Chapter 5
Leo
I’d meant it when I told the medics that I felt like the winds of fate had shifted and finally started blowing in my favor by landing me in this cabin with these two gracious and inquisitive men. The meal we’d shared had been simple but utterly delicious fare.
Chatting with them was easy and amusing too when they finished each other’s sentences or corrected the details of the stories they told, breaking into mini-debates when one remembered things in a significantly different manner from the way the other did.
Their lighthearted teasing and creatively outrageous means of threatening one another quickly clued me in that they’d known each another for years, though I couldn’t tell if the bond between them was friendship or something deeper.
What I discovered right away was that they were careful and extremely considerate to never make me feel like a third wheel even in the midst of their shenanigans.
They had a way about them that left me feeling comfortable and at ease.
I don’t know how they managed it, but they left the window open for me to contribute to the conversation without feeling like we were playing twenty questions.
It made for a truly pleasant meal as the sky outside grew darker.
Now here we sat in the living room with the fireplace crackling and the flatscreen displaying an array of streaming service options and cable channels.
“So, is anyone in the mood for something particular, or shall I just scroll through the stations until something catches our eye?” Briar asked.
“I think Leo should pick,” Maverick suggested, causing me to whip my head around to look at him all reclined and cozy in the easy chair furthest from the fireplace with a throw blanket draped over his legs.
“Me? Why me?”
“’Cause you can tell a lot about someone by what they choose to watch,” Briar remarked, flashing Maverick a toothy grin.
“Why do I detect a story there?” I asked as I accepted the remote Briar passed me.
“Because even after fifteen years he still insists that he knew we were going to be the very best of friends after I cheered when our fifth-grade teacher announced that we’d be watching the cartoon Alice in Wonderland as our reward for completing our reading goal.”
Briar just shrugged and flashed a lopsided grin. “What can I say? I was in love with the caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat. I still consider them to be two of the best characters ever created. I absolutely love how they brought them to life in the live-action movies too.”
“Oh my god, now you’ve got me wanting to find the ones with Johnny Depp,” I declared, getting excited to learn that we had something in common. “Those are some of my all-time favorites.”
“Seriously?” Maverick asked.
“One thousand percent.”
“I’ve got the Disney Channel app,” Maverick said. “I can log into it and pull all three movies up for us if you want to see the animated one too.”
“Hell yeah!” I replied.
“Alice in Wonderland movie night for the win!” Briar screeched, sounding almost like the little squeaky roars Maverick had let out after he’d seen me in their room. “You know what will go perfect with that, right?”
“Hot spiced tea and toffee-buttered popcorn?” Maverick asked, sounding an equal mix excited and hopeful.
“Abso-fuckin’-lutely,” Briar remarked, “and all we’ll have to do is make the tea. I made a few tuna and cucumber sandwiches when I was whipping up supper, they are already cut into squares and sitting in a container on the top shelf so we can all help ourselves if we get hungry later.”
“Sounds like the makings of our own tea party,” I replied as I tugged the throw blanket off the back of the couch, so it draped over my body.
After the earlier events of the day and my current full belly, I was more than ready to relax with a few movies and do nothing but stare at the screen.
I passed the remote to Maverick as Briar got cozy in the recliner closest to the fireplace, kicked it back, and sighed contentedly.
In no time at all Maverick had the Disney app open and was dialing up the Alice in Wonderland movies.
“Do we want the animated one or the live-action ones first?” Maverick asked.
“Animated!” Briar and I both blurted, turning to one another and laughing, while Maverick just muttered, 'Alrighty then, should have seen that coming.'
“So, is that when you guys met, in fifth grade?” I asked as the first advertisement appeared on the screen.
Did they really think people watched those? At this point, the only purpose they served was to give people the opportunity for a piss break or to grab some refreshments without having to pause the movie.
“Well, technically it was the summer before, when Mav’s family moved from the east side of town to where my family lived on the north side,” Briar explained.
“Mav’s mom and my aunt have been friends since college, and she invited Mav’s family to the barbeque she was throwing, but there were, like, a billion cousins there, and slip-and-slides, and four Twister mats taped together, so we didn’t really have the opportunity to talk or anything. ”
“We did have a fun day playing together with all of Briar’s cousins though,” Maverick added.
“And it was awesome to see a familiar face in class on the first day of school. The Alice in Wonderland bit just sealed the deal. We’d already shared a lunch table each day since the first day of school; after that we were just inseparable. ”
“Must make it easy to work together when you’ve known one another for so long.”
“Definitely, especially in the kitchen,” Briar said.
“We fall into such an easy rhythm, especially when we’ve got music blaring from the smart speaker, that it makes the day pass quickly,” Maverick added.
“It helps that we love what we do,” Briar chimed in.
“Running the cookie shop is our dream come true,” Maverick continued.
“Before we ever got to the point of actually looking for a storefront, we put together notebooks full of recipes that we’d tweaked and polished and taste-tested on our friends and family, but also at fairs and bakery competitions. ”
“Having those awards, as well as reviews and write-ups from newspapers and magazines, really helped when we launched,” Briar explained, while Maverick giggled.
“That was our first decor,” Maverick said.
“We framed everything and hung it on the walls in between the peel-and-stick cookie graphics we stuck up after we painted. People really reacted positively to being able to read them and get a feel for just how long we’d been working towards the goal of opening our shop. ”
The movie was finally about to start, which was a shame, because I’d been thoroughly enjoying the conversation while picturing snow leopards in Keebler Elf hats creating all kinds of yummy treats.
“How long has your shop been open?” I blurted.
I was normally not the type to talk when a movie was playing, but I had a follow-up question I wanted to ask now that I had images floating around in the back of my head.
My fingers itched for my sketchpad and drawing pencils.
Between the waning light still creeping in through the windows and the glow from the fireplace, I had plenty of illumination to see by, but would they think it rude that I was sketching while watching the movie?
Guess there was only one way to find out.
Leaning, I reached for my art kit, which sat a few feet away since I’d never gotten around to getting things put away after my abrupt meeting with the bedroom floor.
That was a tomorrow issue, along with the rest of my things.
As I tugged my drawing case closer, I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye that put my fears to rest. Maverick with a pencil, furiously scribbling in a notebook in between glancing at the television.
Nice.
Glad to see that I wasn’t the only one who multitasked.
That image of them in their snow leopard forms curled up in the bed was still burned into my brain, along with the cartoon one of them wearing elf hats and baking cookies.
Knowing I couldn’t capture the regalness of their leopards from memory alone, I had fun with the cartoon images.
Between the movie, the crackling of the fireplace, and the soft, scratchy sound of my pencil flowing over the paper, everything grew soft and almost hazy.
I drew snow leopard elves holding cookie trays, snow leopard elves rolling out dough, piping on frosting, and even one perched on top of the mixer, napping, and another dipping a claw in the batter.
“See any flakes yet?”
The words startled me, and it took a moment for me to realize that they didn’t come from the movie but rather from Briar asking Maverick a question.
“Nope. Can’t see the moon, either, not even the glow of it. The sky is as dark as a dungeon tonight.”
I nearly spit tea all over my sketchpad when he said that, having never heard that expression before. Now that I had, my overactive imagination kicked into overdrive trying to determine if it was an expression he’d picked up somewhere or if he was speaking from experience.
Which brought up a whole new line of questions. Starting with which kind of dungeon he was referring to. The kind that held prisoners, or one of the kinky variety? If I’d known him longer, I’d have asked, though something told me that if I’d known them longer, I’d already know the answer to that.
“Sad,” Briar muttered, “You alright over there, Leo?”
“Yeah,” I sputtered, blotting a dribble of tea off my chin. “Just forgot how to swallow, is all.”
My timing couldn’t have been worse, or better if I’d aimed for comedy. Briar choked and barely got the tea placed back on the end table beside him before he started coughing at the same time as I heard something hit the floor with a clatter in the kitchen, followed by Maverick laughing.
“Oh man,” Maverick said, chuckles breaking up his words as he struggled to choke them out. “You just opened the floodgates for a slew of wisecracks.”