“Well, you’re going to go through life weighed down by too much.”
It was a good burn, I thought. But he wasn’t even listening. He was pawing through Duffel No. 2, yanking out awhole assortment of clothes. Next, he ran his hands all over me one last time to knock off the last of the collected snow—and then tugged a sweatshirt over my head.
It smelled like him. Dammit. The sweet scent filled my nostrils and then lungs and then drifted into my veins. Whatever laundry detergent his mom had always used, he was still using it now. I should ask him the brand so I could avoid it.
I shook my head to clear it. “What are you doing?”
“We’re walking the rest of the way.”
“Walking?!”
“Well, we’re not driving.”
“Fair point.”
“And since you’re practically naked—”
“Nothing about me is naked.”
“You’re not even wearing socks.”
“It was supposed to be eighty-four degrees today.”
“I’m adding some layers.”
Next, he put a thick flannel shirt over the sweatshirt. Then he found a knitted cap. And some gloves. And then a puffy jacket. Before I knew it, I was covered by fifty layers of Walker’s random clothes and puffed up like the Michelin Man.
When he was satisfied with me, he did the same thing to himself. Immobilized by all my new layers, I stared openly while he added a new sweater on top of his current one and then zipped a hoodie over that.
What was it about watching him perform the intensely ordinary act of matching up the two ends of the metal zipper and then pulling the tab up that felt so intimate? People zipped themselves up every day. This was not anything special.
And yet.
It was Walker doing the zipping. Walker’s cold hands matching the front corners of his sweatshirt. Walker’s thumb and forefinger grasping the tab.
When the zipper snagged on a thread, it occurred to me that if we were still close, I might’ve stepped forward to help him. “Give it here,” I might’ve said, gruffly closing the distance between us.
We weren’t still close. But I remembered those hands.
The night Walker had kissed me, a thousand years ago, he’d run those same hands through my hair. He’d pressed that same palm against the back of my neck to cradle me close. He’d touched my lower lip with the pad of that same thumb.
It took him longer to zip that hoodie than it should’ve. His hands were half frozen, I guess, and he snagged the pull more than once. I didn’t offer to help. If he’d wanted my help tonight, he should have been nicer to me in high school.
Finally done, he pulled up the hood and tied the string under his chin. Then he grabbed both of his bags out of his trunk and tried—again—to grab mine, too.
“I got it,” I said, seizing my bag away from him.No chivalry for you.
“Come on then,” he said.
And what choice did I have but to follow?
The power was out at the cabin.
It was colder inside than outside.
Walker found the junction box and flipped the switches at least twenty times before giving up.
“We’re not going to die,” he said as I looked on in horror.
