"I was here first."
He stares down at me. I stare up at him. Wolf, sensing the tension, slithers off the couch and goes to lie by the fire, the coward.
And then he picks me up.
There's no warning or "may I." No polite hand on my elbow or gentlemanly offer of assistance. One second, I'm sitting on the couch being stubborn; the next, two hands are around my waist and I'm airborne.
Afon lifts me and plops me on the kitchen counter. My socked feet dangle above the floor like I'm a little kid in a high chair. He does it so fast that the gasp doesn't even leave my mouth until I'm already up there.
"Wh—" I sputter.
But he doesn't even acknowledge the insanity of what he just did. He's already reaching past me for whatever he wanted on the shelf. His arm extends right beside my head, his chest about four inches from my face, and I am suddenly, horrifyingly aware of every point of sensory contact: the lingering pressure of his hands on my waist, the worn flannel close enough that I can see the individual threads, the smell of him that I crave on first contact.
He grabs the can of WD-40 and steps back. "That didn't have to be so hard," he says.
"You—" I manage. "You can't just pick people up like that!"
"I can if they're in my way."
"That's— You can't— That's assault!"
"Then sue me." He hefts the can to check its weight, then starts to turn away. "You said you went to Columbia. Should be easy."
With that, he returns to his tinkering at the kitchen table. It's as if I've ceased to exist. There's only the broad expanse of his back again, huge and immovable.
It takes me a while to realize that I'm still up on the counter where he deposited me like a sack of flour. When I do, I gingerly slide down, careful of my hurt ankle, then limp back to the couch and sit down hard.
Wolf trots over and puts his chin on my knee, gazing up at me with sympathetic brown eyes as if to say,Yeah, he does that.
Son of a bitch.
I think I just got manhandled.
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to recover my dignity and failing spectacularly.
The day wears on. We orbit each other, but make no eye contact. He fixes lunch, but I refuse to eat it. At some point, I try again—"Just tell me about"—but I don't get any farther than that before a particularly savage julienne of a carrot shuts me right up.
I try another approach at five, as the sunlight fades behind the mountain range. "What if I tell you what I already know, and you just fill in the gaps?"
"No."
"Okay, then how about if you write it down? You don't even have to say it out loud?—"
"No."
"What if I we play 20 Questions, and I?—"
"Caroline." He sets the knife down and glares at me. "I said I would tell you, and I will. But tonight is not the night, and pushing me will not change that."
The finality in his voice might as well be a vault door slamming shut. "Fine," I grumble. "Fine."
The sky outside has gone fully dark by six-thirty. No blackness feels as absolute as winter in the mountains. The snow falling makes everything seem surreal and dreamlike. We're just a speck of warm light in the desolate isolation of these woods. Afon has continued to radiate aloof grumpiness, and I've continued to put on my best Resting Bitch Face. It's an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, and no one is happy about how little progress is being made.
Except for Wolf. He seems glad for the company. He's asleep on the rug, belly-up, twitching through some dream in which he is presumably chasing something he'll never catch. Relatable, honestly.
After dinner of stew which I reluctantly eat and will never admit to thoroughly enjoying, Afon washes the dishes. I dry them. We work in silence, side by side, but if he notices me throwing vicious scowls in his direction, he shows no sign of it.
When the last bowl is put away, Afon hangs the dish towel on its hook and turns to me.
