Twelve
Leaning against the bar, arms crossed, I stare at the lone figure still taking up space in my otherwise empty pub.
“Find a prize at the bottom of that bowl?” I ask, my voice more clipped than intended.
The guy with the paisley tie—a different, somehow more offensive one than last week—looks up from scraping his spoon against the ceramic. He offers a placid smile that makes me want to start throwing things. “Just savoring the last of it. Ulf’s stew is really something else.”
“Ulf’ll be glad to hear it.” I reach for the bowl. “Closing early tonight. Storm’s turning.” It was ‘something else’ thirty minutes ago too. Now it’s an empty bowl and a guy who won’t take a hint.
I sent Delilah and Ulf home an hour ago when Environment Canada’s “residual snowfall” warning turned into a full-blown blizzard. But Paisley Tie here, he’s been nursing the dregs of his beer like it holds the secret to eternal life.
The wind howls outside, rattling the windows. He glances toward the storm. “Nasty out there. Might just have to wait it out.”
Not in my bar, you’re not. “I’ve got a great relationship with the local taxi services. They’ll send a snowmobile if they have to.”
The mechanical wolf Delilah insisted we install dominates the far corner, its burgundy and gold paint job gleaming in the low light.
Beside it, the jukebox is pumping out The Black Keys.
The fast, relentless bass line of “Howlin’ for You” vibrates through the floorboards, thrumming right up into the soles of my boots.
I wish I could strap Paisley to the wolf’s back and launch him out into the snow in time with the snare drum.
The front door bangs open, blasting in a swirl of frigid air and ice crystals that nearly swallows the guitars.
Without turning, my eyes still locked on Paisley, I snap, “We’re closed.”
“I’ll be quick.”
My shoulders tense. The voice is low and rough-edged, and the sound of it crawls right under my skin and makes the hair on my arms stand up.
No.
Slowly, I turn my head.
Gabriel Castellano stands in the doorway, melting snow making his dark hair stick to his forehead. His cheekbone is bruised, a split cutting through his bottom lip. He’s holding a velvet box that screams expensive, and his gaze is fixed on me, unreadable.
My stomach plummets.
Paisley startles, his chair scraping against the floor. “Wow, look at the time,” he says, suddenly in a hurry. He starts fumbling with his coat. “Weather looks like it’s really setting in. I should, uh.…”
But he doesn’t leave. He freezes, his eyes glued to the scene unfolding, to the velvet box in Gabriel’s hand. A spectator to my own personal hell.
Gabriel steps inside, letting the heavy door slam shut against the storm. Snow clings to his expensive wool coat. “Martin Westfield sent me.”
“And you just jumped to do his bidding? Good boy.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t rise to the bait.
He walks toward me, dripping melted snow onto my clean floor.
His gaze flicks to Paisley for a fraction of a second, a flicker of annoyance there, before returning to me.
“He wanted me to deliver this,” he says, holding out the box.
“A belated partnership appreciation gift.”
I just stare at it. At him. The man who destroyed my dreams, standing here like a delivery boy for the man who now holds my bar’s future in his hands.
“How thoughtful,” I say coolly. “You can tell Mr. Westfield I’m overwhelmed by his generosity.”
Gabriel winces, and I see something flash in his eyes—shame, maybe.
Good. His gaze darts toward Paisley again, who is now inching toward the door, his phone suddenly in his hand, angled just so.
Gabriel’s expression hardens for a split second.
He’s probably pissed he has an audience for this little errand.
“Well, I’d better be going,” Paisley chirps, pocketing his phone with a click that sounds too loud in the tense silence. “Thanks for the stew, Ivy. See you around.”
He practically scuttles out the door, leaving me alone with him.
Gabriel’s attention is back on me, his stare intense. “Look, Ivy—”
“Ms. Hayes,” I correct sharply.
“Ms. Hayes,” he amends, his tone carefully neutral. “Westfield values the partnership between the Wolves and The Penalty Box. He wanted to express his appreciation personally, but couldn’t make it tonight due to other commitments.”
The corporate jargon sounds rehearsed and hollow coming from him. Gabriel Castellano, reduced to a messenger boy with a script. It would be almost satisfying if it wasn’t so pathetic.
“So he sent you instead? What an honor.” My voice drips with sarcasm. “I’m supposed to be grateful that he gets the golden boy himself to hand-deliver his corporate gifts?”
Something shifts in his expression—a crack in the carefully constructed mask.
He opens his mouth, but before he can speak, a massive gust of wind slams into the building, rattling the panes so hard the glass actually groans.
I jump, my gaze darting past his shoulder.
I’d been so hyper-focused on glaring a hole into Paisley’s skull for the last hour, and then so completely thrown by Gabriel walking through my door, that I hadn’t realized how violently the ambient noise of the pub had shifted.
Whistler gets heavy snow all the time, but the usual winter whistle has mutated into a relentless roar.
The snow is blowing sideways, aggressively stacking against the lower panes in thick, heavy drifts.
Gabriel starts again, raising his voice to project over the howling wind and the heavy, synth-laced beat of Franz Ferdinand spilling from the corner. “I’m not—”
The overhead lights and the jukebox die at the exact same fraction of a second.
The sudden failure of the power grid chops his sentence in half and plunges us into complete darkness.
Without music, the energy is sucked right out of the room, leaving a ringing vacuum in the air.
For a long, suspended moment, there’s nothing but the harsh drag of our breathing and the violent shriek coming from outside.
Then the emergency lights kick in, bathing the bar in an eerie red glow.
“Perfect,” I mutter, squinting to make out Gabriel’s silhouette. “Just perfect.”
He sets the velvet box on the nearest table and moves to the window, peering outside. The building creaks under the storm’s assault.
I dig behind the bar for the flashlight I keep for emergencies. My fingers brush cobwebs before feeling the metallic cylinder.
“Looks like the storm’s picked up. Power’s probably out across the village.”
“Thanks for the weather report.” I click its on switch. Nothing happens; dead batteries. I swear under my breath, fishing for spare batteries in the cabinet under the register—unsure if we have any. “Whistlerites see snow like Vancouverites see rain. I’m not too—”
A shrill screech interrupts, drowning me out. Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt. My stomach sinks, recognizing the blaring alert from our phones. I glance down, dread pooling low as I read the warning flashing on my screen.
BC EMERGENCY ALERT: BLIZZARD WARNING UPGRADED. TRAVEL NOT ADVISED. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY.
Gabriel pulls out his phone, reading the memo. His face is lit in icy blue as he scrolls, brows pinched together. I almost chuckle at the concern on his face. I closed early as a precaution, not because I was worried. We’re no stranger to snowstorms up on the mountain.
“Son of a bitch,” he mutters.
“What?”
“Highway’s closed. Plows suspended.”
“That’s…impossible.” The temperature is dropping by the minute.
I look toward the window, mesmerized by the flurried whiteout.
Through the glass, the street is a snowbank mid-swell, swallowing the curb.
Cobblestones, curbs, streetlamps—all of it gone under the same white in the course of twenty minutes. Less.
“They’re calling it a once-in-a-century event.” He angles his phone towards me.
I take a sharp breath. Once-in-a-century. I step closer and read: Highway 99 closed until further notice…Sea-to-Sky corridor shut down…Village of Whistler under extreme weather emergency protocols.
A gust slams into the building. Somewhere outside, wood screams—a tree splitting. The emergency lights flicker and hum, casting everything in a sickly red.
“Fuck.” Gabriel paces a tight line toward the front entrance, hands buried in his hair. “Perfect timing.”
Breath plumes white between us.
“Lucky me,” I say, hugging myself. “Snowed in with the guy I hate most.”
He turns at that—fast, like it stung. His mouth opens. Closes. He swallows once, dark amber eyes searching my face.
“You think this is easy for me?” he asks, voice low and scraped raw, like the words cost him something to drag out. “Being here. With you.”
I want to throw it back at him—good, suffer—but the edge in his tone stops me cold. He meant it, and he knows I heard it. The admission sits uncomfortably in the space between us, uninvited and impossible to ignore.
“It’s not a competition,” I finally manage. The chill is seeping through the walls now, creeping across the floorboards. “But if it were, I’d still win.”
He angles back to the glass, shoulders rigid, as if looking hard enough might carve a path through the whiteout—or give him an excuse not to look at me.
The silence stretches taut, a wire pulled to snapping. Then—another crack, like thunder rolling on the wrong frequency, deeper this time, closer. The emergency lights dip, flicker, and recover with a strained hum.
Right on cue, my stomach lets out a hollow, demanding rumble.
I wince, wrapping my arms tighter around my ribs. I haven’t eaten anything since a handful of fries at noon, and between the adrenaline crash and the rapidly dropping temperature, I’m suddenly lightheaded.
“We need heat,” I say, dragging air down my throat that pricks enough to sting. “And food. We might be here a while.”
He nods once, his posture shifting into something practical. “Tell me what you need me to do.”