13. Cherry
13
CHERRY
I washed my face and under my arms with frigid water in the kitchen, then cleaned my teeth and changed into a simple pyjama set that Tasha had provided. The PJs were soft and comfy, and in normal circumstances I’d consider them pretty darn cozy.
Except these weren’t normal circumstances.
Nope. These circumstances were fucking freezing.
I tossed and turned in the empty bed, trying every which way to get warm. None of them worked. Silar only had one thin blanket on the bed and it was doing absolutely zilch in the keep-Cherry-warm department. It got to the point that I was shivering so hard it physically hurt. Like my bones were trying to rattle themselves right out of my body.
I’d been a bit relieved when Silar had said he wasn’t coming to bed just yet. But now I was just lying here, miserably chilly, hoping he’d show up and share some goddamn body heat with his wife.
Eventually, when it felt like my teeth might crack from the force of all the chattering, I gave up on trying to sleep and sat up. I swung my legs around the side of the bed and slipped my feet into the boots I’d left beside it on the floor. I went out into the kitchen with the bed’s blanket wrapped around my shoulders. When I saw my scarf on the counter, I wrapped that around me, too, figuring the more layers, the better. I wonder when he took this off , I thought as I put it on. I hadn’t noticed earlier.
But even with the blanket, scarf, and movement now that I was walking, it wasn’t enough. My breath fogged, ghostly in the dark kitchen. I was used to the cold. Terratribe I was a frigid fucking ice-ball of a planet. But at least my apartment, as crappy as it was, had heat.
I couldn’t find anything that resembled a heating system in this house. There was the wood-burning oven, of course, but after trying and failing to figure out how to actually light a fire with the materials provided, I gave up on that idea pretty quick. A search around the place also didn’t turn up any extra blankets.
It didn’t turn up my husband, either.
Where the hell is he?
I’d lain in bed for at least an hour, maybe two. What could he possibly have been working on after working all afternoon already?
There was nothing for it. I’d just have to track him down and beg him to find me an extra blanket or something.
Decision made, I went out the back door.
I didn’t see Silar out there but I heard him. At least, I thought I did. The methodical sound of hammering had to be coming from someone human or, er, Zabrian.
It was coming from the direction of the barn.
I passed around the edges of the gardens, walking under the fruit trees Silar had told me about earlier. The hammering sound got louder. It rang out from a smaller structure built onto the side of the barn. I circled the entire thing to find Silar in a sort of open-air workshop. He had something wooden up on a workbench and was pounding away at it, his muscled back to me.
He sure isn’t bothered by the cold, I thought somewhat bitterly, noting his eternal lack of shirt. Or maybe it was just that his activity was keeping him warm. He seemed to be working hard on building something.
He stopped hammering then bent slightly, examining his work. But he didn’t maintain that posture for long. Half a second later he stiffened, straightened up, and turned around.
I was at least five, maybe even seven or eight metres from him. And I hadn’t said a word.
“How did you know I was there?” I asked, startled.
“Heard your breathing.” He hefted the tool in his hand before setting it down. “Hammering must have covered the sound of your footsteps.”
“My breathing? Jeez. You weren’t kidding about the good hearing,” I said, drawing my blanket/scarf combo tighter around myself as I walked closer.
For such a rural landscape, it was surprisingly bright out here. Three moons and infinite stars sent silvery light pouring down. Silar’s little workshop area was lit with a large candle.
“What are you working on?” I asked, my words puffing up in front of me like smoke. Once I was beside him, I took a look at the pieces of wood he’d been fitting together on the workbench.
“I had all this lumber to build out your room and make your bed. But I guess I don’t need it for that now.”
“Then what are you building?”
“A table,” he said, turning those odd blue-and-turquoise-veined eyes onto me. My breath caught. “And a chair.”
“Just one chair? Does that mean you won’t be sitting to eat with me?”
I meant it to come out like a joke. But it just came out sounding pathetic.
Silar didn’t seem to notice though, thank goodness.
“No,” he replied, rubbing his knuckles along the underside of his jaw. “It means there’s already a chair in the house.”
“Oh.”
Duh. I knew that. I’d told him to sit his alien ass down on it earlier, hadn’t I? When I’d tended to his ears. There was a very good chance Silar was beginning to think he’d married a total airhead. But I couldn’t make myself get too upset or embarrassed about that now. No, right now I was just basking in the completely unexpected delight at the fact that Silar wanted to sit down and take his meals with me. He was building a whole freaking set of furniture simply because I’d mentioned the lack of it.
I sniffed, worried I’d get all teary-eyed again. God, I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d become on Terratribe I. I hadn’t shared a meal with someone since Mama had died. I mean, I had my lunches and snacks in the shuttle factory cafeteria, but sometimes that was even worse than eating alone. Loneliness when you’re surrounded by people feels different than loneliness in the empty quiet.
I used to have friends on Terratribe I – like Maggie – but she’d moved to Elora Station. I would have done anything to join her. But I wasn’t able to snag one of the coveted seasonal work contracts there and I wasn’t a super-talented baker able to open my own business like Maggie had done.
She’d also fallen in love on Elora Station and was now married to an alien orc. I’d known for some time she wasn’t coming back.
I wondered now if that wasn’t some small slice of the reason I’d jumped at this marriage program. Certainly, I needed to get away from Magnus’ men. But had another, tiny part of me been looking for something beyond that?
Was Silar looking for that, too?
He was building the table, after all…
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “I thought you were going to bed.”
“I did. But…” I shook off the feeling that I was being way too whiny and just bit the bullet. “It’s too cold!”
He blinked his lashless eyes at me.
“Cold?”
“Yes! Don’t you get cold, Mister No-Shirt-Man?”
“Not in this weather, no.”
“OK. Well. I do! I was just wondering if you had any extra blankets or anything.”
“I do not.”
Well. That’s just peachy.
“Alright,” I said with a brittle smile, internally screaming at the thought of going back to shivering alone in that bed. “Do you um… By any chance… Do you not sleep very much?”
Silar stilled. Which was impressive, because it wasn’t like he was moving much to begin with.
“Why?”
“I was just wondering when you might come to bed.” I leaned forward a little and quivered when I felt the heat radiating out from his bare chest. “You could help warm me up.”
Holy Terra. That sounded dirty.
“Not in a weird way!” I cried. “Unless… Unless that’s what you were thinking? I mean, I am your wife after all, and… and…”
Shut up Cherry. Shut up, shut up, shut up!
If Silar was aware of my brain completely short-circuiting inside my skull, he was good enough not to mention it. He merely asked, “You require a heat source to sleep?”
“When it’s this cold? Yes! It doesn’t have to be you,” I added hurriedly, dreading the thought of him turning me down. “You could show me how to light a fire in the oven to heat up the house.”
“I only burn a constant fire in deep winter. I’ve run through most of my winter lumber and would have to cut new logs to have enough supply to burn the fire at night consistently. I will do it for you. But it will not help you tonight.” His eyes flashed white. He blinked and turned them away from me, almost as if trying to hide it. “The heat you require, I will provide.”
“Thank you,” I said, shifting from foot to foot. It was colder out here than it had been inside and now that I was standing still, I was really starting to feel it again. “Can we… Can we go now?” I shivered. “Are you ready?”
He didn’t say yes or no. He just said, “Let’s go.”