Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
DECLAN
Morning After Logistics
I woke up to the sound of Holly muttering what sounded like a creative string of profanity from the main room.
Sunlight was streaming through the bedroom windows, revealing a world transformed into a winter wonderland that looked like a Christmas card and probably meant we were completely screwed transportation-wise.
“Everything okay out there?” I called, stretching in the narrow bed and immediately missing the warmth of Holly’s body pressed against mine.
“Define okay,” Holly called back, her voice carrying a note of barely contained hysteria. “Because if okay means we’re trapped in a cabin with no food, no coffee, and enough snow outside to build an igloo village, then sure. Everything’s peachy.”
Coffee. Right. I should have thought about provisions yesterday, but I’d been somewhat distracted by the woman who was currently pacing around the main room like a caged tiger.
A very attractive caged tiger who’d done incredible things to my body a few hours ago and was now apparently experiencing some morning-after regret.
I pulled on my clothes and walked out to find Holly now standing at the front window, her hair a beautiful mess that reminded me exactly how it had gotten that way.
“How bad is it?” I asked, moving to stand beside her.
“See for yourself,” she said, gesturing at the window with the dramatic flair of someone announcing the apocalypse.
I looked out and immediately understood her concern.
The snow had continued falling all night, leaving at least two feet of fresh powder on top of what had already been on the ground.
My rental was buried up to the door handles, looking like a small snow mountain that might have once been a vehicle.
“Well,” I said carefully, “that’s definitely more snow than expected.”
“More snow than expected,” Holly repeated in a tone that suggested she was questioning my observational skills. “Declan, your car looks like it’s been claimed by the Arctic. We’re going to need a helicopter to get out of here.”
“Or shovels,” I said pragmatically. “And coffee. Definitely coffee.”
“About that,” Holly said, turning away from the window.
“I’ve conducted a thorough inventory of the kitchen supplies, and our options are limited to one jar of what might have been instant coffee sometime around two decades ago, a sleeve of crackers that sound like maracas when you shake them, and half a jar of peanut butter that I’m not entirely convinced isn’t older than I am. ”
I trailed behind her into the kitchen, where open cabinet doors and pulled-out drawers revealed the aftermath of her desperate hunt for sustenance.
The ancient jar of Folgers crystals sat on the counter like a sad monument to forgotten vacations, its contents having formed some kind of crystalline structure that looked more like a science experiment than a beverage.
“That’s definitely seen better days,” I admitted, picking up the jar and giving it an experimental shake. It made a sound like sand in a bucket.
“I tried to scrape some out,” Holly said, showing me a spoon that looked like it had been used to mine for precious metals. “But I’m pretty sure those aren’t coffee crystals anymore. They might be fossilized.”
Despite everything—the snow, the questionable provisions, the awkward morning-after energy between us—I found myself laughing.
The situation was so absurdly domestic, so completely different from the intensity of yesterday, that it felt like we’d tumbled into some kind of alternate universe where it was determined to test whether we could handle practical challenges as well as we’d handled physical ones.
“What’s so funny?” Holly asked, though she was fighting a smile herself.
“This,” I said, gesturing around the kitchen. “Yesterday I was doing inventory for my parents. Today I’m conducting archaeological surveys on instant coffee with a woman who just criticized my snow observation skills.”
“Your snow observation skills are terrible,” Holly said, but she was definitely smiling now. “That’s not ‘more than expected.’ That’s ‘call the National Guard.’”
“Noted,” I said, moving to investigate the crackers. They did indeed sound like instruments when disturbed. “How are your wilderness survival skills?”
“Terrible,” Holly admitted cheerfully. “I can navigate corporate bureaucracy and plan events for five hundred people, but ask me to start a fire without matches and I’ll probably burn down the forest.”
“Good thing we have matches,” I said, relieved that at least one aspect of our situation was manageable.
“Good thing you know how to use them,” Holly countered. “Because my fire-making skills are limited to ‘throw wood at flame and hope for best.’”
We stood in the tiny kitchen, grinning at each other over our mutual incompetence in outdoor survival, and for a moment the awkwardness that had been building since we woke up dissipated.
This felt normal, comfortable even. Like we were a team figuring out a challenge together instead of two people trying to navigate the morning after incredibly good sex.
“Okay,” I said, moving into practical mode. “First priority is getting that car dug out. Second priority is getting back to town before your mother calls in search and rescue.”
“Oh god,” Holly said, her eyes widening with panic. “My mother. She’s going to think I was murdered by a serial killer who preys on women foolish enough to go north in a Vermont winter without supplies. How exactly do we dig out a vehicle that’s buried under approximately fourteen feet of snow?”
“Slight exaggeration,” I pointed out. “But first, we see if there are any shovels in the shed outside,” I said, moving toward the door. “Second, we accept that this is going to take a while and probably involve a lot of creative cursing on both our parts.”
“I can handle the creative cursing,” Holly said confidently. “That’s definitely within my skill set.”
I opened the front door and immediately regretted it as a wall of cold air hit us like a physical force. The snow was deep enough that stepping outside would mean immediately sinking in up to my knees, and the path to the shed was completely obliterated.
“Nope,” Holly said immediately, backing away from the door. “Absolutely not. I refuse to freeze to death before I’ve had coffee.”
“We need shovels,” I pointed out, though I was already closing the door again because holy hell, it was cold out there.
“We need coffee more,” Holly said firmly. “Or at least something that resembles coffee. Even if it’s technically geological formations.”
I looked at the ancient jar of Folgers and made an executive decision. “Right. Emergency coffee, it is.”
“Emergency coffee?”
“Trust me,” I said, filling a pot with water and setting it on the stove. “I’ve made coffee in worse conditions.”
“When?” Holly asked skeptically.
“College. Law school. That year I lived in a studio apartment with a hot plate and dreams of legal glory,” I said, opening the jar and attempting to scrape out enough crystalline formations to approximate coffee. “The key is lowering your expectations to subterranean levels.”
“My expectations are already there,” Holly assured me. “At this point, I’d settle for hot brown water that contains caffeine.”
“Good, because that is probably what you’re going to get.” I managed to excavate what might have been coffee grounds from the jar and dumped them into the boiling water, creating a mixture that looked like swamp water and smelled like regret.
“Voilà,” I said, presenting Holly with a mug of the questionable brew. “Emergency coffee.”
She took a tentative sip and immediately made a face like she’d been poisoned. “Jesus Christ, Declan. This tastes like someone dissolved a boot in water.”
“A caffeinated boot,” I pointed out, taking my own sip and immediately regretting every life choice that had led to this moment.
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted,” Holly said, taking another sip anyway. “Why am I still drinking it?”
“Because caffeine,” I said, forcing down another mouthful of what might charitably be called coffee-adjacent liquid.
“Because caffeine,” Holly agreed.
It was ridiculous. We were stranded in a cabin with prehistoric provisions and enough snow outside to bury a small town, and somehow, I felt better than I had in months.
Maybe it was the great fuck, the sleep that actually made me feel rested, the caffeine, or maybe it was the way Holly looked first thing in the morning—rumpled and beautiful and completely herself without any of the careful presentation she maintained around other people.
“Okay,” Holly said, finishing her coffee with the determination of someone completing an unpleasant but necessary task. “I’m sufficiently caffeinated to attempt snow removal. What’s the plan?”
I plunged one leg forward into the snow and immediately sank to my knees. “Jesus,” I gasped, the cold seeping through my jeans. Holly followed, wobbling as her right boot disappeared entirely.
“Motherf—” she yelped, grabbing my arm to keep from falling. “This isn’t snow. This is frozen quicksand.”
Three steps later, she lost her balance completely, toppling sideways into a drift. I reached for her hand but missed, watching as she flailed dramatically before disappearing up to her waist.
“My boots,” she moaned, extracting one leg to reveal a sleek leather ankle boot now caked with ice. “These are Frye. They cost more than my first car payment. This is your fault,” she growled, as I hauled her upright. “You and your attractive face and your property inventory needs.”
“My attractive face is not responsible for the weather,” I pointed out, though I was discovering that digging through two feet of snow was significantly more challenging than anticipated.
“Your attractive face is responsible for me being here,” Holly countered, as we trudged some more and finally reached the shed. She pulled the door open with a triumphant “Ha!”
The shovels were ancient and possibly older than the coffee, but they were functional. After making our slow and curse-filled way back to the car, I got to work, jamming my shovel into the snow with a grunt. “This is like trying to dig through concrete with a spoon.”
Holly tossed a shovelful over her shoulder, her breath clouding in front of her face. “At least concrete doesn’t keep falling back into the hole.” She straightened, pressing a gloved hand against her lower back. “God, my kingdom for a snowblower.”
“Your kingdom being...?”
“Right now? My parents’ house and an age-old Civic whose lit-up check engine light is a permanent fixture on the dashboard.”
She attacked the drift again, then paused mid-scoop. “Did you just make that snow angel on purpose, or did you fall?”
I looked up from where I’d landed after slipping on a patch of ice. “Tactical rest break.”
“Fuck that! Get digging, Hayes!”
Her incandescent rage was glorious.
We went silent, except for the occasional puffing, as we dug and dug some more.
“I can’t feel my feet,” Holly announced after we’d managed to clear roughly half of my car.
“That’s normal,” I said, though I was beginning to question whether we were actually making progress or just moving snow from one location to another.
“This is not normal,” Holly said, gesturing at the winter wasteland around us. “Normal is having heat and indoor plumbing and coffee that doesn’t require archaeological expertise to consume.”
“You’re very high maintenance for someone who grew up in Vermont,” I observed, pausing to catch my breath.
“I’m not high maintenance,” Holly protested. “I just have reasonable expectations about not freezing to death before noon.”
She glowered at me and went back to digging, leaving me to do the same.
It took another hour and several strategic breaks for warming up by the fire, but we finally managed to dig out enough of the car to make escape theoretically possible. By the time we finished, we were both soaked, exhausted, and covered in snow.
“I look like a snowman,” Holly said, examining her reflection in the car window. Her hair was escaping from her ponytail in every direction, her cheeks were bright red from the cold, and she had snow stuck to every available surface.
“You look beautiful,” I said without thinking, and then immediately realized that probably wasn’t the kind of casual, no-complications response she was looking for.
Holly went very still, and I could see her processing the comment, trying to figure out whether it meant something or if I was just being polite.
“I mean,” I said quickly, “for someone who just spent three hours engaging in combat with Vermont weather.”
“Right,” Holly said, her voice carefully neutral. “For someone who looks like a snowman.”
The moment stretched between us, loaded with everything we weren’t saying about last night, about what happened when we got back to town, about whether this was just physical or something more complicated.
“We should probably head back,” Holly said finally, breaking the tension. “Before they send out search parties.”
“Probably,” I agreed, though part of me wanted to suggest we stay at the cabin for another day, maybe figure out what this thing between us actually was before we had to deal with the rest of the world.
But Holly was already climbing into the passenger seat, carefully not meeting my eyes, and I realized that whatever conversation we needed to have about last night was going to have to wait until we weren’t both exhausted and covered in snow.
The drive back to Everdale Falls was quiet, both of us lost in our own thoughts as we navigated the snow-covered roads. By the time we pulled into our neighboring driveways, the awkwardness was back in full force, thick enough to cut with a knife.
“Thank you,” Holly said as I parked, her hand already on the door handle. “For letting me come along.”
“Thank you for the company,” I said, though what I wanted to say was that spending twenty-four hours with her had been the best twenty-four hours I’d had in longer than I could remember.
She nodded and climbed out of the car, gathering her things with the efficiency of someone eager to escape.
I watched her hurry across the snowy driveway to her parents’ house, her shoulders tense with the kind of energy that suggested she was already regretting everything that had happened between us.
And as I sat in my car watching her disappear inside, I realized that whatever we’d started at the cabin was about to get a lot more complicated now that we were back in the real world.