The logs shift and collapse into coals I can hear shifting in the grate.
By the time I feel tired enough to actually sleep it’s at the same moment
I understand I won’t be with her tonight, I see the first gray light through the gap in the thick curtains which tells me it’s way past dawn in this frozen valley.
I wake with a jolt not long after, more in a half-dream than actual sleep.
The smell of bacon, eggs, and hot coffee along with the clank of cast iron and low laughter brings me back to the room.
Greg’s being Greg, I can tell, and sticking it to the management, he’s fixing us all breakfast in his own special way.
Wrapping myself in the heavy blanket from the bed with a groan of acceptance, I stagger half-asleep to the doorway, seeing Serena first which makes me smile.
She’s still here, not quite mine yet, but here where I can see her at least.
Bacon pops and sizzles in the fireplace now, making both Greg and Serena make a hungry noise to themselves.
There’s a selection of cast iron hotplates on the coals I know will soon be doubling as plates as I slough off the blanket and get dressed.
“Got any bread in that kit of yours?” I ask, sidling up next to Greg by the fire, holding my hands out to it, catching just a glimpse of Serena.
Enough to get my heart started this morning.
“Oh, we got bread. Beans. Bacon. Sausage,” he announces proudly.
“Fuck the establishment!” he continues, laughing heartily before casually asking me how I slept.
I want to tell him I didn’t. That I can’t. But I catch a pleading look in Serena’s eyes, telling me she’s spent as much a sleepless night as I have.
Both of us only waking after a moment’s dream to find her dad trying to get us breakfast the same way he entertained us all last night.
“That’s the spirit,” I tell him, slapping his back. “Tell me what you need,” I add, always ready to take direction when he’s at the helm of a cooking fire, but never when it comes to taking direction regarding his daughter.
I know that now.
Looking into Serena’s eyes as they glow in the firelight, I know we both do.
We have a new understanding.
After a night so close yet so far apart, we’re silently bound to never spend another night alone ever again.
How her dad, Greg my best friend figures into all that?
I guess we’ll just have to wait until after breakfast.
Her eyes tell me what I already feel.
That it won’t be long somehow.
Chapter Eleven
Serena
It’s great to just hang out with dad, doing goofy stuff like play games and talk in front of the fire.
But my mind strays to Carter as much as my eyes do, and I know he feels the same now.
No denying it.
I almost wish I’d just let him at least try to have his way with me in the bathroom before, but I know dad would have found us out once the water went cold.
A suitable metaphor indeed.
A real cold tap on our whole holiday so far, but when I do catch Carter’s eye, it burns with such intensity that I can’t help feel he’s determined to finish what we’ve started.
And long before it’s time to go home in a week.
I feel zonked after no sleep, but seeing Carter tells me he didn’t sleep much either.
He’s dressed in jeans and a knitted sweater, geometric patterns that only highlight his huge chest and shoulders, almost making me sigh as soon as I see him.
Whoever knitted that must’ve taken a year.
Dad’s so wrapped up in making us breakfast I’m sure he doesn’t even notice Carter and I making eyes at each other.
Even once we finish eating.
“I’ll get these cleaned up,” Carter offers, moving towards the utensils and plates, making dad look like an old mother hen.
“Oh no you don’t!” he cries. “This is premium cast iron and I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you take Serena for a stroll over to the lodge and get a weather update? Find out if we can’t have a proper day of skiing for a change,” he says with determination.
I’m not sure what’s come over dad, but a night with him between me and Carter seems to have done the trick, or maybe it’s just him getting to use all his camping and ski gear in one day that’s made him a changed man.
“I’ll get changed,” I tell them both, with dad reminding me not to try and use the hot water, which I discover is working fine now.
I shower and get changed into what I think Carter will like, jeans and a sweater with leather boots I thought I’d never wear here.
By the time I reappear, Carter holds his finger to his lips, letting me know by his damp hair and clean shave he’s had plenty of hot water too.