“There’s only one bed,” she says.
I glance at her, then the bed. “You’re not the only one who didn’t see that coming.”
She recovers and snorts. “I’m not sure if this was matchmaking or matchmaking with intent to scandalize.”
We both stand there a fraction too long, eyes on the bed, but neither of us is willing to be the first to acknowledge just how intimate this setup is.
Then Maisie clears her throat and tosses her hands in the air with a dry, “Well, if the townsfolk want scandal, we should at least make them work for it.”
She disappears into a closet and emerges with a curtain rod and a mismatched armful of blankets. “Help me out here, handyman.”
We balance the rod between the top and bottom of the canopy frame and drape the blankets over it like a makeshift wall. Uneven folds. Zero symmetry. Not an ounce of confidence.
“Respectable,” Maisie says, hands on her hips. “As in, my grandma would approve—if she didn’t squint too hard.”
“Structural,” I reply, stepping back to examine our handiwork. “As in, it probably won’t kill us in our sleep.”
We share a look, and despite everything: the bed, the town, the tiny trace of something between us, I smile.
She claims the lamp side. I take the fireplace corner. The line has been drawn.
Dinner is simple. Not much in the kitchen besides a few shelf-stable staples and a note from the Sweetpines Committee that says, “Surprise! Romance tastes like boxed pasta.”
We find a packet of fettuccine and a jar of roasted red pepper sauce that miraculously hasn’t expired. Maisie laughs as she reads the label.
“This feels less romantic getaway and more dorm room nostalgia.”
“It’s gourmet,” I deadpan, pulling a dented saucepan from the cabinet.
We cook side by side in the miniature kitchen, trying not to bump into each other. We fail. Often. It’s impossible not to.
The space is barely wide enough for two people to breathe, let alone stir pasta. At one point, Maisie leans over to check the sauce and her hair brushes my shoulder. My arm jerks, almost knocking over the pot.
She glances up, smiling. “You okay there, Gordon Ramsay?”
“Fine,” I mutter. “Just got attacked by a stray curl.”
I stop fighting to avoid contact, and it becomes part of the rhythm. At one point, she sprinkles in too much salt, and I mock gasp. She sticks out her tongue. I threaten to take over stirring. She dares me to try.
And somewhere between a sauce-splattered counter and stolen glances, it becomes clear we’re not just making dinner. We’re building something: awkward, unexpected, but real.
Once, we both reach for the container of dried Italian spices in the same drawer. Our hips knock. Hers lingers. Or maybe mine does.
She chuckles, her voice a little breathier than usual. “I swear this kitchen shrinks every time we move.”
“Cabin’s conspiring against us,” I half-joke, but I don’t step away.
As I sit down at the small table near the window, my knees knock against hers under the table. I glance at her, but she’s looking down at her plate. We don’t talk about the contest or the town or what this is becoming. Just the pasta. And how it’s somehow the best meal either of us has had in a long time.
After dinner, I clear the plates, and she sets a kettle on the stove. Then I grab for the same mug as she does at the exact same time, a plain white one with a cartoon cactus. We fumble. Our hands meet around the handle, skin against skin for half a second too long. It zings.
Years ago, I forgot I was still holding needle nose pliers when I went to unscrew the metal base of a candelabra bulb that had lodged tightly in the socket after the bulb broke. The electric jolt knocked me off the ladder.
Her touch has a greater impact on my body.
It stuns me. Not just the contact, but how badly I want it to keep going.
Maisie laughs under her breath. “All this effort and we didn’t label the mugs.”
