Snowed In

Chapter 11 Ella #2

I shrugged. “No point. I can just toss the contents of the fridge into the snow to keep them cold, and the house is small enough that I have to carefully monitor the fire, or it’ll reach 80 in here and the dogs will melt.”

Look at me, having a normal conversation with Benjamin Kakoa and not lusting over him. Hooray for progress!

My newfound platonic mindset continued right through the rest of our small talk – which I dominated – until we finished our tea.

Afterward, he headed to the bathroom to change into snow gear, subbing jeans for long johns, which I knew, because he was still tightening the belt of his snow pants when he paced back out, and his t-shirt was hitched high enough that I caught sight of the top of them.

A narrow band of lower abs was also exposed.

I fled from the sight to my bedroom, where I pulled my own snowsuit on.

“How did you know my shoe size?” Ben asked a few minutes later. We were out on the back deck, shoving our feet into cross-country ski boots.

“I checked the first time I was over at your place,” I told him. “Because at first I didn’t know if I was looking at a pair of sneakers or sleds designed for toddlers.”

Ben chuckled in response. It was the first time I’d heard the sound today, and it ended far too quickly.

I felt like I was back at our first meeting, like I was going to have to do the majority of the work.

I wasn’t upset by it; I just couldn’t help but wonder what had changed.

Why had he retreated back into his shell? Was it me? Did I do something wrong?

I walked over to the cross-country skis and stepped into mine. I had to rent Ben’s gear in the end, because it turned out I didn’t know anyone as big as him.

He joined me a minute later.

“I saw an elliptical machine in your Basement of Blood, Sweat, and Jump Rope.” I paused for laughter and applause. Again, nothing. “Cross country skiing is a lot like being on one. You lift your foot up, move your leg forward, and sort of glide over the snow.” I demonstrated for him.

“I don’t use that machine that often,” he said.

“Well, then, it’s a lot like regular skiing.”

“Never been.”

Uh-oh. “Ice skating?”

He shook his head.

“Roller blading?”

He held up a hand and began counting off fingers. “Skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding.”

“Okay. I’ll start with the basics.”

I helped him strap into his skis, handed him his poles, and side-stepped away so I could instruct from a safe distance.

“Wait,” he said. “I told my parents I’d send them a picture.” He pulled off a glove, unzipped his fancy winter coat, pulled out his phone, and handed it over to me.

“Say cheese,” I said, before taking the picture.

I gave the phone back, and he sent the picture off.

“Three, two, one,” Ben said.

At one, the phone rang with a FaceTime call. His parents were hilarious.

He hit accept.

“Hi, Benny!”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Where’s Ella?”

He swiveled the phone to me, and I smiled and waved. “Hi, Klara. Hi, Hani.”

“How’s he doing so far?” his dad asked. “He fall down yet?” He sounded thrilled by the prospect.

I shook my head. “We just started.”

“Ben, hand her the phone so we can watch,” his mother said.

“This is going to be so embarrassing, isn’t it?” Ben asked, doing as she said.

“Horrifically so, if we’re lucky,” I answered.

His parents cackled at that like a pair of hyenas. Their son shook his head and assumed a long-suffering expression. I raised the phone toward him and hit the icon that flipped the screen so they would see him and not up my nose.

“Okay, so the best way to do this is to start slow,” I told him.

Turned out, for all his athletic prowess, Ben wasn’t a fast learner when it came to skiing. His parents and I laughed and teased him good-naturedly while he struggled.

“Should have hit that elliptical machine a little harder,” I told him.

“Did you put the breaks down on these things?” he shot back.

I decided to let up on him. We said goodbye to his parents and then got down to learning how to ski.

“Are you sure I’m doing this right?” he asked me ten minutes later. “Your feet are more turned out than mine.”

The house was still visible through the trees.

We’d maybe gone a hundred yards. Instead of gliding forward, he was ski-lunging, pulling himself forward with his poles, knees dipping nearly to the ground.

I was starting to worry that he might pull something critical, and then I’d be the girl who let a world-famous athlete get injured on her watch.

“What I’m doing is the advanced version,” I told him. “Where you have to push both forward and sideways at the same time while lifting the backs of your skis over each other. You think you’re ready for that right now, hotshot?”

He shook his head in an emphatic NO.

“Let’s just focus on moving forward any way possible,” I said.

I pushed off my poles and slid back toward him.

When we were even, I lifted them. “These things are your best friends. Don’t use them one at a time like you have been.

It’ll unbalance you. Try sticking them both in the ground on either side and shove off from them. ”

He planted his poles in the ground and raised his gaze to mine. “Okay”

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“On three. One, two, three.”

We shoved off together. Or, I shoved off. I don’t know what the hell Ben did that made him lurch sideways toward me.

If this was a movie, Ben and I would fall together in slow-mo, with more than enough time for him to – with superhuman agility – turn in midair so that it was his large body that absorbed the impact instead of mine.

We would land together in the snow, artfully splayed, our limbs conveniently intertwined, our faces just inches apart. The perfect set-up for a kiss.

This was not a movie.

The second I realized he was falling, I dropped my poles and tried to steady him.

It was futile. He weighed too much, and he was too unbalanced.

Like the coward I was, I let him go and tried to save myself instead, sliding away and to the right.

Unfortunately, Ben jerked in the same direction and I took his shoulder to the chin.

Owww.

“Fuck. Sorry,” he said.

We stumbled together, tripped up by our gear.

His legs slid back and forth as he tried to regain his balance on the unfamiliar skis.

He grabbed me to steady himself, but it just made everything so much worse.

We fought to stay upright, our movements desperate and jerky.

Then he pitched sideways and popped free from one of his bindings.

The sudden, unexpected freedom sealed our fate.

We lost the battle and down we went.

Ben didn’t turn midair. Our limbs were not artfully splayed.

I took an elbow to the left boob during the fall and accidentally bashed my knee into his crotch.

I hit the ground first and had no chance to roll away before he came crashing down, half on top of me.

My breath exploded out of my lungs. I was left gulping like a fish out of water.

Instead of leaning in for a kiss, we rolled away from each other, both groaning in pain.

“Goddamn it,” I gasped, clutching my ribs. He might have seriously bruised a couple.

“Ow, fuck,” Ben said, curling into himself.

Yup, I definitely nailed him in the balls. And not in a good way.

To make matters worse, the dogs gleefully descended upon on us, yipping and barking and whining and licking our faces because we were too slow to cover them.

“You opportunistic little shit,” I wheezed up at Fred, pushing him away from me.

“Sam, no, boy,” Ben said, rolling back toward me.

Our eyes met. We froze.

“Sooo,” I said in a weak, sing-song voice. “How’s your morning going?”

Ben lost it. He rolled over onto his back, arms splayed by his sides, and laughed until tears streamed from his eyes.

Sam took the opportunity to flail all over him.

Ben had to bear hug the dog to get him to stop.

Sam settled in Ben’s grasp, tongue lolling out of his mouth like this had been his goal all along.

I would have laughed along with him, but I was afraid to. My ribs screamed in pain.

“God, I needed that,” he said when he calmed down. He let Sam go and turned to look at me. “You okay?”

“It’s a good thing my boobs aren’t fake, or you would’ve just popped one. You?”

He winced. “I think my left testicle has ascended back into my body cavity.”

I snorted out a laugh before I could catch it, then clutched at my side. “Ow, shit.”

He immediately sobered, clambering up onto his knees to shuffle over to me. “What’s hurt?”

“My ribs.”

He swore. “I landed on you, didn’t I?”

“You did. But it’s okay, they’re just bruised. Want to help me up and then call it a day?”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’m done.”

Twenty minutes later, we were sitting on the couch drinking hot chocolate. I had a bag of frozen peas pressed to my ribs – Ben insisted. He sat beside me, manspreading in a way that told me it was less about taking up space and more about giving his crotchal region room to recover.

“What about snowshoeing?” he asked.

“Yeah, we could definitely manage that.”

“But not today.”

“Definitely not today. What do you want to do instead?” I wiped my face clean of all expression and turned toward him. “We could listen to some music.”

I must not have done a good enough job, because he frowned. “Uh…sure.”

I raised the stereo remote and hit play. Elton John’s voice rang out through the speakers. Ben sent me an unimpressed look. I opened my mouth.

“Don’t you dare,” he warned.

“B-B-B-Benny and the jets,” I sang at him.

He groaned. “You are the absolute worst.”

My answering smile felt feral. I had so much planned. “This is nothing, my friend. Nothing, I tell you.”

“You know, you’re kind of scary when your face gets like this.”

I cut the music off. “I think I learned it from Willow.”

“That’s a frightening thought.”

“Hopefully she’ll be a kind and benevolent overlord.”

He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “When she grows up and takes over the world, you mean?”

I nodded and sat back, away from him. His proximity and my hormones weren’t a good combination. “Okay, but seriously though. Do you want to stay and watch a movie or something? I won’t be offended if you say no.”

He shot me a sly look. “We never did finish A Christmas Story.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Embarrassment threatened. “I told you never to bring that up.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Consider this your warning then.”

“What about that new spy-thriller that just came out?”

“Yeah, I’d be down for that.”

I pulled up my Prime account through the TV, found the movie, and ordered it. We talked through the whole damn thing, shooting the breeze, doing stupid voice-overs, and calling bullshit on all the inaccuracies like we knew anything about international espionage.

We kept an eye on the weather throughout, and he left in plenty of time to get home safely before the storm hit. After he left, I took a minute to congratulate myself. That had gone way better than our first few interactions.

Well, minus the whole almost putting each other in the hospital thing.

***

“Can you come over?” Ben asked me a week later. “I need those nimble little fingers of yours.”

I nearly dropped my phone.

“I’m having a hell of a time trying to tile behind the toilet,” he said.

“Tile. Right.”

“What did you think I meant, Ella?” I could hear the smile in his voice. Thankfully, he wasn’t there to see the blush on my face.

“Nothing! I’ll be over in a few,” I told him, then hung up before he could tease me.

We’d seen each other nearly every day since New Year’s Eve, mostly over at his place, working on the house, but he’d been by here again to go snowshoeing.

That had worked out much better than skiing.

It had been a perfect, sunny day. Ben had a blast exploring the woods.

He went home and immediately ordered himself a pair of snowshoes so he didn’t have to borrow my spare pair again – which were far too small for his boat-sized feet.

The next night, we’d met at Jack’s for dinner and drinks and cards.

Ben had abstained from beer. I kept my mouth shut about it, because I had no idea what his history with alcohol was and didn’t know if he’d been imbibing too much lately or something.

Part of me was a little worried that I might have been too encouraging about drinking when we first met, and I’d since resolved myself not to bring it up again or drink in his presence, on the off chance that he was a recovering alcoholic.

It was getting easier to hang out with him.

The conversation flowed free and fast, covering a wide range of topics, most of which we agreed on.

The few disagreements we’d gotten into had been more like civil discourse where we logicked each other into corners that neither of us could get out of.

He was so rational that it was easy to see where he was coming from. And him me, I think.

It was maddening how similar our debate styles were.

God help us if we ever really got into it.

It’d be a three-day event where nothing is conceded at the end and everyone goes home feeling fully respected but no less frustrated.

The utter lack of passion in our arguments made it a little easier to see that we might better suited to being friends after all.

And becoming friends we were. Our banter game was solid.

Our reno projects had proven that we worked well together.

It was no longer a constant struggle to keep my head out of the gutter when I was around him.

It was only when he caught me off guard that I slipped up.

Like telling me he needed my nimble fingers.

Or, like yesterday, tugging his sweatshirt off before I had time to look away.

I’d been treated to another tantalizing glimpse of abs before turning my head.

Every now and then, he said something that sounded slightly flirtatious or leading, but I was pretty sure that I was just misinterpreting his tone. That my subconscious was trying to sabotage all the progress I’d made.

“Fred, Sam,” I called. “Want to go to Mr. Ben’s?”

The dogs leapt up from near the fireplace and trotted over toward the front door in answer.