Sarah

The cops bundle Vince off pretty fast, and even return my phone, salvaged from my battered car. Turns out my parents did call, when midnight came and went, and I was nowhere to be seen. Dispatch said they had a car in the area. Didn’t take much searching to turn up Vince’s truck, still running at the foot of the driveway, and my rental car beyond, all beat to hell.

I accept a ride home—doesn’t seem right somehow to put off reassuring my parents I’m alive and well. But I’m back up the mountain the next day at Sam’s invitation. The hasty hug goodbye we shared, under the cops’ watchful eye, didn’t seem a fitting end to our midnight adventure. So when I woke up to a text floating the idea of a late lunch, I didn’t hesitate.

The place looks much friendlier in the daylight. The same cabin that reminded me of Baba Yaga’s hut, looming over me in the dark, now seems modern and inviting, all artfully weathered logs and picture windows. Boone’s in the yard, dancing around the root of a towering pine, barking at something in the branches. Sam’s on the side porch, putting the finishing touches on a new window.

“Good as new,” he says, when he sees me coming.

“That’s a relief!” I steel myself, and make the offer, though the repairs to that rental car are about to clean me out. “I’d be glad to chip in....”

He shakes his head. “Don’t even think of it. I already had some spare panes—we get all kinds of crazy weather up here. Hail and all.”

Phew.

I join him on the porch. “The walk up here is gorgeous. I can just picture it in summer, everything in bloom....”

“Including the mosquitoes, unfortunately.” He winks. “Winter’s my favorite. There’s an old field past those trees with a pond at the end. Gramps cleared it out to keep goats. Only, the goats never quite materialized, so every winter we’d go sledding on the hill, skating on the pond. Best memories ever.”

Familiar ones, for me. “My parents have a pond like that, too. Haven’t skated in years, though.”

“We could go, over the Christmas holiday.” He gets a sudden look of panic on his face, like he didn’t mean to say that out loud. “I mean—you do come up for the holidays, right? I just—I assumed—”

I nod, before he can babble himself right out of the idea. “I’d love to.”

He relaxes at that, but there’s still a certain tension in the air. Unfinished business from last night. I can tell he’s thinking about it, too. Vince barged in at the worst possible moment, and I’m dying to find out what would’ve happened next, but...it’s different now. Last night, we had a million excuses to go for it—adrenaline, no electricity, a vague sense of danger—but today, it’d feel like...choosing something. Starting something.

I think I want to.

I know I do.

Boone comes whuffing up the steps, and immediately tangles himself around both of our legs. Quite an accomplishment for such a small, squat dog. Sam grabs me for balance, and I grab him back. We end up staggering inside, arm in arm, laughing.

“I see your little friend’s none the worse for wear.”

He goes red, and glances at his crotch.

I burst out laughing. “Your dog, silly!”

“Oh—oh, right! I mean, I wasn’t...I didn’t—“ He’s blushing to the tips of his ears. “Well, that was...inappropriate.”

“The whole saving my life thing earns you a couple of free passes.” I give his arm a fond squeeze. “I’m absolutely not laughing at you right now.”

“I swear, I don’t normally have such a one-track mind. Usually, it’s more like...two tracks. No—three. The sex track, the work track, and the worrying about things that’ll never happen track.”

“Like...how you’d survive the zombie apocalypse?”

He plasters on a mock-serious expression. “Oh, I’ve a number of contingencies in place in the event of...of undead Armageddon. Most likely, though, I’d bag up my canned goods, couple of good books, and head for Dad’s hunting cabin. It’s on an island in the middle of a lake, so unless there were zombie birds, I’d be golden.”

“Canada for me,” I admit. “They’d be all slow and frozen—the zombies, I mean—and I’d saunter by in my fluffy parka, like ‘not today, dead-head.’”

“Not today, dead-head.” He shakes his head, smiling. “I love that you think about these things.”

“My mind might have the same three tracks.”

“Good to know.” Sam leads the way into the kitchen. In the light of day, it looks a lot more old-fashioned than the rest of the house. Modern touches have been added—granite countertops, stainless steel fixtures—but there’s an old pulley-controlled drying rack suspended from the ceiling, and the walls are nearly black with age. One of the windows, the smallest one, directly above the sink, offers a hazy view of the yard, through stained and rippled glass.

He catches me looking. “This was one of the original rooms, when Gramps first built the place. This, and the living room, though the stove was pretty much all I kept through there.”

“You added the rest yourself?”

“Well, me and Dad, and a team of builders—but, sure! I’ll take the credit.”

“You should put it in Architectural Digest.”

“September 2015. Made the cover and everything.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.” He pulls a face. “Had to drag half my furniture into the yard, and bring in stuff from my office. Seems my idea of comfort clashed with their idea of elegance.”

“I knew those photoshoots had to be fake! No one’s, like, pantsless, drinking their morning coffee on a spotless white couch, under a single lily-shaped arc lamp.”

He shudders. “My couches probably have more coffee in their cushions than stuffing. Anything white...bad idea.”

We laugh at that, but neither of us says anything else, and the elephant creeps back into the room. I’m not brazen enough to address it head-on. What would I even say? Hey, Vince sure ruined our moment. Want to pick up where we left off? Nope. Can’t say that.

“How about a tour?”

Oh, bless him! “That’d be perfect!” A little overenthusiastic? I think so. I clear my throat, and try a rather less shrill “Lead the way.”

He does, mercifully turning his back before I turn completely pink.