“I’m fine, thank you.” Though the sweet, buttery scent of cookies should be evidence that this is truly happening, some part of me thinks that if Maddy leaves this room, she’ll disappear. Melt back into the shadows that she sprang from.
I don’t want that. Not yet.
The fire crackles in the grate across the room, dancing across the stack of logs I lit an hour or so ago. Maddy glances over her shoulder, like she’s only just noticed where all the heat and light are coming from. While she’s turned away, my gaze swoopsover the sliver of her throat bared by her scarf. Her smooth cheekbone.
“Do you always work this late?” she asks.
My eyes hold hers when Maddy turns back.
“Often, yes.”
“What are you working on?”
My chest thuds. When was the last time another person took an interest in my work, beyond distant academics on the mainland and beyond? When was the last time someone asked me inperson, their flesh and blood in the same room as mine, our lungs sharing the same air?
It knocks me sideways. My throat sticks, and I have to cough to clear it before I can speak.
“These are expedition notes from a trip we took to Iceland about twelve years ago, in search of rare mosses. I went on many scientific expeditions across the globe before…”
A sharp ache lances through my thigh beneath the desk. Maddy’s eyes drop down too, like she can see my ruined limb through the wood.
“Well. When I was younger,” I finish awkwardly. “But I was never very diligent about writing up extensive notes for publication. I shared our findings, yes, with the research community, but in terms of writing everything up properly… for full books rather than articles… I always put that off for another day.”
“I do that with my laundry,” Maddy teases softly, turning to perch on the edge of the desk. She plucks one of her own cookies off the plate and takes a large bite, her teeth sinking into the golden disc. A few crumbs drop onto my papers, but for once, I really don’t mind.
“Yes. My procrastination was rather more dire than that, but I suppose it’s ultimately the same impulse.” My smile feels strange on my face. Alien. I’m not sure whether I’m forcing theexpression without really feeling it, or whether it’s been so long since I smiled that the muscles have stiffened.
“My friends and colleagues—the others on those trips—sometimes pushed me to write everything up, to publish properly, but I always told them there would be time for that once we were too old to risk our necks in the wilderness. In the meantime, we had the world to see.”
Of course, those friends never grew old. And now here I am, alone with my notes and sketches and samples, trying to wade through years and years of put-off work, desperate to have it allmeansomething. Working myself ragged in their memory.
It’s like Maddy senses the drop in my mood. She nudges the plate of cookies toward me with the tip of one finger and, huffing out a breath, I pluck a warm cookie from the top of the pile.
My stomach growls again, loud and defiant, as I take my first bite. My body rebuking me for turning away Mrs Ainslie’s dinner tray, no doubt. But as the sweet, buttery, and subtly spiced flavor spreads across my tongue, I can’t help but be glad that I turned away that food earlier.
This is delicious.
Heaven-sent.
And…
“Cinnamon,” I say thickly after swallowing my first bite. Maddy smirks, holding my gaze, and heat surges across my skin beneath my clothes. My abs tense, and my hand trembles slightly where it holds the rest of the cookie aloft.
Cinnamon.
Is this…? Does she…?
“They’re good.” I finish the cookie in two more bites, chewing carefully, mind whirring as I shift in my desk chair. There’s probably nothing deeper going on. No silent flirtatious message. This is an innocent gesture from an employee to her boss, to make up for a clumsy interaction earlier today. That’s all.
“So you don’t mind the taste of cinnamon,” Maddy murmurs, the firelight catching on burnished strands of her hair. Her eyes are big as they watch me, tracking each bob of my throat as I swallow. “Just the smell.”
My head shakes, and Christ, she must hear my chest thundering now. Even with the wind rattling the windows and the hiss of the fire, Maddy must hear the ragged thump of my heart.
“I like the smell too,” I grit out. “A little too much, perhaps. It’s distracting.”
A slow smile spreads across Maddy’s face, pleased and mischievous.
“It’s my soap, by the way. Cinnamon soap.”
