Page 105 of Snowed In with Benefits

I know what she wants. I’ve known since the morning she drove away in those ridiculous high heels with Emmett’s flannel on her back and my coat around her shoulders. She wants to come home. She just doesn’t know she’s allowed to.

I look at Hunter. He looks at me. The twin thing kicks in, the one where we don’t need words, where a look carries a whole conversation. His eyes are wet and his jaw is set and I can read every single thing he’s thinking because I’m thinking it too.

We both look at Emmett. He’s still gripping the counter. Slowly, he lifts his head. His gray eyes move from me to Hunter and back again. Something shifts in his face. Not softness. Not grief. Something harder than both of those. Something that looks like a decision.

40

JOSIE

My head is pounding and I peel my eyes open, wincing at the sunlight filtering in through the window. Beau’s coat is still wrapped around me, and I’m still wearing the stupid party dress from last night. God, that was a terrible idea. I cringe, remembering how it ended, remembering the voicemail I almost sent. Thank god I deleted it.

I did delete it, right? No, I’m sure I did.

I get up and shrug out of Beau’s coat. The loss of the weight of it leaves me feeling vulnerable. Seems to be my standard feeling these days. I drag myself into the shower and try to shake last night off my shoulders. I’ve been back in Seattle for almost a week now, and all I’ve managed to do is upset people and offer myself up as gossip fodder.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I shampoo my hair. I’m going to need more shampoo soon. I’m going to need money if I’m going to buy more shampoo, and I don’t have a fiancé to rely on for those things anymore. The thought of rent hits my chest and I feel sick. I have to pick myself up, and I have to do it now.

After the shower, while coffee is brewing, I pull up job listings on my phone. School photographer. My heart beats fast. Can I do that? Am I allowed to do something that I want to do? I apply, feeling defiant. After that application goes through I panic and put in an application to Walmart. Disgusted with myself, I filter by photography jobs again. Graphic designer. Applied. I don’t know what it entails, but I’ll learn.

Catering. That’s where all of my experience is. Sighing, I search for a catering job. I feel my heart sink at the idea of passing trays through rooms of fake smiles and fake people. The tips were good. The cost of my soul was high. I apply anyway.

Food photographer for a sushi restaurant. Gig work, short-term. I can take photos that look alive, that’s all they need, right? I attach a few photos to my application and send it. Feeling a little dizzy, I realize that my coffee has gone cold on the counter while I maniacally applied for virtually every job I encountered. I put my phone down and look at the time.

I reheat my coffee. I scramble an egg and eat it with toast. It’s a simple breakfast, but it’s just me here. There’s no point in going all-out like Hunter if I’m only going to be cooking for one, and I think I’m finally starting to learn how to do that. I jump on social media and start scrolling mindlessly as I sip my coffee, giving myself a comedown from my frantic application process.

An ad pops up. “Earn up to⁠—!”

I skip it. I keep scrolling. A few videos later, the same ad pops up again. “Earn up to $300 per⁠—!”

Skip. I follow some photographers on reels and I sit back and watch them, learning from them and admiring their work. I scroll on to a funny reel, then another photography reel. This guy is talking about how he gets paid to travel the world, taking pictures. I don’t want to travel the world, not really. I just want to be able to buy my own shampoo. But it gets me thinking, imagining what life would be like if I could make a living with my camera.

“Earn up to $300 per picture! We’re looking for passionate photographers who want to earn an honest living with their cameras. Upload your portfolio and start earning today!”

That damn ad managed to sneak by me while I was daydreaming, and—wait. What? I replay it. It’s an ad for a reputable photo sharing company, one that I’ve seen advertised on the other side of the transaction. My heart pounds. Do I dare? I click through the ad and stare at the screen. Before I can talk myself out of it, I make an account. I click “photographer” on the account type and feel like I’m stepping into a new timeline.

I’m a photographer. Really, truly. Am I convincing myself, or am I trying to convince the world? I don’t know. But I hold my breath as I put my phone aside and pull out my laptop, where all of my photos live. I find a few from the cabin, the ones that I edited while I was there. The good ones. The best ones. The ones without a human in them that I would need to have a signed modeling agreement for.

Cardinals don’t have to sign modeling agreements. My heart is pounding so hard it’s vibrating my chest as I upload the photos, one after the other. I take my time with the descriptions and tags, giving this an honest shot before I can talk myself out of it. Before I can tell myself that I’m crazy for trying. I stare at my portfolio once I’m finished. Five photos. All Christmas-card worthy.

My finger hovers over the “delete” button. Are they really good enough? I don’t know. I don’t know what “good enough” looks like. Preston didn’t think my photos were good enough to hang on his walls. Mom didn’t think my photos were good enough to waste my time with. But Emmett… Emmett thought they were good enough to do his own research for. Hunter thought they were good enough to give me a whole pep talk about. Beau thought they were good enough to stare at instead of reading his book.

I might not trust myself. But I trust them. Instead of deleting my portfolio, I close my laptop and breathe. Just breathe. I let them go out into the world and force myself to forget about them. Not forever. Just for now. Just while my courage is building, just while the high of doing something crazy is still making my decisions for me.

I sit there for a long time. The apartment is quiet and the laptop is closed and my photos are out there, somewhere, floating through servers and algorithms and landing on screens I’ll never see. Strangers might look at them. Strangers might look at my cardinals and my snow-heavy branches and my frozen creek and think they’re beautiful, or they might scroll right past them without a second thought. Both possibilities make me feel like I swallowed something alive.

I did that. I actually did that. I put my work out into the world and I didn’t ask anyone’s permission first. I didn’t run it by Preston. I didn’t wait for my mother to tell me it was a waste of time. I just did it, sitting on my couch in my pajamas with cold coffee and unbrushed hair, and it might be the bravest thing I’ve ever done. Braver than running down the aisle. That was panic. This was a choice.

I stay off my phone and my laptop. Turning on some music, I clean my apartment. It’s December twenty-third. My parents’ Christmas party is this evening, and I’m going to make an appearance. I have to work through my nerves, first about the photos, next about the party. A lot of people who were at the wedding are probably going to be there. I’m going to have to face them, en masse, and I’m going to do it knowing that I have a clean apartment to run back to when it gets to be too much.

I have no doubt that it will get to be too much. I’m going to do it anyway. That’s what I do now. I face things that I’d rather run away from. Besides, Nola is looking forward to seeing me there. I couldn’t bear to disappoint her, not again.

When the afternoon rolls around, I start getting ready. A green velvet dress to match with Nola. She’s still young enough to see matching as a good thing, rather than a competition. I hope she keeps that outlook as she grows up. I’d hate to watch her turn into the mean girls I ran away from last night.

I do my makeup carefully. Not too much, not too little. After the wedding disaster, my parents are probably trying extra hard to impress their guests, and I don’t want to take away from that if I can possibly help it. I look at myself in the mirror once I’m ready. Touching my locket for reassurance, I tell myself it’s good enough.

Good enough is a strong pair of words. I don’t know that I’ll ever be good enough for some people. But I do know that I was good enough for the people who matter to me, and that has to be, well… good enough.

I have to park half a block down when I arrive. The street is packed with the cars of all the people my parents thought were important enough to be here. As I go up to the house, I start to see them. My parents’ neighbors, their friends, people I recognize from the wedding guest list. Dread sinks to my feet, making every step feel like I’m walking through molasses. I don’t want to be here. I have to be here. This is what I came home for.