Chapter 28 Ransom
Ransom
Ember shifts, her breath warm against my chest. She’s curled into my side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other resting lightly over my heart, like she’s holding it in place.
The soft, steady rhythm of her breathing anchors me in the present with her.
For a long time, I just lie there—watching the way the morning light filters through the lace curtains, catching in her hair, on her beautiful face.
She stirs, murmuring something unintelligible. I press a kiss to the crown of her head. She doesn’t pull away.
For the past two nights—two whole nights—I have slept in Ember’s bed, with her.
We haven’t made love.
But she lets me hold her. Tuck her against me. Breathe her.
I need her. That thought assails me. I’ve always needed her. That’s why there’s been a hole in my heart all these years.
So, in those quiet hours, wrapped in linen and the scent of lavender, I reacquaint myself with every curve of her back, every sigh, every way she used to reach for me in the dark without knowing.
It’s not forgiveness yet. But it’s a hope of togetherness that’s worth waking up for, fighting for.
Because when you find the person who fills the empty spaces inside you—the cracks you didn’t even know were there—you realize you weren’t really living before.
Not breathing. Just going through the motions.
Now, I know.
Now, I can’t imagine a life without her.
I hear the chalet stirring in the morning. Doors banging. Pots clattering. People speaking.
It’s New Year’s Eve, and the whole house is humming with anticipation. But up here, in this hush between dawn and day, I don’t move.
Not until she opens her eyes and whispers my name.
“Hey,” I say softly.
She yawns, burrows closer. “What time is it?”
“Eight-thirty,” I murmur.
“Mama is probably already wondering where I am. I have duties for her New Year’s Eve shindig.” She smiles faintly.
“We’re hardly enough people for a ball.”
“Hey, Margot Rousseau can make a ball out of nothing.”
“Fair.”
“So much to do,” she whispers. “Packing and….”
She trails off.
I can tell she’s already thinking ahead. The party tonight. The end of the holiday. The flights we’ll board in two mornings—hers to Boston, mine to San Francisco.
There’s a shadow behind her eyes now. A hesitation.
She’s already grieving what we haven’t even lost yet.
“I know what you’re thinking.” I kiss her forehead.
She turns her face into my shoulder. “Do you?”
“That this—whatever we are—won’t work long distance. That it’ll fade or break.”
I hear her exhale a long, ragged breath. “Won’t it?”
I shift to look at her, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Long distance can work. Will work. Because it’s us.”
She looks up at me, her eyes soft and unsure.
Moving for either of us is not a possibility right now.
It’d be a step down for me to go anywhere else. She has two years remaining on her postdoc. She can’t leave Boston either, not that I will even ask her. Maybe once we’re on solid ground…but, even then, it won’t be fair to her.
“You say that now.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “But time changes things.”
“So let it,” I cajole. “Let’s see what time does. But don’t write the ending before we know more.”
She watches me. I can see her walls shifting, just a little.
“I’m not going to disappear, Em,” I promise. “Not again. I’ll fly to you. You’ll fly to me. We’ll figure it out.”
A pause, and then, with eyes shining with emotions, she pleads, “Ransom, don’t make me regret hoping again.”
“Never,” I vow.
And just as I press a kiss to her lips, a loud knock sounds on the bedroom door.
Margot’s voice slices through. “Ember! Ransom! Get dressed. I need help with the New Year’s Eve Ball. We’ve got balloons to inflate and decorations to put up!”
Ember groans, burying her face in my chest. “She’s worse than a general with a bullhorn.”
“And she knows we’re in here together,” I remind her.
“Oh God!”
I laugh, hold her tighter, and for just a while longer, we just lie there.
Together.
Not in the past.
Not in the future.
But in the now.
When we arrive at the grand salon, yes, the chalet has one of those, we find Margot directing two florists in rapid French.
“Good, you’re here,” she says, then immediately launches into assigning us our tasks and responsibilities. “Freja and Jonathan are taking care of the fireworks.”
“Not Freja,” Ember says, panicked.
“Remember when she lost her eyebrows?” I add.
Margot glares at both of us flatly, unimpressed. “Do I look like a fool? Jonathan is there, and I hired someone. Local, from Chamonix, to make sure they don’t burn the house or themselves down. But someone needs to supervise.”
Just then, we hear a squeaky sound. “Welcome to the New Year’s Eve Ball, peasants!” Tanya announces in a Chipmunk voice, before dissolving into cackles and nearly floating off the bench.
“The fuck?” I chuckle.
Tanya is in a corner, filling balloons with helium. Once in a while, she’s taking a shot of the gas.
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers,” she says in her helium-laced voice, which is cracking her up.
“Tanya, fill the balloons, not yourself.” Margot rolls her eyes in exasperation. “Bob was supposed to do that, but he’s run away. If either of you sees him, send him here.”
“This is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world.” Tanya is laughing her head off as she’s quoting Eastwood.
“Merde!” Margot swears.
“…and would blow your head clean off. You've got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” More laughter.
Ember and I snicker as we go our separate ways to perform our duties.
I have to talk to Chef Pascal about canapés, while Ember has some non-helium-related party decorations to take care of.
I walk into the kitchen to search for Chef Pascal. He’s not there. Jean, who’s sitting in the breakfast nook, informs me that Chef has gone to Chamonix to buy fresh oysters.
“You hiding?” I ask.
“Damn right,” he admits with pride.
Bob steps out of the pantry, where he had been hiding. He looks around. “Is she gone?”
“Who?” I ask at the same time Jean says, “The coast is clear.”
“She’s making me do weird stuff,” Bob mutters mostly to himself.
I frown and ask again, “Who?”
“She wants me to blow up balloons with helium. Do I look like someone who blows up balloons?” Uncle Bob slides onto the bench next to Jean, shaking his head. “Your wife is a menace, Jean.”
“Tell me about it.” Jean fills his cup with coffee, and then does the same for Bob.
He then picks up a bottle of whiskey and pours a dash into each cup.
“It’s nine in the morning, Jean,” I admonish.
“It’s Happy Hour somewhere,” Bob retorts, and then drinks some of his spiked coffee. “Breakfast of Champions.”
I find Aksel outside with the kids and Latika. Since they have children, they have been spared duties.
Latika and the kids are building a snowman, their laughter carrying through the cold air as Thomas insists the snowman needs “abs like Papa’s.” Anika argues for a tiara and glitter. Latika, wisely, adds both.
Aksel, meanwhile, lounges nearby on a weathered wooden bench, bundled in a thick sweater, sipping coffee from a heavy mug that reads: Ski. Sip. Sleep. Repeat.
He’s reading the Sunday edition of The Guardian, already having plowed through Le Figaro, and he has The New York Times folded neatly at the table by his bench, which is probably next in line.
When the Rousseaus are in residence, the newspapers still arrive like clockwork at the chalet—Le Figaro every morning, the Times and Guardian on Sundays.
I read my newspapers online; however, Aksel and Jean are traditionalists and read all three like it’s a competitive sport, occasionally muttering, with exaggerated Gallic suffering, “Of course, Macron said that.”
“Mama finds you wandering around without doing any work, you’re going to be in a lot of pain,” Aksel warns me as I sit on a bench across from him.
From a French press that’s being kept warm in a cozy, I pour myself coffee into a spare cup.
“I have Chef Pascal duties.”
“He’s in Chamonix.”
I nod and raise my coffee mug. “Happy New Year, Aksel.”
“Same to you.” His eyes twinkle. “I’ve been told that you and my baby sister”—he stresses the baby part—“are now an official item.”
I burst out laughing. “Item?”
He shrugs. “You’re too old to be a boyfriend.”
“Am I?”
Aksel waves a hand toward Mont Blanc. “Whatever! Fine. You’re boyfriend-girlfriend.”
“That sounds weird.”
“See!”
The snowman’s head suddenly falls off and is kicked around like a soccer ball by Thomas and then Anika.
“Vicious,” I remark.
“You have no idea.”
I look at Aksel earnestly. “You like being a father.” It’s not a question.
“Love it all, man. The wife. The kids. It’s…the best. I can lose my job. The money. But as long as I have them…it’s all good.”
It’s not hyperbole. He means it.
“I never wanted kids,” I muse aloud. “But….”
“But?” he prompts when I don’t go on.
“I want them”—I pause dramatically—“with your baby sister.”
“Asshole!”
I laugh. “I want it all with her.”
Aksel nods. “The bruise is fading.”
“I let you take that shot. Not gonna let you do it again.”
“Thomas, you punched the snowman’s head and crushed it!” Anika cries out. “Let’s make another one, and do it again.”
Aksel sighs. “Bloodthirsty.”
“I want kids. Two. Will I…am I too old for that?”
Aksel groans. “Not again! Seriously, you’ve got to get over this age shit. You’re forty-five, not eighty.”
“I just worry that I’ll be a grandad-dad.”
“Has Ember even said she’ll date your sorry ass?”
I lift one hand, palm down, and wobble it side to side in the universal so-so gesture. “Kind of.” And then, because I like riling my friend up, I add. “I’ve been sleeping in her bed for the past two nights.”
“Son of a bitch!” Aksel mutters. “Stop saying shit like that. It’s not cool.”
“I love her,” I tell him. “Not going to let her go, Aksel. I’m going to marry her, and we’re going to have babies.”
He looks me up and down. Drinks some coffee. Then, as if he’s lost a fight with himself, he says, “Well, she could do worse.”
Coming from Aksel, that may as well be a standing ovation.
Jonathan comes running. ”The tuxes have arrived! The tuxes have arrived!”
“Take a load off,” I wave a hand at the benches in the gazebo.
“Mummy, can we get a knife? Then can we slice the snowman’s head open?” Anika asks Latika, who growls about the inappropriateness of their request, and then urges Aksel loudly to find her a drink.
“Christ!” Aksel grimaces.
Jonathan winces. “I can’t sit. Margot has—”
“Sit,” I insist, nodding at Aksel and Jonathan. “If you let her, she’ll run you ragged. Take a load off, have a coffee. Maybe eat a croissant. In a couple of hours, have a beer and—”
“Ransom!” Margot’s voice slices through the morning like a chef’s knife.
I freeze.
Aksel lowers his paper like a man under siege.
Jonathan looks petrified.
I glance at them and press a finger to my lips. “Shhh,” I whisper. “I’m with Chef Pascal in Chamonix. Okay? If she asks, you haven’t seen me.”
I rise slowly, stealth-mode engaged, and begin my escape—out of the gazebo, past the table, toward sweet backyard freedom—
Margot’s voice cracks again, right behind me. “Chef Pascal is in the kitchen waiting for you, Ransom.” She’s standing at the door, arms crossed, her glare so potent it could light the fireworks.
“Great escape,” Aksel declares with liberal amounts of sarcasm.
“He’s one smooth criminal,” Jonathan mocks.
I give them both a one-finger salute, and head to the kitchen.