entry to Amelia to get that final approval even though I already know, to the deepest part of my core, that she’d be okay.

So, really. I should be fine. But am I? I don’t think so.

After Josie fell asleep last night, I immediately slithered off the couch, scooped up my clothes, and ran back to my room. Honestly, I wanted to sneak out the moment it was over, and what does that make me? God, I’m a horrible human. But then I felt so terrible that I left her out there, alone, on the couch. When I put on my pajamas and tiptoed down the hall, I watched her for a moment. So peaceful. So beautiful. And I needed to make sure she was okay. So I stuffed a pillow under her head, brought her water, covered her up, and tried to stop myself from crying.

The bed squeaks as I toss to one side, then the other, then finally sit up and rest my head against the headboard. What am I doing? This is not good. I shouldn’t want to cry after sex. But I also shouldn’t want to do it again, especially if I’d almost broken down from it last night, right? Am I losing my mind? Have all these years of solitude finally taken the mental toll that my family warmed me about? Right now, I don’t feel like I’ve cheated on Amelia, but I don’t feel good about any of it. I was desperate to not think for a bit and it worked. My God, did it work, but is that healthy?

A low, dull ache spreads in my chest. Did I use Josie to stop myself from thinking about Amelia?

Last night was too frantic, too urgent, too messy. Sex has always been such an intimate thing for me, and here it was just sort of frenzied and hot. Oh God, so freaking hot. Her smell, her taste… It still lingers, and I want more. I want to do it again. But also, don’t.

My head pounds with a low but fierce headache. Each of us only had a single glass of wine so I know it’s not from that, but the thuds are spreading, like a jackhammering wildfire, up my neck and through my temples.

A fierce rev of tires jars me upright. “What the hell?” Is she stuck? Josie’s from Minnesota, for God’s sake. She should know as good as anyone if she actually gets traction with how fast her tires sound like they’re spinning, she’s going to go flying directly into a snowbank or a tree.

I leap out of bed, rush through my house to grab my jacket and boots, and fly through the front door. Jesus. It must’ve snowed over a foot last night. It’s so blustery, the snow so thick and swirly that I have to blink through the storm to see Josie a hundred feet or so away. I tug on my hat and gloves as I stomp through the thick, heavy accumulation to reach her.

The revving of the car stopped, thankfully, and I see her behind the car, kicking at the tires, pushing, using a mini shovel to dig around the car, and pushing again. The grunts and swear words are almost as loud as the wind, and I can’t help but crack a smile.

“You know… you can ask for help rather than saying words that will make the neighborhood children cry,” I say as I approach. “Pretty sure you even rattled some demons awake with that language.”

Josie turns to me with pink cheeks and a deeply sheepish look. From last night, from right now, I’m not sure.

“You don’t have any neighbors,” she says with a grin.

“Good point.” I walk the perimeter of the car and take a deep breath. She’s definitely stuck. And based on the amount of snow she’s spun from her tires, she was as desperate to get out of here as I was desperate for her to leave.