“No, you don’t,” Amy said, and put her hand on his arm. “I’ve got this. You bought pastries.”
“You ate one donut, Amy.”
“Well thanks for bringing it up because now I feel like I need to confess to you and this nice woman that I ate two. Anyway, I’m going to be a rich artist, remember?”
“Why don’t you split it?” the lady cheerfully suggested. “That’s what Rick and I do. We split everything.”
Harrison and Amy looked at each other. He did not know the proper protocol for getting ready for a snowpocalypse with a pseudo roommate, but if it made her happy, he would let his masculine pride go.
“Perfect,” she said, confirming his thought, and pulled out a wallet.
They paid, and the cashier packaged up their things and loaded them into the cart, and the two of them strolled outside…into sunlight.
Amy gasped, pausing to squint up. “What the hell? What happened to dire reports of a winter storm? A possible grid failure?”
A man who had happened to walk out behind them overheard her. “You talking about the snowtastrophe?” The man, Harrison noticed, was wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a hoodie. It was not a warm day.
“They’ve already named it?” Amy asked.
“Yep. They changed the forecast and pushed it off a couple of days. But they said it was going to be a bad one. Cute pup,” he said, and reached over to scratch Duchess under the chin.
“Thanks,” Amy said, sounding dejected. She looked at Harrison as the man strolled on. “We just spent a fortune on snow that’s not going to happen.”
“I don’t think they’d be calling it a snowtastrophe if it wasn’t really going to get here.”
“Maybe not,” she said. She sighed and looked longingly at CarlottaJane’s. “But you don’t know the weather people around here.” She looked back at him, and the two of them stood there, quite close, their gazes locked. Harrison felt a change in the air. Maybe it was the sparkly dry air that preceded a snowtastrophe, and maybe it was something else. His gaze moved to her lips. To her neck. To her chest. He thought about last night.
Amy said, “I should get back. I’ve really got to paint something.”
“Right,” he said. And just like that, a cold breeze gusted between them, almost forcing them apart. It made him a little sad.
“Hey,” she said as she walked around to the driver’s side of the van. “I had fun.”
He smiled. “So did I.” He’d had more fun than he’d had in a very long time.
Harrison spent the afternoon in his room, watching the sun disappear and more clouds roll in. It made the lake look dark and gloomy, punctuated by Christmas lights. It was a whole vibe that suited his mood perfectly. He was prepared to spend an entire evening in his room, probably on TikTok, probably feeling sorry for himself, and lonely and old. He’d heard of people being depressed when the holidays came around, but it had never happened to him. He’d had a couple of bouts of depression, including a prolonged one after the car accident. But he was generally not one to simmer in despair or self-pity. Then again, up until last year, he’d never spent a holiday alone feeling his age.
He took a long bath, and when he got out, the temperature had dropped. He pulled on his ugly Christmas sweater. It smelled a bit like gasoline. He had chosen one with Santa bending over to put presents under a tree while a cat looked on. Santa had a plumber’s crack.
He decided he could use a snack and walked out of his room. The moment he did, the most delicious scent of food reached him.
Thatsmell was home cooking. He’d know it anywhere, and it perked him right up.
As he moved down the hall, Duchess came bounding down the hallway at a slant in her elf costume, headed for the wall. “Over here, killer,” he said, and scooped up the dog before she collided with the wall. He laughed as Duchess licked his face, her entire body wiggling with delight against him.
Amy’s head popped around the corner. “Oh, hey,” she said. She smiled, then stepped into the hall, wiping her hands on a dish towel, her hair piled on top of her head, her cargo pants covered in paint. She paused, her gaze going to his sweater. That was the moment Harrison noticed hers. She had chosen a chihuahua wearing a light-up pair of reindeer antlers and a pair of actual sunglasses that looked glued to the fabric. She burst out laughing, and he held Duchess away from him so she could take in the full effect.
“That is awesome,” she crowed. Harrison was laughing, too, at their ridiculous sweaters.
“Almost as awesome as yours,” he said. “Something smells wonderful, by the way.” He put Duchess down. The dachshund proved herself determined to walk into walls by doing so immediately before course correcting and letting her nose guide her back into the kitchen.
“Thanks!”
Amy glanced over her shoulder at whatever was in the kitchen. “I made enough to feed an entire kingdom. I’ve never figured out how to cook for just one or two.”
“What is it?” Harrison asked.
“Unfortunately, it is not Hamburger Helper, which is my signature dish. It’s lasagna.”
