5. Five
FIVE
STELLA
I always thought that I’d be fearless in the face of danger.
But when the wind sounded like it was about to knock down the house, I was a fucking coward. I knew that I would be the first to die in a horror film purely because I didn’t want to move. An axe murderer could come for me and I would stay in place like the most boring target alive.
Huddled on the couch, I watched every window while Alden was gone. It felt easier when he’d been here because he knew what he was doing. There was no way I could have made it through this on my own, and that was a humbling thought.
A creak echoed through the house, making me jump up from the couch. “Alden! The house is falling.”
I felt him at my back before I saw him. He was warm and firm behind me, a comfort in the face of whatever the hell was happening. I didn’t know how he’d even gotten here so fast—he must have run from the kitchen.
The house did sound like it was coming apart, but as soon as it started, it was over.
“Are we alive?” I croaked as silence took over again.
“That was outside.” He went to look out the window. “A big tree branch fell.”
“O-oh, is that all?” I laughed awkwardly. “It sounded bad. Sorry.”
“It would have been if it were closer to the house.” He gestured for me to walk over, and through the window film, I could see the brown all over the ground. “See how big it is?”
It was from Amma’s maple, a massive thing older than the house.
I looked up at him. This close, I could see the streaks of green in his normally brown eyes and the way his five-o’clock shadow darkened his lower face. My heart did a flip. It was honestly unfair that he was this attractive.
“T-the wind did this?”
“It often does. Luckily for us, we can trim it and use it for firewood.” He walked to the couch where his jacket sat.
“You’re going out there now?”
“Yep. We’ll need more soon.”
“Won’t you be cold?”
He pulled gloves out of his pocket. “I’ll be fine. Stay here. ”
I opened my mouth to beg him not to leave but then closed it. I needed to be less of a coward about this.
Even though reality gripped me like a vise, I would remain strong and not let my fear show again. Nor would I get so close that I could see every detail of his face.
Both were bad for my pride.
It didn’t matter that my life had blown up. It mattered that I kept it together while I was trapped with the man who hated me. It mattered that I appeared okay, not that I was.
I went and sat on the couch, choosing to doomscroll social media instead of dealing with my problems. All I saw were reminders of them since everyone was talking about the disastrous storm outside.
After twenty minutes of being alone, I got up to be sure Alden hadn’t frozen to death. I peered out the window. I couldn’t see well, but I could see the blurry outline of an axe in his hand. He was chopping the branches with a full-body swing that almost made me want to go outside and see it in person.
He had picked me up like I was nothing. Had anyone managed to do that before?
What would he look like in full detail? Would his hair be falling out of place? Would his jaw be ticced?
No. No. I was not going to swoon over him, no matter how good his silhouette looked in the window.
If it were anyone else, this could have been a scene from a romantic movie. Two people stuck in a house. What could happen?
But in this situation, it was only pain. I’d seen this ending before and I didn’t like it very much.
I shook off the thoughts, shutting the curtains. I was in a delicate state, newly single, with most of my things in a place I was no longer welcome. I wouldn’t even have my camera for a week, and I wasn’t used to not having a way to document my life.
The last thing I needed was to drool over Alden and have my brother’s best friend break my heart for the second time.
I busied myself with gathering blankets from the closets in case tonight was freezing. The Christmas tree twinkled innocently in the corner, and it hit me that the holiday was in a few days, and no one had any idea of where we’d be. When I was a kid, we dreamed of snow on Christmas. Now it seemed more like a nightmare.
My hands stilled as I realized, for the first time in my entire life, my family wouldn’t be together.
Fuck. This was just another thing to add to the mounting reasons that everything was bad .
Tears welled in my eyes as I remembered all our traditions that wouldn’t be happening. There would be no breakfast casserole, no home-cooked dinner that all of us gathered around the table for, and no movies by the fire.
Christmas was sacred. It was the one warm glow in a dark and dreary season. I looked forward to it every year, but it didn’t seem to be happening this time.
Damn it. Why couldn’t I keep cool? Why was I so upset about missing one stupid holiday?
Between the bad proposal, having to temporarily move in with Nick, and this snowstorm, everything felt like it was falling apart.
Blindly reaching for my phone, I knew I needed my best friend.
She would be away from work because of the storm unless she were stubborn enough to stay at the office. Her job as a CEO sometimes came before everything else.
Except for me.
“Holy shit, Stella,” Winnie said the second she answered. “I’ve seen three wrecks on my way home. What is happening?”
“I’m glad you didn’t stay at the office. You’d be trapped.”
“I love my business, but not that much. I left right when the dark clouds of apocalypse gathered.”
Speaking of weather, the wind returned with a vengeance, making the house whine. I winced against the noise.
“What the fuck is that?” Winnie asked. “Are you outside right now?”
“No. I’m at Amma’s. I’m stuck here.”
“In the country? Is it worse there?”
“Very. A tree already fell. ”
“She better not be out there cutting it.”
“She’s not here at all. She’s trapped at a neighbor’s house.”
“Are you alone?” Winnie sounded panicked, and I had no doubts that she would come and get me herself.
“No,” I said, and she blew out a breath of relief. “Worse. Alden is also stuck here.”
“Wait a second, Alden ? As in Nick’s Alden? How the fuck did that happen?”
“Amma wanted more help.”
“That’s bad .”
“I can’t do this. This stupid storm is going to last past Christmas with my family, and then on top of that, I’m trapped with the first man in a long line of them who freaking hates me.”
“He only hates you romantically .”
“That doesn’t help!”
“Sorry,” she said. “I know it doesn’t. But think about it this way—he knows you. It’s not a stranger. Let’s try to see the positives.”
“Would you be able to see the positives if you were stuck with Nick, of all people?”
“Okay . . . no. I wouldn’t.”
“And it sounds like a fucking horror movie here. I’m literally losing my mind.”
“First of all, take a breath.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You need to.”
Against my wishes, I sucked in a breath, if only to prove her wrong. But then I felt a tiny bit better, and I knew she’d been right.
“What now?”
“Have you eaten?”
“Just a McMuffin a few hours ago.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t cut it. What are your options there?”
“Amma made me meal prep some soup. She has this stack of muffins too. What are those even for?”
“Probably to live off of if the power goes out.”
Oh, God . “I can’t even think about that.”
“So, soup?” she asked, getting me back on track.
“Yeah. I have soup. It was the only thing I didn’t burn. I’m throwing some in the microwave now.”
“All right, see? Things are a little better.”
“What do I do for the next few days?”
“Survive.”
“Is there really a chance the power will go out?”
“Yes. This is going to be hard on our electric grid. The city is talking about rolling blackouts, and people in rural areas are already losing power.”
“ Fuck. What do I even do if we lose power?”
“Amma has a fireplace, right?”
“It’s a stove, but yes. And thanks to Alden, we have logs.”
“There you go,” she said. “Stay calm, and focus on staying warm. This isn’t about who you’re with. This is about getting out of this in one piece.”
“Couldn’t it have been with anyone else? ”
“Not really. Nick wouldn’t know how to handle this, and neither would I. This could be a good thing.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I don’t want to depend on him.”
“Stella,” Winnie said. “Put your pride away.”
My mouth zipped shut. If Winnie was telling me to put my pride away, then it was serious.
“This isn’t going to be fun,” she continued, “but this is the hand you’ve been dealt. I wish you were at home but?—”
“I don’t have a home. Reed and I broke up.”
“Oh. So you’re really not okay.”
“It’s for the best. He was an ass.”
“He was. You know how I felt about him. The way he talked to you was unacceptable.”
“I know, and though it took me way too long to see it, I finally did. But the point is, I’m not okay, and I don’t want Alden to see that. At least not more than he already has.”
“I know. I would be in the same boat as you, but like I said, this isn’t about pride. It’s about surviving.”
I let out a sigh. I’d already put some of it away when I’d huddled up to him in the eerie sounds of the wind. I didn’t even think twice about it—I’d found the nearest person and ran to them. It didn’t matter that Alden had broken my heart once, he was there.
But he wasn’t going to be there for me any more than he had to be. The second he got a call, he was gone and away from me. I needed to remember what we were now—not what we’d once been.
Now that I was on the phone with someone else, I saw how dumb it was to look to him of all people for support. While he’d never said it, I knew he saw me as his best friend’s annoying sister. It was why he sent that text after his post-nut high was gone.
“I don’t want to do this,” I whispered to Winnie. “Being around him is bringing up all of those things that happened seven years ago. And I don’t want to rehash the past right now. I can’t.”
“Then don’t,” she said. “You know what happened. You don’t have to talk to him about it. The only thing you have to do is survive.”
I sniffled and nodded. As much as I’d love more insight into his decision, she was right. I didn’t need it. Definitely not now when we had nowhere to go. “Okay,” I said. “God, I’ll miss you. We won’t even get to do our Christmas Eve dinner.”
“We’ll make up for it, I promise. And when we do, you can tell me everything that happened with Reed and I can kick his ass.”
I laughed despite my misery. “I can’t wait.”
“And if Alden hurts you again, I’ll kick his ass too.”
“I think it’s inevitable at this point. Everything hurts right now. I don’t feel like myself.”
Winnie was silent for a long moment, and I wondered if she was about to give me one of her patented lectures to get me off of my ass and back to my old self. As much as I loved her ferocity, I didn’t think it would work this time.
“We’ll get you feeling better once this is over, okay?” she said instead, and I couldn’t fight the relief I felt.
“Okay.”
“And stay safe. That’s the most important thing to me. Everything else going on can be fixed later, but not if you freeze in this storm. I need to make a few other calls, so I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
I hated that she had to leave, but her job kept her busy, so I said my goodbyes and hung up. Once I was alone again, I felt my misery for all of one minute before I put it away.
This was about surviving. I’d do well to remember that.