She swiveled on the stool, grinning up at me, eyes still wide and bright. “You started it,” she said. “All that ‘steady and slow’ nonsense — very misleading instructions, Mr. Author.”
“I’ll be sure to rewrite them,” I said dryly, but my mouth betrayed me; the corner twitched.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The keys still glistened faintly in the firelight, her fingers resting just above them, mine hanging uselessly at my sides. The air was thick with the heat of the stove, the scent of pine and smoke, and the faint trace of her shampoo.
She looked back at the typewriter, then at me, and a quieter smile softened her face. “It’s good you brought this thing,” she said. “It suits you.”
“Old?”
“I mean… yeah, but it’s also… authentic,” she countered, still smiling. “Everything else feels… noisy.”
I didn’t trust myself to answer that. Instead, I reached past her to pull the paper from the carriage, careful not to brush her again, and set it on the table between us. The single line she’d managed sat crooked and imperfect, but it made her beam.
“There,” she said, her contagious smile threatening in the small space. “My very first typewritten — is that a word?”
“No,” but I was grinning too.
“My very first typewritten sentence.” And just like that, the cabin was full again — of her voice, her light, her impossible warmth.
The day stretched long and strange, the kind of day that would’ve driven me mad if I’d been alone. But she wasn’t exactly quiet company, and somehow that made it bearable.
After lunch — canned soup, crackers, her chatter filling every empty space — I pulled the typewriter back to the desk. The keys still wore the faint sheen of her fingerprints.
“You’re really going to work?” she asked, curling up on the couch with a blanket and a dog-eared paperback that wasn’t mine. “You can’t just… enjoy being snowed in?”
“I am enjoying it,” I said, setting a fresh page into the carriage. “This ishowI enjoy it.”
`“Liar.” She flipped a page, not even pretending to read.
I rolled the first line through the machine, listening to the familiar clack of keys. It should have felt comforting, but the sound mixed with the faint rustle of her turning pages, the creak of the couch as she shifted, the soft hum she made when she was thinking. All of it became a kind of rhythm, steady and alive, threading through the cabin.
After a while, I forgot the cold outside, forgot that the world was still covered in white. There was only the soft storm-light through the windows, the smell of wood smoke, and her voice when she read a line aloud just to see if I’d react.
“Listen to this,” she said suddenly, breaking the silence. “‘Helooked at her and realized that sometimes, the heart wants what it shouldn’t, but that doesn’t make it wrong.’”
“You’re readingthatkind of book.” My fingers stilled over the keys. “All sex and skin and no real substance.”
She grinned over the edge of the cover. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s a lazy line,” I said, forcing myself to keep typing.
“You’re just jealous you can’t turn women on with just your words, hotshot.”
That made me glance up despite myself. She was smiling, but there was something soft in her eyes, something that saw too much. I looked away before it could land.
The hours slipped past like that — banter, silence, the small noises of two people pretending not to watch each other. By the time the light began to fade, my pages were a mess of half-sentences and crossed-out thoughts, and she was asleep on the couch, her book facedown on her chest.
I watched her for a long time, the firelight painting her in gold and shadow. The quiet between us wasn’t heavy anymore. It was… companionable.
Dangerous, but companionable.
I should’ve gone back to work. Instead, I just sat there, listening to her breathe, letting the clack of the typewriter fall still for the first time all afternoon.
CHAPTER 12
Colette
The stormstillhadn’t let up.
