Chapter Five #2
I had begun to understand that small things could accumulate into something alarmingly large.
The upper rental cabin appeared through the trees.
Warm lights glowed behind the windows.
My Audi sat exactly where I had left it, mostly buried around the tires and lower body, with snow thick across the roof and hood.
I stopped.
Lucky followed my gaze.
“That is tomorrow’s problem.”
“Good.”
He looked at me.
I smiled. “I’m experimenting with assigning problems to the correct day.”
“How’s it feel?”
“Deeply irresponsible.”
“Want to go back and clear it now?”
“Absolutely not.”
His smile widened.
“That helped.”
Inside, the cabin felt both familiar and strange after only a few hours away.
My closed laptop remained on the dining table beside the notebook, tablet, charger, and the work bag I had once believed required constant supervision.
Nothing had happened to any of it.
I walked past.
That might have been the most dramatic thing I did all evening.
I changed into clean black leggings, thick socks, and a loose cream knit from my suitcase while Lucky fed another log into the fireplace.
Bear took immediate possession of the hearth rug.
The pasta reheated without ceremony.
Lucky put it into a pan with a little extra cream and turned the heat low. I opened the refrigerator, located the cake, and stood admiring the crooked buttercream.
“It survived.”
Lucky glanced over. “I told you it would.”
“There are still visible ridges.”
“Also still cake.”
“I am beginning to understand your philosophy.”
“It’s very advanced.”
I reached around him for a spoon and stole a ribbon of pasta directly from the pan.
Lucky looked at me. “That was hot.”
“It was also excellent.”
“You could’ve waited thirty seconds.”
“I have already waited an unreasonable amount of time for the cake. I’m reallocating patience.”
He laughed and handed me another spoonful once it had cooled.
We ate at the kitchen island rather than setting the dining table.
No placemats. No formal plates.
I tucked one socked foot around the rung of the stool while Bear stretched across the floor behind us and periodically exhaled hard enough to remind us that he remained unfed by human standards despite having eaten actual dog food at Lucky’s house.
The pasta was still good.
Not quite the same as the first night, but warmer in a different way. Familiar now. Something we had made together and returned to.
Afterward, Lucky cut the cake because knives and I remained professionally separate.
I took the first bite standing beside him at the island.
Dense dark chocolate. Soft vanilla buttercream. The frosting had chilled into something firmer than it had been the night we made it.
My eyes closed.
“Oh.”
Lucky waited.
I took another bite before speaking.
“This is excellent.”
“I’m glad.”
“No, you don’t understand. This cake has been sitting in the refrigerator all day while we ate waffles and had sex.”
His eyebrows lifted.
I pointed my fork at him. “Both were excellent choices. I’m simply acknowledging the cost.”
“That seems fair.”
I cut another bite from my slice.
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m eating cake.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“It answers every important question currently before me.”
Lucky leaned against the island beside me, shoulder brushing mine.
I didn’t move away.
Neither did he.
We left both plates on the counter when we carried our water into the great room.
The fire had settled into a steady burn. Bear sprawled across the rug with one rear foot extended into the walkway, forcing me to step over him to reach the couch.
I sat down beside Lucky and tucked my feet beneath me.
For a while, we talked about nothing important.
Bear’s inability to understand personal space.
Lucky’s belief that my Audi would be fine once the resort cleared the route properly.
My strong professional objection to the phrase fine when used about transportation.
Eventually the conversation slowed.
I rested my head against Lucky’s shoulder.
His arm settled along the back of the couch behind me, not pulling, just there.
I looked across the room at my laptop.
Closed.
Still exactly where I had left it.
“My mother would hate that.”
Lucky followed my glance. “Your laptop?”
“The fact that I can see unfinished work and I’m sitting here anyway.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
I had told him almost nothing about my family.
He knew I had a brother. That was about it.
“My parents are good people,” I said.
Lucky turned slightly toward me.
“That sounds like the beginning of something complicated.”
“It probably is.”
I drew one knee closer and rested my hand around it.
“My mother works in corporate communications. Senior level. My father’s in banking and wealth management. They’re both very successful, and they worked incredibly hard for everything they built.”
Lucky listened.
“They love my brother and me. We had good schools, good clothes, opportunities, everything we needed. If there was something they could provide, they provided it.”
“But?”
I smiled faintly. “There was always a but.”
The fire settled behind the screen with a soft crack.
“They were busy. A lot. And the expectation in our family was that capable people handled things. You did well in school. You kept yourself organized. You didn’t create unnecessary problems. If something needed doing, you did it.”
“You were the oldest.”
“Yes.”
That fact alone seemed to explain something to him, although he was polite enough not to pretend it explained everything.
“My brother followed his own version of it. Law school. Very driven. We’re different people, but neither of us exactly grew up believing that drifting through life was a respectable option.”
Lucky’s fingers moved lightly over my shoulder.
“Do you wish they’d done it differently?”
The question surprised me.
I thought about it before answering.
“Some things, yes. But I don’t wish they were different people. My mother is brilliant at what she does. My father genuinely loves his work. They built lives they were proud of. I understand that.”
I looked at my own hands.
“I also think I learned very early that being easy to be proud of was safer than needing too much.”
Lucky stayed quiet.
That helped.
I didn’t need him to hurry me toward a conclusion.
“When I did well, everybody was happy. When I handled something myself, that was good. When I stayed composed, even better. Somewhere along the way I started treating usefulness like insurance.”
“Against what?”
I let out a slow breath.
“Against disappointing people, I suppose. Against being the problem.”
Lucky’s arm shifted from the back of the couch to around my shoulders, not to stop me talking, just to bring me closer.
“When something goes wrong at work, I don’t usually think everyone else failed me,” I continued. “I think I should have seen it sooner. Asked one more question. Made the responsibility clearer. Followed up one more time.”
“Even when it was somebody else’s responsibility?”
“Especially then, because if I could have prevented it, I think I should have.”
Saying it aloud made the logic sound less impressive than it had inside my head.
I gave a quiet laugh.
“That may be why Glenn sent me here.”
Lucky’s hand stopped moving against my upper arm.
“Glenn sent you?”
There it was—the part I hadn’t told him.
I shifted so I could see his face.
“My current production had a talent problem. One of the leads walked out during filming. Two other cast members threatened to follow.”
Lucky’s expression sharpened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“I kept trying to contain it. Every new complaint led me into another conversation, another department, another decision. I thought if I could keep enough pieces from moving, I could stop the whole thing from coming apart.”
“What did Glenn say?”
“He told me to leave the set for four days.”
Lucky’s eyebrows rose.
“He didn’t fire me,” I said quickly. “I’m still employed. Still paid. He called it a cooling-off period.”
“And you heard?”
The question was gentle.
“Failure.”
Lucky nodded once, not in agreement but in recognition.
“I drove up here with my laptop because I thought if I stayed useful enough from a distance, I could go back with everything fixed. Then being sent away wouldn’t count as something I had failed at.”
The admission sat heavily in the room.
Bear shifted on the rug and let out a long sigh.
I looked at the fire rather than Lucky.
“The worst part is that the team has been doing well without me.”
“You already told me they were handling things.”
“I know. And I’m proud of them. I mean that. They’re talented people.” I rubbed my thumb over the seam of my leggings. “But there’s a part of me that hears ‘they didn’t need you for this’ and turns it into ‘maybe they don’t need you at all.’”
Lucky leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs.
He considered what I had said instead of answering with the first reassuring thing available.
“I’m not going to tell you what your job needs,” he said. “I know enough to know I don’t know that.”
I smiled a little.
“Thank you.”
“But I know you’ve been here for three days, and every time you talk about television, you sound like somebody who’s good at it because she actually loves it.”
“I do.”
“And a team being able to work while you’re gone doesn’t sound like evidence that you don’t belong there.”
“No.”
The answer was obvious when he said it.
That did not make it easy.
Lucky leaned back again.
“What about outside work?”
I knew exactly what he meant.
I wished I didn’t.
“I think I do some version of it everywhere.”
“With me?”
That question mattered more.
I turned toward him fully.
“I’ve been trying not to.”
Lucky waited.
I chose the honest answer.
“I like doing things for people. Remembering what they need. Solving problems. Showing up. I want to do those things.”
“I know.”
“But sometimes I don’t know where wanting to care for someone ends and proving I deserve to be kept starts.”
Lucky was quiet for several seconds.
Then he said, “You were asleep beside me this afternoon.”
I blinked.