Amanda

 

Who the hell is this guy?

 

I watch him as he puts that massive parka back on, shoving his feet back into his thick boots, his hands back into heavy gloves that he left to dry on the radiator. I didn’t expect him to be witty. He’s not really funny or even extremely charming, but he’s smart. He makes me smile even when he’s pissing me off.

 

“Try not to burn anything down while I’m out there,” he says, and I scowl at him in disgust.

 

“Try not to get buried in a snow bank,” I snap.

 

“If I did, you’d be good and fucked, wouldn’t you?” He laughs a little before disappearing outside, slamming the door shut against the wind.

 

Ugh.

 

He’s so sexy I can’t stand it.

 

I don’t know what it is about him. Yeah, he’s hot. I knew he was handsome the minute I first saw him. Anyone with eyes could see that. But there’s something else. Something deeper. A magnetism. He has tons of it.

 

I get up and walk to the window, still a little unsteady from the whiskey. At least I’m conscious, though. He didn’t drug me. I feel slightly bad for doubting him so much.

 

He’s out there, shoveling away like a machine. The snow is nothing to him, the shovel like a toy in his massive hands. If I hadn’t already learned he worked outdoors, I would have guessed it once I watched him clear away the snow. He’s used to this kind of work. Before I know it, he already has a clear path to the driveway, where I can just barely make out the indents that used to be the path we cleared when walking up here from the main road. Has it really snowed so much since then that I can hardly see where our footsteps fell?

 

I crane my neck, standing on tiptoe, trying to see my car. There’s nothing but snow as far as the eye can see, though. I’d have been buried alive for sure. I shiver at the thought. Imagine if he hadn’t noticed me. I still don’t know how he happened to see me in the first place. I just didn’t think to ask him. Maybe it would be better not to. Maybe not knowing how much of my life, at this moment, has to do with chance is for the best. Otherwise I might go crazy.

 

I look around the room. It’s like a picture from a book, right down to the hound dog curled up in front of the fire. Two rocking chairs, facing one another on either side of the hearth. A rug between them. Copper pots and pans hanging from a rack over an old stove. A small table with an old-fashioned lamp suspended above it. I would never in a million years see a man like Christopher living here. A little old lady living on a pension? Sure. Not a heavily inked, muscular roughneck.

 

I pace back and forth in front of the fire long enough to get the dog’s attention. He jumps up and wags his tail at me.

 

“Sorry, old boy,” I say, scratching him behind the ears. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. Just wondering what to do with myself now. Any suggestions?”

 

He walks over to his food bowl and noses around inside. “Feed me,” he’s saying.

 

Well, that’s just about as good an idea as any. I open a few cabinets, looking for food. Finally, I find a stack of cans, one of which I empty into his bowl. Meanwhile, now that I’ve looked around some, I see this kitchen is better stocked than I expected. Once again, Christopher is surprising me.

 

I impulsively start pulling out ingredients: butter, eggs, flour, sugar. I turn on the oven, checking to make sure the pilot is lit before mixing up a dough. There are no chocolate chips, but there’s peanut butter. Peanut butter cookies it is. Before long, I’m rolling balls of dough, coating them in sugar and making crisscross patterns in them with the tines of a fork. I put them in the oven and go back to the window, checking on Christopher’s progress. He’s still working out there. I can’t believe he hasn’t collapsed yet, honestly. Nearly the entire driveway is cleared. He has to be ready to collapse at this point.

 

The timer I set over the oven goes off, telling me the cookies are finished. I pull them out, then put on the kettle in case he wants something hot to drink when he comes in. It’s the least I can do, considering he saved me from freezing and is giving me somewhere to spend the night.

 

The door opens, a blast of cold air making me shiver. He leans against it to shut it, then takes off his coat and boots. I hear him sniffing the air. “Cookies?” That’s all he says, and the word is heavy, like he’s disgusted.

 

“Yup,” I reply, trying to sound casual, as though I didn’t just invade this man’s kitchen. Jesus, what the hell was I thinking? It must be the whiskey. What else would have driven me to make myself at home like this? I wish I’d never gotten out of the chair by the fire.

 

I glance at him, his face unreadable. There’s tension in the air. Is he going to flip out on me? Maybe he’s really sensitive about people going through his home and treating it like their own. I know I would be. God, how could I have been so stupid?

 

The kettle whistles, breaking the moment. I turn to pull it off the burner. “I thought maybe you’d want something hot to drink, to warm yourself up,” I say, feeling insanely lame now. I wish I could sink into the floorboards and never come back.

 

He moves for the first time since noticing the cookies, putting his gloves back on the radiator. Steam rises as they drip onto the hot metal. He hangs his coat over his boots, which sit on a pile of newspapers to catch the melted snow. Then he crosses the room, his large body moving smoothly. I tense up, waiting for his reaction. By the time he reaches me, standing directly beside me, I’m holding my breath.

 

He reaches past me, taking a cookie from the sheet. He takes a bite. I steal a glance at him from the corner of my eye and see that he’s chewing with a thoughtful expression on his face. “You know,” he says, still chewing, “you’re gonna make some guy a terrific little housewife someday.”

 

“Oh, screw you.” I lean against the sink, arms crossed. I’m relieved he’s not murderously pissed, naturally. But he doesn’t have to be a dick about it.

 

“I mean it. Some guy out there is gonna be pretty damn lucky. I mean, homemade cookies after coming in from shoveling all that snow? The only thing better would be a blowjob.”

 

“You’re disgusting.” I take a cookie and stomp over to the chair by the fire, slamming myself into it. I’d almost rather he be angry than disgusting, the pig.

 

“Touchy, touchy,” he murmurs, fixing himself a cup of what looks like instant coffee. “You want a drink? Maybe some more of that spiked tea. I liked you better when you were buzzing.”

 

“I liked you better when I was buzzing, too.”

 

He has his back to me, and I can tell from the way it shakes that he’s laughing. This only enrages me further.

 

“You know, just because you did something nice for me doesn’t mean you get to talk to me like this.”

 

“What, like a normal human being?”

 

I laugh harshly. “If that’s your idea of the way normal human beings talk to each other, I can see why you live out here alone.” I’m watching him, and I can tell from the way he freezes that I hit a nerve. But then his head drops, his chin to his chest. I’m flooded with guilt almost instantly. “Oh, hey. Hey, I’m sorry. That was a low blow.” I realize I don’t know the first thing about this person. I don’t know why he’s actually by himself. Maybe he has anxiety. Maybe he’s just a recluse. Maybe there’s some tragic backstory I’m unaware of. “Really. I mean it. That was a shitty thing to say. I’m sorry.”

 

“I deserve it for picking at you,” he says quietly before coming back to his chair by the fire and holding his hands out toward the flames. “By the way, the cookies are really good.”

 

I feel like something has broken now between us. How is that even possible, I ask myself, when there was really nothing between us in the first place? The light from the fire dances over his face, lighting his troubled eyes. What’s he thinking? What ugly memory did I just stir up? I don’t know this guy at all, and I have to keep that in mind. I need to tread more carefully.

 

“Thanks. I mean, thanks for saying the cookies are good,” I say, feeling lame but needing to repair whatever I just screwed up. Why do I care so much?

 

He nods, staying quiet.

 

“Did you mean it?” I ask, trying to draw him out of his silence.

 

“Did I mean what?”

 

“That they’re good?”

 

This gets a smile from him, at least, and he turns his head toward me. “I would never lie about something as serious as cookies.”

 

I can’t help noting to myself how handsome he is when he smiles.