Chapter Nine
The cabin feels darker as night creeps in. The windows have long been curtained by the unrelenting snow, but the lack of sun makes everything inside seem a little colder, and it sends a shiver up my spine that evokes a physical movement that catches Boone’s attention.
“Are you okay?” He rushes over, his large hands swallowing up my upper arms from behind. The chill is suddenly doused.
“It just felt cold in here for a second,” I reply way too breathlessly. “What time is it?”
“Probably time for food and not coffee,” he says playfully, his hands dropping from my arms, inviting the cold back to my skin. “I can fix soup again.”
“You step away from the kitchen, sir. Coffee is what you do best, so just stay in your lane,” I demand.
“But I thought you said anyone can put enough effort in to right a wrong,” he teases, repeating back my own words of wisdom.
“You could teach me a few skills as payment for saving your life. Turn this lumberjack into a chef, or at least a man who can cook for himself. I think it’s the least you could do. ”
Boone is beginning to melt, not that he had ever been rigid. He was softer than I expected, and I didn’t really expect a lot since I hadn’t exactly expected to be in his cabin for Christmas. But I could tell there was something giving way as his smiles came more easily, and he seemed…less tall.
Was that a thing? Could people shrink as you got to know them?
“I suppose.” I slowly succumb to his request, telling myself this is the only thing I can succumb to.
“So, can I do something for supper while you start on the cinnamon rolls?” he asks with what seems to be a thread of enthusiasm woven through his tone.
“How many eggs did you collect?” I question.
“Six.”
“Do you think the ladies have laid more?” I’m calculating what I will need for the rolls and what he’ll need to make omelets.
“I can go check,” he answers quickly, already rushing toward the door without me having to prompt him.
He’s out the door in less than two minutes, and when the door closes, I let out the carbon dioxide that I’m trying to convince myself is slowly poisoning me with its minimum toxicity. That would help explain the flushing, the confusion, and the shortness of breath.
It’s either carbon dioxide poisoning or it’s Boone.
I’m not ignorant, though. It’s not the carbon dioxide.
This entire thing is a bad idea. Boone’s proximity is beginning to sand away at my own protective shell. I don’t really want to admit it, and wouldn’t admit it to him, but I have to admit it to myself, if only to keep myself from doing something utterly stupid.
I assess my surroundings. This kitchen is too small. We need some kind of island to separate us, to make sure proximity doesn’t wreak havoc on our very separate, very different, very real lives.
“Three more!” Boone announces as soon as he enters back into the cabin. “Also, it’s stopped snowing. Now we’ll just have to wait for the trucks to come through to clear the roads.”
“Oh.” I exhale and then quickly attach a smile to my response. My pulse is trying to figure out whether to beat relief or disappointment. It should most definitely be relief, but sometimes the body isn’t responsive to reason. “That’s great. How long until that happens?”
“Hard to tell. With it being Christmas Eve tomorrow, they may try to get to it more quickly, or it may delay them,” he explains while he shrugs off his coat and steps out of his boots. “You’re most likely stuck with me for another day, at least.”
“How was Goose?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Honestly? She looked relieved that it was just me.” He walks through the doorway and shows me the three eggs as if they are prized possessions, and they kind of are. Two brown and one blue.
“Perfect,” I reply. “I’m going to teach you how to make omelets. Have you made them before?”
“Made them, yes. Ate them, no,” he answers.
I nod my head. “All right, well, you’ll need a small onion from the cabinet, the half block of cheese from the fridge, and six eggs.
Normally, I would make them with red bell peppers, some fresh garlic, crispy bacon, and my favorite gouda cheese, but we’ll make this work.
Promise. You’ll need a cutting board, knife, bowl, whisk, small frying pan, and a spatula, if you want to gather those up. ”
“Got it.” Then he’s a blur around the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets like he’s even unsure where these basic cooking necessities are located. But finally, his movements slow, and he comes back into focus with an eager expression peeking out from behind his beard.
I grab the bowl, whisk, and three of the eggs. I begin cracking them into the bowl.
Boone’s shadow is soon blocking any light from behind, and his warmth is radiating as if he’s fire himself and the flames are licking at my skin. “Shouldn’t I be doing this?”
“I’m going to make the first one so you can watch, and then you can make the second,” I explain, trying to keep my hands steady as I crack the second egg. “Do you mind getting some milk out of the fridge?”
He takes one step over toward the fridge, retrieving the milk in seconds. “Here.”
“Thanks,” I reply. “I like to just put a drizzle of milk when whisking my eggs. It makes the omelet a little fluffier.”
Then I go to work chopping onions, trying not to think about how Boone is watching my every movement.
I know he’s not judging me and that he truly wants to learn, but his gaze is incredibly intense, as if this is much more serious than making a simple omelet.
As if I’m performing some kind of life-saving surgery.
I quickly have everything ready to go and turn the burner on.
“Okay, we only have butter to work with since we couldn’t find any cooking oil, so we want to cook at a very low heat, which is fine because the trick with cooking an omelet is finding the perfect temperature that allows the egg to not cook too quickly while the ingredients inside of it have enough time to melt together. ”
“Oh,” Boone sighs. He’s taken to leaning up against the small kitchen wall with his arms crossed, making his muscles quite literally look as if they’ll rip his flannel shirt.
“Oh?” I question as I make sure the butter coats the pan entirely.
“Yeah, I always cook everything on high. It gets done quicker, right?” he admits while he shrugs his shoulders.
“While there are a few foods that are great done quickly, the best things take a little extra time at lower heats. It makes things more tender and flavorful.” I try to explain while carefully pouring my whisked eggs into the pan, hearing the soft sizzle as they hit the pan.
“Was that statement just about food or about life?” he questions.
“What?” I watch as the egg thickens enough so I can add in the onions, cheese, and spices.
“It’s just the way you said it made it seem like it could be applied to things other than food.” He pushes himself off the wall and takes the two short steps over to me, looking into the pan at what I’m doing.
“I guess other things in life are better when they’ve had a little extra time,” I muse, not wanting to compare myself to a pan full of eggs, but aging could kind of be that way if you allowed it.
I’ve been watching my friends for the last several years reject the idea of getting older, as if aging is some kind of curse and not a gift.
But I am approaching the age in which my dad had died, and I want to feel what he didn’t get the chance to.
Am I getting better with extra time? I sure hope so.
“It smells amazing,” he comments, inhaling deeply as he stoops over my shoulder, once again invading my personal space and making carbon dioxide reside a little too long within my lungs.
I fold what appears to look like an egg tortilla in half, allowing it to fully form into what it needs to be, clearing my throat. “See how the egg isn’t burnt at all on the outside? It’s perfectly fluffy, expanding as the ingredients inside cook, too.”
He nods his head, his breath heavy above me.
“Plate, please?” I request with my hand held out.
A chipped floral plate that has seen better days is soon heavy in my hand. I take the spatula and gently lift the omelet, sliding it effortlessly onto the dish.
“Your turn,” I say, handing over the spatula.
Nerves stretch out the skin around his eyes, and his eyebrows shoot up in protest. “You’re going to coach me, right?”
“Nope,” I reply. “I’m going to eat my omelet over here while you make yours.”
I strut over to the small kitchen table, lowering myself down to the chair with a smirk stitched on my lips.
I’m hungry, but more than that, I need fresh oxygen that isn’t being shared with Boone. It’s only a few feet apart, but it feels like I’m in a different time zone with how my chest suddenly feels it has permission to rise and fall again.
“But what if I do it wrong?” he questions as he assesses all the ingredients and kitchen tools in front of him.
“But what if you do it right?” I tease. “I don’t want to steal your joy in doing it right. You deserve all that joy to yourself.”
I watch him carefully as I devour my omelet in less bites than I should take, but it’s been a little too long since I’ve had decent nourishment. And unfortunately, coffee doesn’t count as nourishment. Something my brother reminds me of often when he remembers to lecture me on taking care of myself.
Boone is bent over the stove, carefully poking at the omelet with his spatula, trying to determine if it’s done.
I appreciate that he is sincere in his request for help when it comes to cooking.
He truly does seem to want to learn, which is made even more evident when he turns off the burner, places the omelet on another chipped and fading ceramic plate, and then presents it to me on the kitchen table with a grin that practically takes up his entire face.
“Well done!” I exclaim as I give him three small claps, and I mean it; the texture and presentation of his omelet looks like a duplicate of mine.
“Taste it!” he demands with as much excitement as a kid that just discovered presents under the Christmas tree.
Although, he has no tree, and I can’t believe that I’m actually going to admit it to myself, but I really hate the thought of not having a Christmas tree this year, even my mother’s professionally decorated one lacking any ornaments that hint at the fact that a family once lived there.
“I’ve already had one,” I argue. “You deserve that all to yourself.”
He takes his fork, cuts off a piece, and slides it over onto my plate. Then he dares to push his bottom lip out in a pout. This large man of a man is officially pouting. And it’s, unfortunately, absolutely endearing.
I stab the piece of omelet that he’s offered me and smile at Boone before putting it in my mouth. It melts on my tongue, making my eyelids flutter. “Boone! This is better than mine!”
“Really?” His question is strung out with a hopeful breath to it.
“Really,” I answer. “Did you do anything different to it?”
“I didn’t, but maybe Goose did.” He cuts another piece from it and takes a bite himself, grinning in satisfaction when he realizes that it truly is amazing.
“What does Goose have to do with it?” I ask, my eyebrows furrowing. We both had the same eggs. Three of them. All from the same coop.
“I think I had one of Goose’s eggs in my stash. I bet she laid it with a little extra love for me since I’m her mighty rooster and everything,” he teases.
“She would,” I mumble while standing up, taking my plate to the sink.
He nods his head, still grinning while basically inhaling the rest of his omelet as if it were air.
“Hey, Boone,” I say, while rinsing my dishes. “Is there enough hot water for a shower, with the generator and everything?”
“Oh. Oh, yeah, but there’s kind of a trick to the faucet. I can go show you,” he answers, putting his plate down on the kitchen table before leaving the room and, I guess, expecting me to follow him.
Which I do.
He’s already in the bathroom, grabbing a fresh towel from the cabinet for me before I catch up with him. “I’ve been meaning to fix it for a while, but since it’s just me, I’ve kind of just learned the quirks of the pipes instead of fixing them.”
I scoot between him and the shower, looking at what I’m working with. Looks like a totally normal bathtub-shower combination to me. Standard equipment. Nothing fancy, like my shower back at my apartment that has four shower heads surrounded by glossy white tiles from floor to ceiling, but it’ll do.
“Okay, so the trick with the knob is: you have to jiggle more to the left than the right for it to trigger the hot water. If you just turn it or accidentally jostle it wrong, it’ll go straight back to ice-cold water,” he tries to explain.
“I’m sure I can figure it out,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. It’s a shower. How complicated can it be?