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A figure slides out from behind the wheel, and this time, my eyes have got to be shitting me. I nearly laugh, deciding I must be hallucinating the whole thing. Maybe I’m colder than I thought. Maybe it’s time to drag my ass inside before hypothermia becomes a very real possibility. As it is, I’m already seeing things now.
Because that goddess walking toward me—her blonde hair unbound and whipping in the chill wind, her hands hugging along her arms—looks a heck of a lot like…well, like Cass.
“Oh my god, Lennox…”
Sure sounds a lot like Cass too.
When a set of soft, small hands cup my face, the fingertips warm and lingering on my frozen cheeks, I think they feel like hers too. It’s hard to tell because my skin feels like a giant ice clump. She does smell like fresh peaches, though.
“Thirty-one hours,” she whispers. “That’s how long the internet said it would take to get here, but I guess they didn’t factor in shitty wintry roads and the fact that I’d have to stop and buy winter tires because that car is like a boat on the road. They also didn’t account for poor visibility or the fact that when I had to spend nights alone in shitty motels along the road, my heart felt like it was going to ache right out of my chest. I’ve never driven for so many hours straight before, considering I just got my driver’s license, and I guess I didn’t really account for that either.
“Thirty-one hours actually meant four days, and so, so many stops. So many bad gas station coffees, a few doughnuts, one burger, which I have to say was pretty damn good, and a cherry pie to go. That’s sitting in the front seat. I couldn’t eat it without you. Well, okay, so I got it at a diner a few hours down the road when I knew I was getting close. I planned on bringing it to the door and knocking to surprise you. I also had this massive speech planned to tell you how you couldn’t get rid of me, not like this, not easily, not ever. But then I pulled up and saw you crush that lawn chair like it was made of sticks, and I forgot about my plan and speech.” Her hands move anxiously down my face, past my beard, to my coat. “My god, you’re soaking wet, and you’re freezing. Holy shit, your beard has icicles in it.” She catches the water that beads off the ends of my beard. It’s hard to believe I’m this soaked, yet I hardly noticed.
“I…” My teeth chatter, knocking against each other fiercely and obliterating whatever it is—and I’m literally not sure what it is because I’m insanely shocked to see Cass here—I wanted to say.
“No. Don’t say anything until we get you inside and get you warmed up. Were you trying to make yourself sick out here?”
“Just came out…t—to…t—think.” It’s hard to talk when my jaw keeps clenching up with shivers.
She wraps her arms around me and sighs. It’s more a hug than anything, and I curl into it, drinking in the sweet, fresh scent of her hair, her skin, her realness. Her arms lock around my waist.
“Okay, I can’t do this by myself because you’re bigger than that big boat of a car right there.”
I save her the trouble and push myself to my feet. My legs are practically useless stumps of frozen wood, but they get me there, wobbling toward the door. I can’t feel my feet, but I guess my brain is stronger than the elements, and it does the trick well enough.
Cass doesn’t let me go. The door isn’t locked, and when I twist the handle and push, we both tumble in together. She steers me straight to the bed, and I sit down hard. The heat from the room, which isn’t much because the heating in this place is as sketchy as the brown shag carpet, the peeling pink paper on the walls, and the dubious, hard-as-a-rock, lumpy bed I’m sitting on, still attacks me, making my face burn and my extremities tingle in a hell of an unpleasant way.
“Pie. You need pie.”
Cass rushes out before I can stop her. She’s gone for a minute, and then she appears again with the world’s largest cherry pie. She also has a little packet containing a plastic knife and fork in the other hand. She sets the pie down on the bed, rips the packet, and pulls out a fork with enough desperation that it seems like she’s trying to breathe warmth back into me with that cutlery alone.
She digs the plastic fork into the pie and, with a great amount of effort, extricates a crusty, gooey piece. “Here.” She brings it to my mouth. “Open and eat this.”
