Falling Madly

Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Trevor

W e worked on our sled design for the rest of the day, taking frequent breaks for pizza, coffees, and drinks.

I was happy I’d stocked the cabin for emergencies. This didn’t exactly qualify as one, but it meant the cupboards were full of snacks and the fridge held a variety of drinks. Living in the middle of nowhere meant I needed to plan ahead and buy in bulk—something I wasn’t natural at but was gradually learning.

Teresa had clammed up when Bess inquired about her past, and hadn’t since volunteered anything else, which was only amping up my curiosity. What did she mean about Cozy Creek knowing her? What could she have possibly done to earn a reputation she had to worry about fourteen years later? A new crop of teenagers emerged every year to do new stupid shit. Surely whatever it was had been outdone many times since then.

After entertaining some wild guesses from public urination to robbing a liquor store, I concluded it was probably something that felt big to her but wasn’t anything major. Our minds did such a great job of amplifying our own mistakes.

“Do you have a big tarp we could use for painting?” Bess asked me as I returned to our spare room workshop after cleaning up our dinner mess.

The sled was starting look a little more like an intentional shape than an abandoned box. We’d settled on a simple shape of a cartoon car, which did look rather drab in its original cardboard color.

“Charlie said he saw some paint in your shed we could use,” Bess continued, “and if we open the windows in the spare room, maybe we could paint there.” She glanced at Teresa. “Oh, no! But then you can’t sleep here. It’ll get too cold and the fumes…”

She grinned. “It’s okay. I’ll be too high on fumes to notice I’m cold.”

“Wait, what paint are you talking about?” I asked. “I thought we agreed the white doesn’t stand out against snow.”

I’d told them I only had some off-white base coat, which had been rejected by all.

There was a telling silence as Bess glanced at Charlie. “We found a can of purple paint at the back. It’s unopened, so maybe you were saving it for something, but it would look amazing!”

She fetched the can from the pile of supplies by the door, and Teresa grabbed it off her. “Tyrian!”

“It’s gorgeous!” Bess agreed.

“This would go really well in your bedroom,” Teresa mused, lifting the can, turning the color swatch against the light.

I held my breath, waiting for her to connect the dots.

“Wait.” She turned to me. “Did you…?” She peered at me, head tilted, and I nodded.

It’s your favorite color.

“Did he what?” Bess asked.

Teresa blushed a little, shaking her head. “Nothing.” She lifted her eyes to me. “You bought this for your house. We shouldn’t waste it on some cardboard.”

“Let’s!” I said quickly. “I can buy more if I need it. And if the spare room is too cold or full of fumes, we can both sleep in the living room.”

Her gaze flicked to the couch, and she bit her lip. “Sure. It’s not a problem.”

Bess and Charlie exchanged another look, this one far more knowing.

Teresa’s head whipped from side to side as she took in the situation. I saw the moment something snapped, then words spilled out of her mouth. “Stop it! We all know what’s going on, right? Do we have to keep pretending?”

Her gaze pierced me, and I stopped breathing altogether. I wasn’t trying to keep secrets between us. I didn’t even believe there were any. But saying it out loud felt like an invisible barrier I didn’t know how to cross. What if I made things worse again?

“Pretending?” Bess shot an alarmed look at Teresa, who straightened her spine.

“You both know we slept together,” she said, pausing for a moment until they nodded. “And you know it’s complicated and we don’t know what we are to each other.”

My chest squeezed, but I couldn’t dispute her words.

“We’ll figure it out,” she continued. “And it won’t affect us working together, I promise.”

“No, it won’t,” I echoed.

I wouldn’t let it. I would never again be the reason her career went sideways. I’d sacrifice mine a hundred times over before I let that happen.

We stood still, eyeing each other. The silence felt loud. Finally, Charlie threw his arm around me and grinned at Teresa. “If you want to get with my man, you’re gonna need to do better than that. He’s the best thing to ever come out of Scotland.”

I swallowed hard but plastered on a smile. “Better than whiskey.”

“Or Braveheart,” Charlie chorused. “I’d trust him with my life. This guy always comes through. You don’t even know what he’s done for?—”

“Okay. No more beer for you!” I cut him off, sensing this would not play out well.

I gave Teresa an apologetic smile, but to my surprise, she looked close to tears.

“I know,” she said, meeting Charlie’s eyes. “I know.”

Seemingly satisfied with her response, Charlie let me go and turned his attention to our cardboard car. I noticed Bess giving him a concerned glance, but she held her tongue.

We covered the spare room floor with a tarp and got to work painting our funky cardboard car. After a few minutes, Bess looked like she was about to either throw up or fall asleep, so we sent her back into the living room.

“Are you okay here if I go with her?” Charlie asked, casting a worried look over his shoulder. “I have a feeling she’s not happy with me… for whatever reason, and I need to make amends.”

“Go!” Teresa urged, closing the door behind him.

The spare room felt like an ice box, with two windows creating a cross breeze, and odd snowflakes floating inside, melting against the floor. We painted quickly, dressed in our winter coats, fingers stiff from the cold.

“I’m dreaming of that bathtub of yours,” Teresa confessed as she set down her paintbrush to blow into her hands. “I could spend the night there if we’re divvying up rooms.”

“In a hot bath that cools down within twenty minutes or an empty tub?” I teased.

“In a hot bath that stays hot because… right now, in my imagination, there’s no room for that kind of negativity.”

“Okay. Just keep in mind that it’s right next to the newlyweds. Apparently, pregnancy makes you extra horny.”

She gave me a warning look. “Dude!”

“What? It’s true. Charlie said?—”

“Stop it!” she hissed, threatening me with a dirty paintbrush.

I wasn’t going to say anything, but winding up Teresa was now my favorite thing. I loved seeing her relax and look at me a little differently. Like I was her disgusting friend, not just the poor sod desperately in love with her. Both could be true, after all.

“Sometimes, I look at them and I can’t believe Charlie is married,” I said.

“And about to become a dad,” Teresa added, matching my bewildered tone. “He never seemed the type.”

“But they’re so…”

“Perfect together?” she finished, now looking at me straight in the eye.

“Yeah.”

Teresa turned back to her paintbrush, circling the cardboard car to help me finish the other side. “They didn’t have to hate each other for eighteen months. They just fell in love.”

“I never hated you, and you know that.”

She sighed. “Fine. But you have to admit, it’s not been that easy for us. And it should be easier, right? If it’s meant to be.”

“Why’s that, then? Is there a rule for it? Some kind o’ hardship quota?”

She looked at me over her shoulder, her nose rosy, dark curls wet from the snowflakes blowing in. “Sounds legit.”

“And how was yer relationship with Richard the Dick? Easy or hard?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did you get together? Just fell in love, did you?”

I braced myself as she shook her head, an incredulous look in her eyes. “My friend played matchmaker and set me up with her colleague. I should have known since her work stories are dreadfully boring.” Her mouth twisted. “And we didn’t fall in love. We dated… We enjoyed ourselves. Or so I thought.”

The way she emphasized “fall in love” felt like air quotes.

“Do ye think it’s ridiculous to fall in love?” I asked.

Teresa looked surprised. “Oh… I didn’t mean that. But I’ve never been in love, I don’t think.

“Never?”

She looked a little embarrassed, shaking her head. “I know that’s weird. And I’ve had crushes… Maybe it’s the same thing. How do you even know?”

“How do you feel when you’re crushing on someone?”

She blushed, looking at the ceiling. “You know how it feels! You think about them way too much and wonder what it would be like… Wonder if they like you. You dream about all kinds of stuff.”

Teresa finished the last spot of painting, dropped the brush into the tray and picked it up. “I wasn’t in love with Richard.”

“Okay,” I said, standing up with her.

We left one of the windows ajar and closed the door, leaving our strange, purple cardboard sled to dry.

It was late and pitch-black outside. Charlie and Bess must have moved to the bedroom.

“Oh, my God!” Teresa hissed as she spotted the sock on the doorknob.

“That is cheeky,” I admitted. “Even from Charlie.”

“Do you think they’re really…” She looked at me, eyes wide.

“Apparently, pregnancy really increases the blood flow down?—”

“How on earth do you know this stuff?” she hissed back.

I shrugged. “People tell me stuff and I listen.”

I’d been called a human sponge for all I heard and absorbed, and I’d never felt like I had to limit my interests to my own gender or age group. I often had to write copy from a female perspective or communicate to women, elderly people, or teenagers. Each target group was fascinating.

I grabbed a chair and propped it under the bedroom door. “There. Now we both have privacy.

She smiled, stepping so close her coat was brushing mine. It was warm here, with the fire still on, red-hot embers glowing behind the glass doors. Charlie must have kept it going.

“I’m going to lose my jacket,” I said. “Before I sweat through it. Can I take yours?”

She shook her head. “I’m still freezing. The cold got through all my layers in there and I can’t shake this chill.”

“The only bathtub is in that ensuite, sorry. But maybe we can get you warm by the fire.”

I brought her in front of the fireplace and threw a few more logs in. She sat on the sheepskin rug in her jacket, holding her hands to the heat. I made her a cup of tea and brought it over.

“I’m sorry. I should have shut down that painting project before it got too cold,” I said.

“It’s okay. I’m used to freezing myself. It’s part of the Cozy Creek experience.” She smiled. “I used to go without a hat all the time to not mess up my hair and would freeze my ears off.”

I sat next to her and gently pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh, good. Just checking…” She angled her head, and I inspected her other ear. “Great. Still there.”

She giggled quietly, and I snuck a quick kiss on her cheek, almost reaching the ear. To my surprise, she grabbed hold of my face and pulled me closer, bringing our lips together. Gradually, my disbelief melted into a flood of sensations.

She’s kissing me.

I tried to slow down my breathing, to stay in control. I wanted her in every way, with every cell of my body, and that was a recipe for disaster. She didn’t really want to be with me. She’d never been in love, and she wasn’t in love with me.

But it was hard to engage my higher functioning brain when the rest of me pounded with one thought, blood humming in my ears on its way downtown. Only one thing was clear.

I could never resist her.