Finn’s pretty face twisted into a sneer. “How do you not know where we are?”
“A little whiskey on top of a lot of sleep deprivation isn’t great for short-term memory,” he snapped, patience gone. She rolled her eyes, and like that it was eight years ago and he was sitting across from her in the cafeteria, drinking in every nuance of her expressive face.
“We’re in River North.” She spoke with exaggeratedly slow enunciation, as if he were too dim to understand the geography of the city he’d grown up in.
But the map of Chicago was inscribed on his brain, and Tom’s tiny bubble of hope popped. He was fit, but he wasn’t about to attempt a twenty-mile walk in this weather. He clenched his hands in frustration, trying to think.
“So I’ll get an Uber. Or a taxi.” But another peek out the window told him that was futile. Anything available would be in high demand, and none would be able to make it onto this snow-entombed street anyway. “Fuck. Okay then, where’s the nearest L station?”
That unamused laugh again. “It’s seven blocks away. I barely made it home ninety minutes ago, and the snow’s gotten worse since then.”
He stared at the patch of yellow linoleum stretching between them while he considered his options. On one hand was a long walk to the train in a blizzard. On the other hand was Finn’s icy, narrowed gaze.
Blizzard it was. He wasn’t sure he could survive another second of her obvious displeasure in his company.
“I’ll grab my things and get out of your way.”
Finn’s brows snapped together, but she didn’t say anything when he turned on his heel and ducked back into the room from whence he’d emerged. He cast one longing glance at the warm-looking bed with its enticingly tossed-back covers before sliding on his shoes and coat and slinging his bag over his shoulder. When he emerged, Finn had moved the knives to the sink, apparently deciding he was no longer a threat now that he was headed to his death on the snowy streets of Chicago.
“I think that note is for you.” She gestured at a sheet of paper on the table.
He glanced at it but left it where it was. Even if he was interested in spending more time with Josie, he’d never pocket another woman’s number in front of Finn. “Okay. I’ll… Well, I’ll see you never.” He zipped his coat to his chin and prayed it was up to the task. “Enjoy your blizzard.”
She offered him a tight smile. “Turn right when you leave the building. Two blocks, then go left another block, then right and it’s a straight shot.”
“Thanks.” Then he cut their excruciating encounter short by exiting the apartment and clattering down three flights of stairs to the black-and-white-tiled lobby. He tugged on his hat and gloves, then took a deep breath and pushed the exterior door open.
At first nothing happened. The door wouldn’t budge. He put his shoulder into it and gave it a good shove, feet slipping on the tile as he strained to find leverage. Slowly the door inched open, pushing against the mound of snow that had already drifted against it and unleashing a blast of arctic air across his face. When he’d cleared a wide-enough arc, he slipped through and sank up to his knees in the thick, fluffy stuff covering the sidewalk.
Fuck. The cold and wet immediately seeped into his jeans, socks, and shoes. How was there this much snow already? When he and Josie had made it to her apartment at close to four in the morning, it had only been spitting.
A fierce gust of wind whapped him full in the face then, spraying snow against the apartment and adding to the already enormous drifts.
He took a moment to get oriented and set out in what he hoped was the right direction, but after making it only a few feet, he found himself laboring to draw breath into his lungs. The heavy snow was almost impossible to move through, and he wasn’t sure he’d physically be able to make it the L station before succumbing to frostbite or exhaustion.
Fear cut through him, sharper than the wind, but he plowed ahead, pushing through the untouched snow. It crept under his coat sleeves, and the flakes landing on his cheeks and nose melted and trickled down his overheated face to pool inside his collar. The street itself was silent save the howling of the wind and his own labored breaths, and his blue puffer jacket was the only spot of color in this otherwise white, swirling world.
God, how long was this block? How close was he to the corner? How long would it take to reach the next street if he had to fight through drifts the whole way?
“Tom! Hey, Tom!”
At first, he thought he was imagining the faint sound of his name being tossed on the wind, but when it persisted, he forced himself to pause and search for the source. A dark shape leaned out of an upper window, partially obscured by the thick flakes in the air. It was Finn, her long braid a stiff banner in the wind as she shouted like a fairy-tale princess in a tower at the peasants on the street below.
“Come back up! I can’t let you die in a snowbank.” She pulled her head in, then popped it right back out. “Even if you deserve it!”
Make that ameanfairy-tale princess.
For a tenth of a second, Tom thought about waving her off and continuing on to the train, but that was obviously insane. His teeth were already chattering, and he hadn’t even cleared the end of her block yet. He’d changed his mind; dying of exposure was only slightly less preferable than returning to Finn’s apartment.
“Okay!” he hollered back, pivoting to follow the tracks he’d just made. Incredibly, they were already starting to fill in.
When he reached the door, she buzzed him in, and he wrestled the heavy beast back open, practically throwing himself to the tiles in gratitude that he was safe from the elements. He took a minute to catch his breath before dragging himself back up the stairs.
Her apartment door was ajar, and he rapped once before walking in and nudging it shut behind him.
She perched on one of the kitchen chairs, spine stiff. “There’s no way you were going to make it eight blocks.”
Tom leaned against the door and tried not to shiver at the sensation of wet denim clinging to his cold flesh. “No. Not likely,” he admitted, unable to stop the tremor that rolled through him as his icy socks squelched in his shoes.
