It’s because I was a virgin. A twenty-four-year-old virgin. I knew that would be a whole thing.
And I should get up.
He came back into the room. He smiled at her. But it was…oh, it was off.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said and looked up at the ceiling, wondering why she felt like crying. “You?”
“Good. We….ah…should…talk about…what happened.”
Oh god, he couldn’t even say it.
“I should go,” she said, because no. They weren’t going to talk about it.
But the truth was, there was nowhere to go. He was silent and she felt her body go red and itchy, like she was having an allergic reaction to the moment.
Oh. After all this, it’s like that.
Silence and more silence.
She got up off the bed and had to pause for a second to make sure her legs still held her, that her trembling, shaking muscles still worked. How embarrassing, she thought as Cameron calmly pulled on his underwear. Found his T-shirt and started to gather her clothes. She’d been fucked into some other state and he seemed…fine.
“Here,” he said, handing her the shirt he’d ripped off her.
She shrugged it on but there was only one button left on it.
“Oh,” he said, and she, nauseous with humiliation, slipped a hand over her chest. Covering the breasts still scraped red from his beard. How, she wondered, was this happening?
We weren’t supposed to be like this.
She found her underwear and slipped it on, blinking back tears. There was blood on her thighs. Just a little. But there. She hid it by jamming her legs into her jeans. There’d be another shirt she could wear around here somewhere. A sweater left over a chair in the office or in the main closet. Lost and Found something.
Silently she opened the door. Her mouth clogged with tears and anger.
“Josie.” He grabbed her hand and she jerked away. “This…this isn’t going right.”
“Well, that’s…that’s pretty par for the course with us, isn’t it?”
“Look at me.”
“Fuck you,” she said without any heat.
“You are a virgin,” he whispered, eyebrows raised, eyes pleading, like he was telling her she had cancer.
“Was,” she said with a laugh.
He sucked in a breath. “This isn’t funny,” he said.
No. No, it wasn’t.
“How was I supposed to let someone in after what happened?” How was I supposed to let some other man touch me when I’d ruined everything?
“I don’t know.” He was clearly baffled. “You just do. You move on.”
“Like you did?” she asked and he was silent. “Well, I guess now I can. So, thank you for that.”
She opened the door into the hallway, which was colder than the bedroom, and darker, too, somehow. The big windows at the end of the hallway looking out on the Catskills were shrouded in gloom.
She practically ran down the stairs.
“Josie.” Cameron was following her.
“You don’t have to do this, Cameron.” She turned at the door, shoving her feet into her boots. She grabbed her jacket and her mitts from the hearth where she’d laid them out to dry. They’d both done that. Old habits walking into the Inn from a snow storm. You always set out your stuff or you’d be shoving your hands into wet mitts and no one liked that. “You know, we answered the question we both have been asking for a long time.”
“What would it have been like?” he said, standing there half naked and wholly attractive.
“Yep.”
“And?”
“You were fine.”
“Now who is talking bullshit?”
Me. I am. Total bullshit. I may never walk the same.
“Don’t leave like this,” he said.
She threw open the front door and let in harrowing blast of cold air so powerful she literally got pushed back a step. Snow gathered in a drift inside the door, and outside the door it was absolutely white. A blizzard.
Cameron jumped forward and shut the door, muffling the howling wind.
“Holy crap,” she breathed and turned to look out the big windows. They showed nothing but a wall of white.
“It’s a blizzard,” he said. “Total whiteout.”
His skin was gooseflesh and he blew air into hands that had to be freezing.
“I can’t leave,” she said.
They were snowed in.
CAMERON
He went upstairs to get dressed and check his phone and maybe…gather himself for a second. Man, the reality about a moment’s hesitation was no joke. He’d screwed everything up. He rubbed at his eyes and slipped on warm socks.
Whiteout blizzard, Alice texted. Tell me you’re back at the lodge.
I’m back, he texted. Josie is here, too. We’re fine.
Okay. Storm’s supposed to get worse until tomorrow morning. Stay in. I’ll check in later.
He sent her a thumbs-up and went downstairs to assess the damage he’d done with that moment of silence.
And the plan. That stupid plan. Have sex with her and forget her. What was wrong with him?
Josie was sitting on couch in front of the empty fireplace, a blanket over her shoulders and her laptop open on her lap. She didn’t even look up when he came in.