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"How about this? I'll do the pancakes, and you can make sure that the bacon doesn't burn."
We stood side by side at the stove. I pushed around the bacon, turning it so that it cooked evenly, and he made pancakes that looked like Mickey Mouse. He had a playful side that was at odds with how tall, strong, and silent he was. I liked seeing him like this, and I liked the way that we were a team. He moved pancakes to a platter, and I put the bacon on another one.
I set the table, and I put down the bacon and pancakes.
"Now for the real maple syrup."
"What do you mean by real maple syrup? Isn't all maple syrup real?" I had been using maple syrup for pancakes all of my life.
"No. That water that they sell in grocery stores is vile. You haven't lived until you've had real syrup." He picked up the container. "Ladies first."
I drizzled syrup all over my pancakes. I cut it up. That first bite was absolute bliss. The sweet pancakes slid down my throat. I could get used to this.
I stopped myself. I would never get used to it.
For the first time, we talked during breakfast.
"What are you going to do about the storm?"
"I'm going to make sure that the cows are safe, and I will gather more firewood so that we don’t run out. A man can get lost in a snowstorm only a yard away from his house. Then, I will come in and make some hot cocoa for both of us.”
"Sounds like a plan."
"And you?"
"Just curling up with a book by the fireplace."
"I think that's on my agenda for today, too."
He disappeared out the door, bundling up in a huge coat. I got Trickster's Queen out of the pile, and I got started. Jimmy came back in after less than an hour outside.
He put a kettle on the stove, and he sat and waited patiently until it screamed. He poured out the water.
"Why don't you have an electric kettle?"
"What's that? Sounds pretty fancy. People have been making tea with a kettle on the stove for a long time. I don't see any reason to change."
And that was the difference between us. I wanted the new, the convenient, the shiny. Jimmy was fine with sticking with tried and true, even if it had been tried and true for hundreds if not thousands of years. We wanted different things from the world.
He disappeared into the library, and he took out a book. It was Pride and Prejudice.
"What, you like chick lit?"
"Shh. It's a secret." He smiled. "I don't know. I had to read it for literature class in college, and I really liked the story. There are so many pieces, and you know that it's autobiographical."
"Yeah. I had no idea that guys read Jane Austen for pleasure."
"There's a lot about me that might surprise you."
Looking at the battered Jane Austen novel in his big hands, I believed it. It didn’t fit into my idea of Jimmy Fox.
We fell silent, but it wasn't awkward. It was nice. It was quiet. I could see us doing this as 50-year-olds, just taking a rest, living in our own reality, far away from the snowstorm outside.
I could not even resist anymore. It was like we existed in our own little bubble on an island somewhere. With the snow piling up outside and nobody able to get in or out, we were alone. All alone.
I started breathing heavily when Nawat Crow came back from his mission, and Aly and Nawat made love for the first time. It's not graphic at all, since it's a YA novel, but it is part of the romance that has been built up over the course of both books. I was glad that she had finally succumbed to Nawat's charms. Sure, Nawat had a different view of the world since he was really a crow, but in the end they loved each other...and wasn't that what mattered? You could get married to someone who was a mirror image of you, but where was the fun in that?
I had already had a boyfriend who spoke the sentences that might come out of my mouth. You would think that he would be my soulmate. But he wasn't. It was boring to spend time with him after the initial joy of finding someone who was like me. When you find someone who thinks exactly like you do, it's dreadfully boring, like a conversation that you have with yourself in your own head. After a month, I’d broken up with him. He'd broken up with me. It was a mutual thing. It was good to talk to each other once in a while, but it was not the kind of romantic relationship that would last the test of time.
