Page 102 of Snowed In with Benefits

“Where did he find her?”

“Up in the mountains somewhere. He refused to say anything else. What do you think she was doing up there?”

“Not hunting bears, that’s for sure.”

“Hunting men, maybe?”

They giggle. Even their giggles sound mean. Shocked to my core, I realize that I have absolutely nothing in common with these people. I never did. Eyes stinging as they continue maligning me behind my back, I push through the crowd and out to the patio.

The cold hits me like a wall and I grab the short wrought-iron fence and hold on. The bar noise is muffled out here, just bass and laughter and the clink of glasses through the door, and beyond that, the city. Cars and sirens and the hum of a million people living their lives within earshot of each other and not knowing each other’s names. I’m standing on a patio in a dress that belongs to a life I don’t want anymore, surrounded by people who were never my friends, in a city that suddenly feels like it belongs to someone else. I left the only place where people actually saw me, actually knew me, to come back to this. To wine I don’t like and gossip I can’t stomach and women who talk about me the second I leave the table. The tears come before I can stop them, hot and angry and wine-drunk, and I wipe them away impatiently, pulling my phone out of my purse with trembling fingers.

I’m intending to call an Uber. I call Beau instead. My heart is pounding and the call goes straight to voicemail.

“Beau? It’s me. It’s Josie. I miss you. I miss all of you. I miss the cabin and the stupid tree and the foxes and the creek and the barn. I miss waking up and having coffee with you guys, I miss cooking for you, I—” I choke on a sob, and my voice comes out broken. “I miss the way I felt when I was with you. You reminded me of who I am. Who I, I want to be. I want… I want⁠—”

“If you’re satisfied with your message, press 1. If you would like to start over⁠—”

“Shit!” What am I doing?

I fumble with the phone, canceling the message. That’s not the icebreaker I wanted, if I even wanted an icebreaker at all. I do. Very much. But not like that, not all tears and neediness and guilt-tripping and whatever that was. Taking a shuddering breath, I back out of the call and pull up the Uber app.

This is what I should have done in the first place. I order a car, not bothering to tell the girls inside where I’m going. I wait on the patio until my car pulls up, then hurry into the back seat. The driver is, thankfully, completely silent. He drops me at my apartment without a word. Five stars.

I climb the stairs, my breath still shuddering. The concrete walls make me so very, very sad. Sadder than I can explain. I unlock my door, waiting for the weather stripping to catch and the door to creak. Stumbling inside, I kick off my shoes and pad through the dark apartment. On my way to the breakfast bar I pass the bedroom door, and through it I can see the chair where I left their clothes. Emmett’s flannel folded on the bottom, Hunter’s sweatpants on top, right where I put them that first night back. I haven’t moved them. I haven’t washed them. I’m afraid that if I wash them they’ll just be clothes, just fabric, and right now they’re the closest thing I have to being held by someone who knows my name.

I keep walking. I go to the breakfast bar and grab Beau’s coat off the back of the chair and wrap it around myself, breathing in his scent. It’s fading, I think. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it, which is worse, because getting used to it means forgetting what it was like to be close enough to smell it fresh.

I fall asleep wearing the stupid fancy dress against my skin, and Beau’s coat all around me.

39

BEAU

Hunter is up before any of us. He’s brewing coffee, just like he always does. But he’s not talking. He doesn’t have anybody to talk to. I wake up in sheets that smell like her because I haven’t been able to make myself wash them. I have her hair tie around my wrist, a reminder that she left something behind.

She left a lot behind. Not things, she didn’t leave many of her things behind. Just the hair tie. What she left behind is the memory of the specific shade of sunlight she brought into the house. It seems dim in here now without her, even though nothing has really changed.

I reluctantly get out of bed and into my clothes. Clothes that she wore. The t-shirt she wore the day we went to get the Christmas tree. The flannel she wore the day we fixed the awning over the barn. The sweatpants she was wearing the first time I ever noticed her photographs. I turn the hair tie with my thumb, realize I’m doing it, and stop.

I head downstairs, trying to shake the ghost of her. I don’t know if I can, or if I really want to. She brought joy into this house. Not that we didn’t have joy before, but the flavor of her joy was so much different. So much more, somehow. I pass the couch where I spent weeks sleeping before she let me back into my own bed with her. I pause there, touching the rough fabric, remembering the feel of it against my back.

A lot happened on this couch. Kisses. Cuddles. Watching stupid movies. I can still see her curled up at the end of the couch, computer in her lap, editing her photos. Gritting my teeth, I pat the couch firmly as if to leave the memories there, and go into the kitchen for coffee.

Hunter is cooking. Just cooking. Not talking or singing or whistling, not teasing Josie, not moving with the lightness he’s had until a few days ago. Just cooking. Mechanical. Useful. Practical. I get myself a cup of coffee and take it black with sugar, the same way I had it in prison. It’s the only flavor that feels comfortable right now. I don’t feel like I deserve creamer or flavor or milk this morning. I don’t know why. It’s not like I did anything wrong.

“Eggs and bacon,” Hunter says.

“Sounds good.”

Emmett comes into the kitchen and looks around for a second like he’s trying to remember what’s missing. I see the moment it hits him. His shoulders fold inward. He sighs. He grabs his cup of coffee and sits at the head of the table, bleary-eyed and grumpy. He’s been grumpy for days. I can’t blame him.

“Plans today?” Hunter asks lightly as he hands Emmett’s plate to him. I grab my own plate and wait a beat too long, as if I’m expecting to hold Josie’s plate too. Scowling at myself, I sit down in my spot and glare down at my breakfast.

“Workshop,” Emmett says. He’s been saying that for days. It’s where he’s been processing her departure.

Hunter nods. “Beau?”

I shrug. “Gonna check the fence line. Find something to do outside.”