“It’s an old cabin. People used to be smaller, you know,” he says, voice still low and lazy and relaxed, eyes heavy-lidded.
“I don’t think the average adult was ever four feet tall.”
Gideon just grunts, his thumb stroking slowly over my leg, and I never really want to move again. Sure, the tub is really uncomfortable, the water is closer tolukewarmthanhot, and yes, there’s semen floating around in it now, but I like this sweet, safe, secret moment.
* * *
That nightwhen I finish brushing my teeth, I notice there’s a piece of bread and a little bit of cheese by the hole in the baseboards in the kitchen. I’m tempted to tease Gideon about it when I head into the main room, but he’s dropping a pillow and sleeping bag onto the second twin mattress that’s now next to mine. When he finds me looking at him, he just shrugs and runs a hand through his hair, not quite meeting my eyes. No reason to mention the chipmunk.
“Couch isn’t very comfortable,” he grumbles.
There are a hundred things I could say to tease him, starting withso all I had to do to get you to sleep in the same room as me was jerk you off in a bathtub?But I don’t say any of them. I’m glad he’s here—intentionally this time, with forethought and everything—and I don’t want him to regret it.
“Neither are these, honestly,” I say, skirting both beds and sitting on mine to pull my socks off, because sleeping with socks is weird no matter how cold it is. “Putting them right on the floor helps, though.”
He nods, absentmindedly. Runs a hand through his hair again and then leaves it on top of his head like he’s thinking, lit by the golden orange of the fire in the wood stove and the piercing brightness of an electric lantern we’ve got on the mantle. He’s solid, wearing tight base layers again, his muscles highlighted in the strange light, and he’s lovely with those pretty eyes and the graceful lines of his body; he’s standing there like he’s cautious, uncertain, but earlier today I watched him calmly wrestle a young male deer free of the grouse net with barely a flicker of alarm.
“Is that enough wood or should I put more in?” he asks, nodding at the wood stove.
“I don’t think youcanfit more.”
“Sure, I could.”
“It’s fine,” I say. I’m sitting on my mattress and wrap my sleeping bag around my shoulders. “Come to bed.”
The tiny smile that ghosts across his face at that might be the sweetest thing I’ve seen all day. “We should get more wood tomorrow,” he says as he kneels at the edge of the mattress and arranges his own sleeping bag. I do the same and also get my pile of blankets in order, because some of us are going to need seventeen layers to get through the night.
“Do we have to chop it?”
“What? No. There’s a huge pile out there,” Gideon says. “It’s right by the shed, you didn’t see it when you were digging out the sled?”
I probably did. Mostly, I was hoping I’d get to watch Gideon chop wood.
“Oh, right,” I say. “I guess it’ll last a while.”
“We just need a few more days,” he says, on his back, staring at the ceiling. “They’re still working on clearing the Parkway, but a road crew should be able to come up and deal with us before long. And if not, the hike out isn’t too bad and once the Parkway is good to go, someone can meet us at the Hogswallow trailhead and get us back into town. I can come back later for the truck if I need to.”
I know I need to go down the mountain and back to every day life, for a shower if nothing else. I’m also excited for light switches, the internet, and using a microwave again. I can’t take infinite time off from my job, even though I’m lucky and the university I’m a grant writer for is on winter break anyway.
Butout thereis also a mess. I still have to go contend with the fact that I impulsively chained myself to a tree so I could make friends with someone who didn’t even stick around. When I go back, I’m going back to my aunt Lucia’s spare bedroom, which is also currently my home office. After I came down to help her out when she broke her knee six months ago, I didn’t mean to not leave, I just… didn’t leave. I thought I’d have a plan by now, but I don’t.
Not to mention that plenty of people will have plenty of questions about what’s going on with me and Gideon and whether it’s a good idea.
But that’s allout thereand right now I’min here, andin herehas the dreamy quality of a snow globe or a town on a Christmas-themed model train set. It feels charmed and untouched and uncomplicated, and there’s an appeal to trading one kind of ease for another.
“I know your parents are worried,” Gideon says, finally turning his head to look over at me. “I could hear Rick asking how old you think the subflooring in here is when you talked last night.”
“He’s positive it’s completely rotted and I’m one heavy step away from falling into an old mine shaft or something. I don’t know why he thinks this cabin is built on top of an old mine,” I add, because Gideon’s frowning and I don’t really want to get into my stepdad’s neuroses right now.
“It’s not,” he says, sounding a little defensive.
“Hopefully,” I say, and he snorts, and then before I can stop myself, I ask: “Have you talked to yours?”
“Only the once,” he says, so he must be talking about four or five days ago when I overheard a conversation that couldn’t have been longer than three minutes, tops. I’d be worried about him, but he seems to be in constant contact with everyone in Sprucevale that’s not his parents: his brother Reid, at least two of his sisters, a group chat that blows up his phone at least once a day until he turns it off, and Forest Service dispatch. Gideon’s been doing alotof grumbling about how the solar-powered batteries he’s been using aren’t meant for this kind of heavy use.
“It’s improper,” he says, after a bit. He rolls onto his side and looks at me, one arm under his pillow, all warm and rumpled in the firelight.
“What is?” I ask. At this point, there’s a list.
