Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Farley
Iwoke up wrapped around Samuel Bennett like he was a body pillow I’d ordered from a spa catalog.
For a long, disorienting moment, I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. My face was pressed against the back of his neck, my arm was draped over his waist, and at some point during the night, my leg had apparently decided to tangle itself between both of his.
This was not the pillow-barrier, stay-on-your-own-side, purely platonic sleeping arrangement I’d promised.
This was cuddling. Aggressive, full-body, no-plausible-deniability cuddling.
I needed to extract myself before Samuel woke up and realized what I’d done. Carefully, slowly, I began to inch backward—
“If you’re trying to escape without waking me,” Samuel’s voice rumbled, thick with sleep, “you should know that ship sailed about five minutes ago.”
I froze.
“You’ve been awake?”
“Mmhmm.”
“For five minutes?”
“Closer to ten, actually.”
“And you didn’t—” I tried to pull away, but his hand came up to cover mine where it rested on his stomach, holding me in place.
“Didn’t what? Alert you to the fact that you’d become a human octopus in your sleep?” He sounded amused. Warm. Not at all bothered by the fact that I’d been using him as a teddy bear. “You felt good. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Farley.” He turned in my arms—which meant I now had to look directly at his face, at his sleep-rumpled hair and his soft smile and his eyes that were far too knowing for this early in the morning. “I didn’t mind.”
“You should mind. We agreed to be friends. Friends don’t—” I gestured vaguely at our current entanglement. “This.”
“Friends can be affectionate.”
“This is different, and you know it.”
“Yeah.” His smile shifted into something softer. “It is different. That’s kind of the point.”
We lay there, facing each other, close enough that I could count his eyelashes if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. Because that would be creepy. Even if his eyelashes were unfairly long and dark and—
Purrsephone chose that moment to insert herself into the conversation, leaping onto the bed and walking directly across both of our faces.
“Ow,” Samuel said, as her paw connected with his nose.
“I think she wants breakfast,” I said, grateful for the interruption.
“She can wait five minutes.”
Purrsephone meowed loudly and stuck her tail directly in Samuel’s face.
“She can’t wait five minutes,” I corrected, and used the opportunity to finally—reluctantly—extract myself from the bed. “I’ll feed her. You can... recover.”
“Recover from what?”
“From my apparently molesting you in my sleep.”
Samuel laughed, and the sound followed me out of the bedroom like a promise I wasn’t ready to hear.
Two days later,
I was in trouble.
Not the dramatic, life-threatening trouble of the blizzard. This was worse. This was domestic trouble. The type of trouble where Samuel Bennett had seamlessly integrated himself into my life, and I couldn’t remember what it had been like before he was there.
It had only been two days, and already we’d developed routines.
Mornings started with coffee—his French press versus my pour-over method, which sparked a surprisingly passionate debate that ended with us agreeing to alternate days. He made breakfast while I fed Purrsephone, and then we’d sit at the small kitchen table and talk about nothing and everything.
I’d work on my pathetic attempt at a romance novel in the afternoon while Samuel did yoga in the living room.
Right there. In stretchy pants we’d rescued from the wreckage of his cabin.
Bending into positions that should probably be illegal when performed in front of someone you’ve agreed to be “just friends” with.
“You’re staring,” he’d said yesterday, folded into some impossible pretzel shape.
“I’m writing.”
“You haven’t typed anything in ten minutes.”
“It’s a very, um, complex paragraph.”
He’d just smiled and moved into downward dog, which was absolutely, definitely not the reason I’d finally given up on the manuscript entirely.
Evenings were the worst. Or the best. Depending on how you looked at it.
We’d cook dinner together—Samuel was surprisingly competent in the kitchen—and then settle on the couch with Purrsephone between us.
Sometimes we watched movies on my laptop.
Sometimes we talked. Then we’d just sit in comfortable silence while the fire crackled and the snow continued to fall outside.
And then we’d go to bed.
Together.
Because the couch had been deemed “too cold” after that first night, and somehow we’d never revisited the sleeping arrangement. Samuel just... came to bed with me. Like it was normal. Like we’d been doing it for years.
And every morning, I woke up wrapped around him.
We hadn’t kissed since that first day. We hadn’t done anything more than hold hands and sleep tangled together and exist in each other’s space like two planets caught in the same orbit. But it was there—the tension, the wanting, the unspoken question of what are we doing?
I was contemplating all of this while pretending to read a manuscript when I heard it: the distant rumble of an engine. Not a car engine—something bigger.
Samuel looked up from his phone—he’d finally gotten a consistent signal again, though he’d been pointedly ignoring most of his notifications. “What’s that?”
“Sounds like...” I went to the window. “A snowplow.”
Sure enough, a large plow was making its way up the mountain road, pushing aside the accumulated snow from the past few days. And driving it, bundled in what appeared to be seventeen layers of clothing, was Gladys Pritchard.
“Is that Gladys?” Samuel appeared at my shoulder. “On a snowplow?”
“Apparently she contains multitudes.”
The plow rumbled past my cabin, heading up toward Samuel’s destroyed one. We watched as Gladys brought it to a stop, climbed down with surprising agility for someone her age, and stared at the wreckage.
Even from this distance, I could see her shoulders slump.
“We should go talk to her,” Samuel said.
“We should.”
Neither of us moved.
“She’s going to have questions,” I said.
“Probably.”
“About why you’re not dead in there.”
“Also probable.”
“And about where you’ve been staying.”
Samuel turned to look at me, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Are you embarrassed to tell Gladys I’ve been sleeping in your bed?”
“I’m not embarrassed. I’m just... aware that she’s going to draw conclusions.”
“Would those conclusions be wrong?”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
We bundled up and trudged through the snow to where Gladys was standing in front of Samuel’s cabin, her hands on her hips, her expression somewhere between devastated and furious.
“Look at this,” she said when she saw us approaching. “Just look at it.”
The cabin looked worse in daylight than it had during the storm. The tree had gone straight through the front corner, taking out the picture window, part of the roof, and a significant portion of the wall. Snow had accumulated inside, covering everything in a thick white blanket.
“I’m so sorry, Gladys,” Samuel said. “I know this must be—”
“Sorry?” She turned on him with such intensity that he actually took a step back. “You’re sorry? Boy, you could have died. Don’t apologize to me about a building.”
“I—”
“Are you hurt? Either of you?” She looked between us with sharp, assessing eyes. “Any injuries I need to know about?”
“Samuel cut his hand,” I said. “But it’s healing.”
“Let me see.”
Samuel dutifully held out his hand, where the bandage I’d so carefully applied was still in place. Gladys examined it with the critical eye of someone who’d seen plenty of mountain-related injuries.
“This is good work,” she admitted grudgingly. “Someone knows their way around a first aid kit.”
“Farley took care of me,” Samuel said, and something about the way he said it made my face heat despite the freezing temperature.
Gladys’s eyes narrowed. “Did he now.”
“I—he was nearby when the tree came down,” I blurted. “I brought him back to my cabin. We’ve been... staying together. Since the storm.”
“Together.” She said the word like she were tasting it. “In your cabin.”
“It seemed like the safest option.”
“Mmhmm.” Gladys looked between us again, her expression unreadable. Then she sighed and turned back to the destroyed cabin. “Well. This is going to take months to repair. Insurance, contractors, permits—it’ll be spring before anyone can even start work.”
Samuel said. “I’m not staying much longer, anyway. I can—”
“Cabin six is empty.”
We both looked at her.
“Down the road a bit,” she continued. “Smaller than this one was, but it’s got heat, walls, a functioning roof. I can have it ready for you by tonight if you want to move in.”
Samuel opened his mouth to respond, but I cut him off.
“No.”
They both turned to stare at me.
“No?” Gladys repeated.
My heart was pounding. I hadn’t planned to say that. The word had just... come out. But now that it was hanging in the air between us, I couldn’t take it back. Didn’t want to take it back.
“He’s staying with me,” I said. “Samuel is staying with me. In my cabin.”
“Farley—” Samuel started.
“Unless you don’t want to.” I turned to face him, suddenly aware of how presumptuous I was being. “Unless you’d rather have your own space. I just assumed—I shouldn’t have assumed. You probably want—”
“I want to stay with you,” Samuel whispered. “If you want me there.”
“I want you there.”
We stared at each other, and I forgot about Gladys until she cleared her throat.
“Well,” she said, and there was something in her voice that might have been approval.
“That settles that, I suppose. I’ll keep cabin six available in case either of you changes your mind.
” She fixed us both with a stern look. “And I’m assuming that white cat I saw in your window wasn’t actually there.
Since neither of you would be harboring a stray that I specifically told you not to feed. ”
“What cat?” Samuel said at the same time I said, “Absolutely not.”
Gladys rolled her eyes. “That’s what I thought.” She started trudging back toward the snowplow, then paused and looked over her shoulder. “You boys take care of each other. And that cat.”
She climbed back onto the plow with the same surprising agility, started the engine, and rumbled off down the mountain without another word.
Samuel and I stood in the snow, watching her go.
“So,” Samuel said finally. “That was interesting.”
“I didn’t mean to speak for you. About the cabin. I just—”
“You said no.” He turned to face me, and there was something bright and wondering in his expression. “She offered me my own space, and you said no.”
“I did.”
“Without even thinking about it.”
“I thought about it,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it. About us. About what happens when...” I trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence.
“When what?”
“When I stop being afraid.”
Samuel’s breath caught. We were standing maybe two feet apart, both of us bundled in winter coats, snow falling gently around us. Behind him, his destroyed cabin loomed like a reminder of how quickly things could change. How quickly you could lose something you’d barely had time to appreciate.
“Farley,” he said. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying—” I stepped closer. “I’m saying that three days ago, I told you I wasn’t ready. That I needed time. That I couldn’t trust my own judgment.”
“I remember.”
“And all of that is still true. I’m still scared, and I still don’t entirely trust myself.
” I reached up and cupped his face with my gloved hands.
“But I trust you. And I don’t want you to stay in a different cabin.
I don’t want to pretend we’re just friends.
I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and not be wrapped around you like a—what did you call it? A human octopus?”
Samuel laughed, a slightly watery sound. “That’s a very specific want.”
“I have a very specific list.”
“Of course you do.” He was smiling now, that bright, beautiful smile that had been making my chest ache since the first day I saw it. “Are you going to share this list with me?”
“Eventually.” I pulled him closer, erasing the last of the distance between us. “But right now, I’d rather do this.”
And I kissed him.
Not like the frantic, desperate kiss in the Range Rover. Not like the tender, uncertain kiss that had started everything. This was deliberate. Intentional. A choice.
I chose him.
Samuel made a sound against my mouth—surprise, relief, joy, all tangled together—and kissed me back. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me flush against him, and for a moment, the cold didn’t matter. The destroyed cabin didn’t matter. The uncertain future didn’t matter.
There was only this. Only us.
When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, Samuel was grinning like he’d won the lottery.
“So,” he said. “Does this mean we’re not ‘just friends’ anymore?”
“I think that ship has thoroughly sailed.”
“Good.” He leaned in and kissed me again, quick and sweet. “Because I have to tell you, the ‘just friends’ thing was really cramping my style.”
“Your style being...?”
“Hopelessly, embarrassingly into you.” He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. “In case that wasn’t clear.”
“It was becoming apparent.”
“Was it the yoga? I felt like the yoga might have been too obvious.”
“The yoga was extremely obvious. I couldn’t write a single word.”
“That was the goal.” He was laughing now, and I was laughing too, and we were standing in the snow in front of a destroyed cabin kissing like teenagers, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this happy.
Maybe never. Maybe this was new.
“Come on,” Samuel said, taking my hand. “Let’s go home.”
Home. He’d called my cabin home. Our cabin. Ours.
I let him lead me back through the snow, our fingers intertwined, and thought: this is what I was so afraid of? This?