Desmond
Less than a week post-conference, and the weather was calling for snow. The storm rolled in the way bad ideas do. Slowly at first. Casually mentioned. Easy to ignore until it wasn’t.
I was signing off on labs when I heard Anya’s voice behind me, pitched lighter than usual. “I know,” she said. “I’m just… not excited about it.”
I didn’t look up. I… didn’t even mean to listen, but I did anyway.
“The last blizzard knocked my power out for a day and a half,” she continued. “No heat. No hot water. My building manager just shrugged.” A pause. Then, dryly, “Character-building, apparently.”
Something in my chest shifted. I glanced over my shoulder. She stood near the lockers with Liza, arms crossed, shoulders hunched as if she already felt the cold coming. She laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You know I’d offer my place, but with Jeremey—”
Anya cut her off. “I’ll survive; I always do.”
And that was the part that did it. Not the power outage. Not the weather warning scrolling across the TV in the waiting area. That quiet, reflexive acceptance. Like discomfort was a baseline she’d learned not to argue with.
I went back to my work. Finished what I was doing. Told myself I was overreacting. But I thought about it all night.
About her apartment. About the snow piling up, streetlights blinking out, the way the city went quiet and unforgiving when the weather turned. About her sitting alone in the dark, pretending it didn’t bother her.
By the time my shift ended, I had already decided, resonating somewhere deeper than reason. I found her near the exit, tugging on her coat. “Anya,” I said.
She turned. “Yeah?”
“There’s a storm coming,” I said, and I might as well have been kicking my foot back and forth with as idiotic as I sounded.
She smiled faintly; the sight did something funny to my stomach. “So I’ve heard.”
“My place won’t lose power,” I continued, just this side of rambling. “Generator. Fireplace. Well stocked and… I’ll be there all weekend.”
Her smile faded. Confusion flickered across her face. “Desmond—”
“You can stay with me,” I said, cutting in gently. “Just until it passes.”
Silence stretched.
“I have two days off,” I added, because apparently I was incapable of stopping now. “And I can call in sick if I need to. Roads are going to be a mess, anyway.”
She stared at me. “We live in New England,” she said carefully, but I could tell she was fighting back a smile. “The roads will be fine.”
“Maybe,” I replied with a casual shrug. “Maybe everything will be clear. But your apartment might not be fine. This way, you don’t need to worry about groceries. Or heat. Or sitting alone in the dark.”
Her voice softened. “You don’t have to do that.”
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “I know.”
A beat.
Snow started falling outside the glass doors. Big, lazy flakes. Beautiful… harmless until they weren’t. “I don’t like the idea of you alone in it,” I said quietly. My hand flexed at my side as I fought back the urge to cup her cheek in my hand. “Say yes.”
Her breath caught. I saw it. The moment the offer stopped being about weather and became something else entirely. “Okay,” she said. “Sure, fine.“
Just that. Relief hit me so hard I had to hide it behind a nod. “I’ll pick you up,” I said. “We can stop for groceries.”
She hesitated, then smiled. “Guess I should pack a bag,” I watched her walk away, already bracing myself for two days of proximity I would pretend was nothing more than common sense.
The snow fell harder.
When I picked her up later that evening, it was just after dusk.
Her apartment building looked exactly as I’d imagined. Narrow. Tired. The type of place that hummed even when it was quiet. She came out bundled in a coat that was too thin for the weather, and a duffle bag slung over her shoulder as if she had prepared to improvise.
She smiled when she saw me, leaning against the hood of the car as I waited. “Hey,” she said, as if this were normal. Like she hadn’t been living in my head for weeks now.
“Hey,” I replied, already reaching for her bag.
“You don’t have to—”
“I know,” I said, taking it anyway. “You need a warmer coat.” I noted as I tossed her bag into the backseat. Her nose scrunched as I opened her door; she looked as though she was deciding whether or not to make fun of me.
Her mouth twitched, but she slid in. The car warmed quickly. Snow ticked softly against the windshield; the city blurred into lights and white. She fiddled with the radio until she found something unobtrusive and familiar, then rested her hands in her lap, trying very hard not to make this a thing.
“So…” she said. “Grocery store.”
“Yes,” I said. “We’re just getting essentials.”
She eyed me. “Define essentials.”
“Things you’ll need to survive a weekend trapped in my house.” I pulled into the parking lot of the nicest grocery store within a five-mile radius. The kind with wide aisles and soft lighting and carts that didn’t scream when you touched them.
Her eyebrows lifted. “You shop here?”
“I work hard for my money. I can shop where I please,” I said. “And… they have really good bread.”
That earned me a grin.
Inside, she grabbed a cart before I could.
Pushed it with purpose. I followed half a step behind, hands in my pockets, watching her move through the space as if she were cataloguing everything.
The way she paused at the produce. The way she picked up an apple, turned it in her hand, then put it back for a better one.
“Do you cook?” she asked.
“I can feed myself,” I said.
“That’s not an answer.” But her grin was delicious.
“I’m… competent,” I amended. “I don’t just eat takeout every day, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She laughed, and the sound startled me. I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted that sound in a place that wasn’t fluorescent and bleeding.
She tossed apples into the cart. Then oranges.
Then paused, frowning at a display of pears.
“These are good when they’re ripe,” she said, mostly to herself. “Look how bad these are.”
I added honey without comment, trying to distract myself from anything but kissing her senseless in the produce aisle.
“Do you drink tea?” she asked, turning a box of loose leaves over in her hand.
“In storms,” I said. “When it’s cold.”
She nodded, as if that told her something important. “I like chamomile and mint tea, mostly.” She held the box up. “You pick.”
I was a goner. I took the mint tea box from her hand and snatched the matching chamomile from the shelf. “For you? Both.”
We moved slowly. Soup aisle. Pasta. Bread. She reached for a box of crackers, hesitated, then put it back. “Get them,” I said.
“I don’t need—”
“You will,” I replied. “And you like them.”
She blinked at me. “How do you know that?”
“You brought them on your lunch break twice last week.”
Her cheeks warmed. “You pay attention.”
“To you,” I said, because there was no point pretending otherwise. “Yes.” There it was again. A desperate need to hold her, to slide my fingers through hers and just be with her in this store.
At checkout, she tried to argue about splitting it. I didn’t let her.
“This is part of the deal,” I said quietly. “Shelter includes groceries.”
She studied my face like she were trying to decide if this was generosity or something heavier. “Okay,” she said at last. “But I’m cooking one night.”
I smiled before I could stop myself. “I look forward to it.”
Outside, the snow had thickened. The world felt hushed. We loaded bags into the trunk together, our shoulders brushing, neither of us stepping away. As I closed the trunk, she looked up at me, eyes bright, nose pink from the cold.
“Thank you,” she said. “For… this.”
I nodded lamely. “You’re welcome.”
It felt inadequate. It felt… fake. So I stopped holding myself back. Now that my hands were free, I leaned in, pressing my lips to hers. Anya gasped, freezing as our lips touched. My hand curled around the back of her neck, twisting her unruly curls around my finger.
“Desmond,” she breathed against my mouth, hands fisting in my coat. The world tilted, and a wave of relief so profound washed over me when she melted into me that my knees nearly buckled. Her lips were soft, if not a little chapped from the wind and the cold.
When we finally got back in the car, she rubbed her hands together, then tucked them under her thighs.
Without thinking, I reached over, tugging her left hand out from underneath her and lacing my fingers through hers.
She looked up at me, and… fuck if I wouldn’t give her the world if she asked for it.