Page 19 of Now That We Don’t Talk

Lucky.

To spend a night in a room with Henry Cole.

I briefly consider sleeping in the CR-V.

As if Henry can sense what I’m thinking somehow, his head swoops down so his lips are close to my ear. “You’ll either freeze to death, or the car battery will die, or both. Let’s go.”

“You kids must be starving,” Alice says as Henry silently takes my hefty duffel bag out of my hands and places it on top of his suitcase. “There’s plenty in the kitchen and pantry. Feel free to help yourself. We only ask that you clean up afterward. No dirty pans in the sink, please.”

“Of course,” Henry says, nodding solemnly before heading down the hall with our bags.

I trail behind him, taking everything in.

Alice told us each room was named for a plant that was indigenous to the area, and as we pass Coneflower, Wild Bergamot, and Elderberry, I am beginning to see how the Swamp Milkweed room was the only vacant one.

Henry seems so confident as he leads us up the grand staircase, and then down the hall to our room, easily turning the brass key and swinging the door open. He stops suddenly at the entryway, and I collide into his back.

“Dude, come on,” I say, sliding past him, until I see what caught him so off guard, and suddenly I’m frozen too.

In the center of the room, one queen bed, with a gothic wooden headboard and deep purple quilts. Or maybe it’s a full-size. Fuck, that’s even worse.

I knew sharing a small space would be a nightmare, but with this new issue quite literally right in front of me, the walls feel like they’re closing in. We had sleepovers when we were little, sure, but this one bed taunts me with the intimacy of the situation.

“We should call our moms and let them know what happened,” I think I hear Henry say, but I still can’t stop staring at the bed. My eyes roam around the small room, desperate for an alternative. They land on a Victorian chair in the corner. That will have to do. I grab a pillow off the bed and place it on the chair. Henry’s gaze follows me, a question he doesn’t verbalize lingering.

I need to get out of this room.

“I’m going to take a shower and try to get the chill out of my bones,” I say to him, turning to my bag so he doesn’t see me mouth What the fuck? to myself over my word choices. Immediately overwhelmed, I wind up taking my entire duffel into the adjoining bathroom with me, throwing it on the floor and making sure to lock the door behind me.

I strip layers of damp clothing off my body, the clammy chill still latched onto my skin. The shower takes forever to heat up, and I keep looking to the door handle, turned to its locked position. The idea that Henry is on the other side of this wall, knowing I’m naked, is absolutely too much for me to process. I can hear his muffled voice, probably on the phone with Kristine now. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I can tell it’s the same soft tone he used to tell me I was doing great when I nearly got us killed driving in the snow not even thirty minutes ago. I shudder and finally step into the shower, letting all of these confusing thoughts run out of my head and out of my body.

* * *

When I emerge from the bathroom, wearing leggings and a cozy gray sweater, I see that Henry has also changed out of his wet clothes and is rummaging through his suitcase.

“All yours,” I say, and he nods, only half acknowledging me as his search through his suitcase becomes more frantic.

“Shit, I forgot my steamer,” he says, finally looking at me with dismay. He walks over to the closet, where I now notice he’s hung a garment bag. He unzips it and begins smoothing out the contents—a full deep blue suit, different from the navy one I saw him traveling in. Brighter. He’s running his hands over the fabric in such a frenzied manner, he must know that he’s making it worse.