Chapter 7
I’m reluctantly allowing myself to hope that things might turn out all right.
Our impromptu motivational-speech-slash-threatening-ultimatum may have taken everyone by surprise, and may very well be followed by an hour or two of eggshell-walking and suspicious tiptoeing around each other, but with some advanced teeth-pulling we can manage to move past that.
“I need your help,” I tell Ethan and Shannon when they corner me after breakfast to ask if I’ve been body-snatched by yetis.
“Please, will you two try to break the ice and interact with some of the Nephilim people you don’t hate?
Do it for me. I’ll clean the microwave in the lounge for the next month. ”
“Three months,” Ethan rebuts.
I give him a level look. “How about one week, and I don’t tell Mike to fire you?”
He bows his head to hide a smile. “Your wish is my command, my liege.”
And they do what I asked.
A little later, I see them heading for the double black diamond slopes with Otto, Jesse, and a handful of other people, and blow Ethan a kiss. He pretends to catch it and put it in his pocket, which has Shannon shaking her head in amusement and Jesse averting his gaze.
Our corniness is clearly too cringe for him to bear, and I can’t blame him.
I never planned on venturing out of the lodge, but when Clara and another Nephilim engineer ask if I want to join them on one of the easier slopes, I seize their offer of friendship.
We spend the morning snowplowing our way down a practically horizontal surface, four adults surrounded by a bunch of eight-year-olds.
It doesn’t really embody my preconceived idea of a “good time,” but I discover that I actually enjoy being terrible at shit with people who are just as terrible at the same shit.
In the afternoon, I curl up in front of the fireplace on the mezzanine with The Sunken Heart, trying not to wonder about its twin copy, the one also vacationing under this very roof.
It’s my seventh reread of the book in as many months.
In fact, I’ve now gone through the entire series so many times, I could probably recite it by heart.
That’s not because I enjoy the story and adore revisiting characters—though I do.
The problem is, I cannot shake the feeling that I’m overlooking something.
I’m very proud of the ideas I presented to StarPlay for Limerence 3, and I know that I’m the right person to design the game.
Still, I can do better. Because at this moment, something isn’t right.
What matters most to me is Aqualuna. I want the game to celebrate her strength.
I want to show how formidable and independent and resilient she is.
I want her love for adventure to inspire others as much as it inspires me.
And yet, I feel like something about her eludes me—like the version of her I proposed falls flat.
The Aqualuna I created for the game lacks a quality that book Aqualuna has in heaps, but I can’t point my finger on what is missing, and I need to figure it out before production starts.
So, I spend the afternoon rereading. Again. I drink approximately three gallons of hot chocolate, smiling as I study the little star-shaped marshmallows floating around the surface of my mug.
By the time the black diamond slope contingent returns, the sun is setting. I lift my head from the book the moment I hear them come in, and when I peek from the mezzanine, I’m relieved to see them laughing and joking with one another as they hang their skis on the rack.
Later that night, after a delightfully uneventful dinner, a few of us take over one of the multimedia rooms and marathon holiday Hallmark movies while snacking on popcorn.
“Jesus,” Kai complains after taking a handful of mine. “Why don’t you just go ahead and eat a stick of salted butter?”
“I could,” I answer while chewing. “But the popcorn makes it easier to pick up.”
I head for bed before the third film begins, and Mike joins me, yawning. We’re in the middle of an animated argument over whether sphynx cats are cute beyond belief (me) or elephant-eared, horrifying wrinkly goblins (Mike), when Ashley comes running toward us.
Her steps are wobbly, and her eyes pleading. “Thank god you guys are here. Please help me?”
Mike and I exchange a baffled look. Judging from the way Ashley’s swaying on her feet, though, I doubt she’s in a position to notice.
“Are you okay?” Mike asks. “Do you maybe need a glass of water…” He falls silent as we follow her into a nearby room.
It’s one of the smaller dens, equipped only with a TV, a couch, and a couple of chairs, but she’s not watching a movie. I immediately recognize the cowboy graphics on the screen and grin. “Are you playing Red Dead Redemption 2? It’s my favorite—oh.”
At first, all I notice is the hair peeping from the back of the couch, the chuff of orange-red so distinctive, it could belong to only Otto. Then I spot the second, darker mop of hair right next to it, and the PlayStation that has been hooked up to the LED TV.
I walk around the couch, half expecting to find Jesse and Otto passed out.
They are, in fact, conscious, and very busy playing a grotesquely lethargic game of tag.
It mainly consists of staying put and poking each other’s arms at alternating intervals.
Occasionally, they crack themselves up. And they are too engrossed in the activity to pay attention to me or Mike.
“What happened?” I whisper. Then my eyes fall onto the three open bottles on the coffee table, and the question seems silly.
There’s quite a bit missing from each one.
I bend closer to read the labels: Vodka, vermouth, and something I’ve never heard of before called “sambuca.” “That’s a lot of alcohol. ”
“It’s my fault,” Ashley says, leaning against the wall for support. “We played a drinking game.”
“What game?”
“Take a shot whenever Dutch calls someone ‘son.’ ”
I gasp out a laugh. “That’s a lot of shots.”
“Yup.”
“You seem to be doing much better than them,” Mike points out.
“Yeah. That’s because I always cheat and stop drinking much earlier than they do. But they’re already drunk, so they barely realize.”
Mike and I exchange another glance—him, a bit judgmental, and me, admiring her cunning.
“Do they, um…” Mike scratches his chin. “Do they need medical attention?”
“Oh my god, no. We do this all the time.”
“You play Red Dead Redemption 2 drinking games all the time,” I repeat skeptically, leaning on the wall.
“Of course. You don’t?”
“Can’t say I do.”
She waves a dismissive hand, like I’m speaking nonsense. “Whatever. The next step for them is usually falling asleep wherever they are, so…Can you help me carry them back to their rooms?”
Mike frowns. “Um, yeah. But are you sure that—”
“Thanks!” Ashley leans forward to hug him and press a kiss on his cheek. “You’re the best. Good night!”
We watch her skip out of the room, her pace decidedly steadier than before. “I don’t think I like her,” Mike mutters.
“I don’t think she gives a shit.” I sigh, and we both step in front of the couch, studying the scene with hands on our hips.
The sleeping part of their night seems to have commenced.
The frequency of the tags has decreased to null, and Jesse and Otto are sprawled backward, their heads tilted back on the tops of the cushions.
Their eyes are closed. “Do you think they’re crashing out?
” I ask. “And, as a follow-up question: I know we recently brokered a peacekeeping agreement with Nephilim, but would it be in bad taste to take very compromising pictures of them and disseminate them on the internet—”
“He’s so fucking cute,” Mike interrupts, clearly not listening to a word I’m saying.
I follow the direction of his eyes and realize that he’s looking at Otto.
Otto, whose mouth hangs open, and has visibly drooled on his sweatshirt.
There is also something that looks like boogers on his right cheek, but who knows? It could be a wart.
“So Otto’s cute, but sphynx cats aren’t?” I mumble in disbelief, but Mike seems determined to ignore me to engage in other, more interesting activities—namely, lovingly pushing Otto’s hair back from his forehead. Jesus. “Dude. For real? How many times did you guys get together and break up?”
“Only like, five or six. Seven if you count the night at GameCon when—”
“You know what, no need for detail. It was a rhetorical question.”
“Yeah,” Mike agrees. “We have no time. We gotta take them to bed.”
I snort—and then realize that he’s not joking. “What? Why?”
“Because.”
“Because, why? There’s heat in here. It’s just us staying at the lodge, so it’s not like they’ll be robbed or kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. We could find a couple of blankets and…”
I must be talking a bit too loudly. Otto doesn’t stir, but Jesse’s dark eyes slowly blink open. He tries to straighten, and several curls fall on his forehead, somehow creating a perfect image of sophisticated chaos. How does he manage to look like a nerd who’s also an athlete who’s also a poet?
“Viola,” he says—slurs, really, voice deep and gravelly.
I sigh. “Yup. Me.”
He mumbles something else, something that sounds like good dream, but I cannot make out any more of it.
His full lips are slightly parted, and there’s something almost peaceful about the way he stares at me.
His usually sharp eyes seem glassy, confused, but his cheeks are such a pretty red, they remind me of our encounter last night.
I want to touch them. See if they radiate heat as much as I expect.
“Viola’s going to take you to your room,” Mike says, bending to wrap Otto’s arm around his neck. “Okay, Jesse?”
Jesse nods with the cogency of a sloth who just woke up from a twenty-five-year sleep, and I’m speechless long enough for Mike to lift up Otto and get him halfway to the door.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “Otto weighs half as much as Jesse. And I weigh less than you, so it would make more sense for me to—”
“Make sure you put a bucket or something similar next to his bed,” he yells before turning the corner. “In case he gets sick.”
The room falls silent, and I stand there alone, like the fool I am.
Or—not quite alone.
My eyes drift to Jesse, who seems to have fallen back asleep, this time with his head hanging forward.
“Shit,” I mutter.
He is, at least, a more graceful drunk than Otto.
No boogers, or drool. I debate the pros and cons of leaving him here to stew in his own ethanol, and in the end, the deciding factor is simply that for all the years of weirdness between us, what he did this morning might have saved my Limerence dreams.
“Hey,” I say. When there’s no response I begin to poke at his biceps. Which, admittedly, does feel like the biceps of someone who does triathlons and has opinions on lactic acid. “Can you—Jesse? Can you wake up?”
He lifts his head with effort. Good enough, I guess.
“You fell asleep on the couch, so I’m going to take you upstairs to your room, ’kay? Can you walk a bit? I can help you balance, but you’re heavy and—”
“Viola,” he says again, this time sounding breathless. For whatever reason, his tone makes my cheeks heat.
Honestly, he might be better drunk than sober. Some people become aggressive when they overindulge, but Jesse is docile, and once I figure out how to leverage his arm over my shoulders, the process of dragging him to bed works smoothly.
I try not to think too hard about the previous day, and his expression when my hand closed around his wrist. I don’t think he likes to be touched.
Technically, though, you’re only touching him through his sweater, I think as I coax him upstairs, feeling his heat as he leans against my side.
This might be our most pleasant interaction to date, and yes, it counts even if Jesse is mostly unconscious.
The layout of his room is exactly like mine—a huge four-poster bed, large windows that lead to a balcony, and a sitting area with a small round table and two chairs.
I find that I’m not surprised to discover he’s a bit of a neat freak, with the result that unlike my room, his doesn’t look like a hurricane ran through it.
“Two more steps and we’re on the bed,” I tell him, a little out of breath from supporting his weight.
Jesse hums agreeably, and when his thigh hits the mattress, he lets himself fall back faceup.
His curls, just a little too long, bounce on the pillow.
I take off his shoes and lift his legs onto the bedspread.
“You owe me big-time,” I say, though he won’t remember any of this.
I move the trash can closer to the bed, then turn on the bedside lamp and make to head out. I’m feeling like I’m really paying it forward tonight, when a hand closes around my wrist. It startles me, and I trip on the plush carpet, losing my balance and planting my ass on the edge of the bed.
“Shit, I—”
Jesse’s fingers are warm and steady against my skin, his grip strong enough to anchor me. Sloshed as he is, I could wriggle free with little effort, but when I look down I find him staring up at me with a peaceful, contemplative expression that gives me pause.
“Are you…do you need anything? I can get you some water if you…” My voice trails off as he lets go of my wrist. My skin feels cold, as if already missing his touch, though maybe that’s not it.
Maybe it’s the backs of his fingers inching up my bare arm that make me shiver, slow and light and purposeful until they reach my shoulder and abruptly—stop.
“You,” he says, and I find it odd that all of a sudden his voice sounds remarkably sober. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
A wave of heat creeps up my chest. I snort out a nervous laugh to stifle it. “You must have me mixed up with someone else—”
Jesse’s hand moves up, from my shoulder to my chin, and just like that I can feel the warmth of his skin again. His thumb comes to rest on my lips, lingers there, and…I can hardly continue talking with his finger over my mouth.
“Viola,” he whispers.
Time becomes thicker. Slower. There is no more air in the space between us, and a storm blows up in my rib cage.
Jesse’s thumb swipes back and forth over my lower lip, something wistful and yearning and hungry in his stare that I cannot quite comprehend.
Until his mouth twitches in a sad half smile, and he says:
“I haven’t thought about anything but you since the first time I saw you.”
With that, Jesse’s eyes blink closed, his hand drops back to his side, and he falls into a deep sleep.