So now this is not only a monologue about living happily ever after, it’s a character assassination. We might have connected on a level that caused a whole bunch of new feelings to rampage through my mind and body last night, but she doesn’t know me well enough to make a judgement like that.
Not to mention it’s hard to accept a lecture on true love from someone who bases their life on being alone. It’s not okay for Miss Single And Independent And Needs No One to make out it’s only me who’s a cynic when it comes to romance.
“Oh, come on.” I take a step forward, closing some of the distance between us. “You think that stuff is as much bullshit as I do. You hide up here. Away from the world and everyone in it. Letting no one but your dog get close to you. Yeah, right, that’s a standard sign of a belief in true love.”
Summer’s face is now flushed as much with anger as with hurt. “I gave you a place to stay when you had nowhere to go. I took in a male stranger from the street. You repay me by losing my dog then being sarcastic about my grandparents, even though I’d shared with you how much they meant to me. That’s a special kind of heartless thoughtlessness.”
I bite my tongue to stop from pointing out I repaid her in mind-blowing orgasms too. Probably not a good time for that.
“Come on, Elsa.” She marches toward the dog and pats her on the back. “I’ve got work to do. Owen and his heart of stone can enjoy the smoked salmon by themselves.”
Both their backsides wiggle as they disappear up the stairs.
She is infuriating. How is it possible to feel so at one with someone so different from me? It makes no sense. We have nothing in common. Apart from a wild attraction for each other, obviously.
I try to shove away the nagging ache in my gut. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it bore all the hallmarks of that “meant to be” sensation people talk about. But I’ve always known the “meant to be” and “you know when you know” and “love at first sight” bullshit is precisely that—bullshit.
I take a deep breath and my gaze drifts toward the light sprinkle of snowflakes falling against the black sky outside the kitchen window. For a moment there, I’d completely forgotten about the snow, and about my need to get out of here and prep for the meeting.
I look back down at her grandparents’ wedding flutes and run my finger around the base of one of them.
I will never believe in all the mushy Valentine’s Day nonsense.
But am I starting to believe in Summer?
14
SUMMER
I’m going to have to unpick the hat I’ve rage-knitted in the last hour. It’s a mess.
And I’m starving. I should have grabbed the salmon when I stormed off.
My phone pings on my worktable.
IZZIE (8:14 PM)
Why have you still not replied??? Pleeeeaaaase let me know you’re okay or I’ll have to head to your Arctic tundra to check on you. THAT’s how worried I am.
When I finally checked my phone after napping on Owen’s shoulder, there was a long list of texts from Izzie in various stages of distress—from wondering why I hadn’t replied to the photo she sent two evenings ago, to panicking I was dead, to being relieved when “Mr. Google” told her our services were out and she realized that’s why I wasn’t replying. But then she worried I was snowed in and starving to death.
I should have gotten back as soon as the internet was restored, but I was consumed first by Elsa’s vanishing trick, then the stupid fight with Owen.
ME (8:16 PM)
Sorry. Yes. Am fine. Been distracted. By a hot stranger lost in the snow.
IZZIE (8:16 PM)
Oh, thank GOD! That you’re alive, I mean. But also for the hot stranger. Tell me all!!!
ME (8:17 PM)
Roads too bad to drive. I let him stay.
IZZIE (8:17 PM)
You let a strange man stay in your house???
