I smile at his smile.“Always,” I say, and mean more than breakfast.
He smirks, opens a cabinet like a magician with limited tricks, produces a pack of instant oatmeal and a jar of peanut butter.We eat like kids on a dare, perched on the workbench, legs swinging, the quiet between us easy as always.
He licks peanut butter off his thumb, and I nearly combust for reasons that have nothing to do with food.He catches me looking and grins in a way that makes my knees want to negotiate a surrender.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“Don’t what?”
“Make me laugh when I should be calling myself a cab to church.”
“I can give you a ride to confession,” he says.“But you’re leavin’ with the same sin.”
I shake my head, smiling despite myself.Outside, the plows grunt closer.Inside, the radio gives us a weather update and a cheerful ad about local wreaths.
“What are we doing?”I ask softly, not a complaint.
“Surviving,” he says.“Choosing.”
“Each other,” I say, the words a warm rock in my mouth.
“Yeah,” he says.“Each other.”
He reaches across the workbench, takes my hand.We sit like that while the world digs us out, our fingers laced, the storm receding from the map and still raging in the parts of us that needed it to strip everything else away.
When it’s time to go, he hands me my coat.I pull it on over his hoodie.He watches like he wants to say something and thinks better of it.I say it for both of us.“I’ll bring this back.”
“You better not,” he says.“It looks better on you.But yes, come back… anytime.”
We step out into a morning that’s bright enough to hurt.The lot is a sculpture garden of white.He clears a path with a shovel, cussing at the wind like an old friend, and I laugh, helpless and whole.
I’m still wrong.And for the first time since I can remember, I don’t want to be right.I want to be here, where the snow gives way, where he takes my hand in broad daylight like he forgot to be afraid.
I’m falling.It’s terrifying.It’s true.And when I hum without thinking, he doesn’t tell me to shut up.
He just listens.
Chapter 13
Humbug
The rumor hits that evening.
I hear it in the corner, where men think walls don’t echo.
Prez’s old lady saw Humbug with the Sno-Globes girl, leaving his garage.The one from the robbery.Pretty little thing.She looked freshly fucked.He’s lost his damn mind.
They’re not wrong.
The talk drops like cards folding.Eyes flick my way.I’m guilty, curious, waiting.Frost sits at the bar pretending he didn’t just whisper something to Icepick.Even the jukebox hums lower, as if it knows what’s coming.
I pour my own whiskey.My stomach’s already full of gravel.
“Evening brother.”Frost’s grin is all teeth.“Rough night?”
“Fine,” I say.
“Trina stopped by.”He takes a sip.“Didn’t look fine.”
