Chapter 3 #2
Maya stood in the doorway, backlit by the small nightlight I kept plugged in. Her hair was mussed from sleep, and my shirt hung off one shoulder. She looked tiny and rumpled and absolutely adorable.
“Hey,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I was up.” I stayed in the kitchen doorway, giving her space. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m a bit thirsty. And I smelled cookies?” She smiled sleepily. “Tell me I didn’t dream the cookies.”
“No dream. Chocolate chip. Want one?”
“I’ll start with one, but I want several, honestly.”
I grabbed the plate from the counter and brought it to the living room, gesturing for her to sit. She curled up on the couch again, tucking her feet under her, and I handed her the plate before settling into my chair.
She bit into a cookie and made a sound that I absolutely was not going to think about in any inappropriate context.
“Oh my God,” she mumbled around the mouthful. “These are amazing. Why didn’t you tell me you could bake?”
“Didn’t come up. We’re usually too busy arguing about optimal skill rotations.”
“True.” She took another cookie, studying me in the dim light. The only illumination came from the dying fire and the glow from my gaming setup across the room. “Can I ask you something?”
My stomach tightened. “Sure.”
“Why were you out in the storm? You said you saw my crash, but that seems like quite a coincidence.”
“Not really. I always check the roads when storms hit this hard. Make sure nobody’s stranded, clear any fallen branches, that kind of thing.” I leaned back in my chair, making myself relax. “It’s part of living up here. We look out for each other.”
“So you regularly patrol mountain highways during blizzards?”
“Somebody has to. The police can’t be everywhere, and if someone needs help, first responders need the roads as clear as possible. Besides, I’ve got the build for it.” I gestured at myself. “Cold doesn’t bother me like it does humans. And I know these roads better than anyone.”
Maya was quiet for a moment, cookie forgotten in her hand. “You saved my life.”
“I was in the right place at the right time.”
“Geoff.” She said my name firmly, making me look at her. “You could have stayed home. Stayed warm and safe. But you went out in that storm on the chance that someone might need help. You saved my life. I’m allowed to be grateful for that.”
The way she looked at me made my chest ache. “You’re welcome,” I said quietly.
“How often do you find people?”
“Not often. Maybe once a winter, twice if we’re having a harsh season.
Usually it’s tourists who underestimate the weather or locals who push their luck.
” I remembered the gut-wrenching fear when I’d seen her car, the sedan’s lights barely visible through the snow.
“When I saw your car,” he paused, “I don’t know. Something told me to hurry.”
“Instinct?”
“Maybe. Yeti senses are pretty good. We have better hearing, a better sense of smell, better intuition about weather and danger.” I didn’t mention that her scent had hit me before I’d even reached her car, that some part of me had known it was her even before I’d seen her face. That felt like too much to admit.
Maya finished her cookie, licking chocolate from her fingers. “Tell me about being a Yeti. I mean, if you want to. I know I could just search online, but I’d rather hear it from you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything?” She smiled. “But that’s a lot. Maybe start with the basics. I don’t want to make assumptions or be accidentally offensive.”
I thought about where to start. “Fundamentally, we’re not actually that different from humans. We form communities, have families, fall in love. We just look different and have some physical advantages, namely strength, cold resistance, enhanced senses.”
“How enhanced?”
“I can hear your heartbeat from here. I can smell the chocolate on your breath. If I went outside right now, I could track your footprints from a few days ago, assuming snow hadn’t covered them.” I paused. “It’s not creepy, I promise. It’s how I experience the world.”
“It doesn’t sound creepy. It sounds kind of amazing, actually.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “What about the cold? You said it doesn’t bother you.”
“Not the way it bothers humans. I can feel it, but it's more informative than uncomfortable. At around negative forty, negative fifty, I start getting cold.” I pointed to the window. “This is refreshing.”
“That's wild. I was dying out there.”
“You’re not built for it. All the humans I’ve met are tropical creatures.
You need layers and shelter and heat.” I’d almost lost her to that, to her human fragility.
The thought made my hands clench on the arms of the chair.
“That’s why I was so worried when I found you. Hypothermia can set in fast.”
Maya studied me with her sharp, intelligent eyes. “You were scared.”
It wasn’t a question. “Yes.”
“For me specifically, or just for whoever you’d found?”
I met her gaze. “For you specifically.”
The admission hung in the air between us. Maya’s expression softened. “We’re friends,” she said, her voice low. “Of course you were scared.”
Friends. Right. That’s what we were.
“Yeah,” I said. “Friends.”
She yawned again, wider this time. “Sorry. I slept earlier, but I’m still exhausted.”
“You’ve been through a lot.” I stood, taking the cookie plate. “Go back to bed. We can talk more tomorrow.”
Maya unfolded herself from the couch, padding across the floor in my too-big socks. At the hallway entrance, she paused. “Geoff?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad it was you. Who found me, I mean. I’m glad it was you.”
My heart did something complicated in my chest. “Me too.”
She smiled and disappeared down the hallway. I heard her door close, heard the bed creak as she settled back in.
I stood in the living room for a long time, holding a plate of cookies, feeling like my entire world had shifted on its axis.
Maya was here. In my cabin. Wearing my clothes. Smiling at me as if I were someone worth smiling at. Saying she was glad I’d found her.
And I had no idea what I was supposed to do with any of that.
I cleaned up the kitchen again, banked the fire, and checked the windows and doors. Normal cabin routine, except nothing felt normal anymore.
Back at my gaming setup, I stared at the monitors without seeing them. Tank’s words echoed in my head: ‘This is your chance.’
But a chance for what? To ruin the best friendship I’d ever had by admitting I wanted more? To scare her away by being too much, too intense, too other?
Or a chance to see if maybe, possibly, she might feel the same way?
I thought about the way she’d looked at me when I’d carried her inside. The way she’d made jokes about my username instead of being disgusted or afraid. The way she’d said my name, Geoff, like she was trying it out, seeing how it felt.
The way she’d touched my arm in the bathroom, her small hand on my fur, no hesitation at all.
Outside, the storm raged on, trapping us here together. Just us and the mountain and time enough to figure out what this was, what it could be.
I was terrified.
I was hopeful.
I was, as Tank had so eloquently put it, completely screwed.
But as I finally headed to my room, I couldn’t help smiling because Maya was here.
She was safe and warm and sleeping down the hall.
Tomorrow we’d wake up and have breakfast and probably game together, just like we’d done a hundred times before, except this time I’d get to see her face when she laughed.
Tomorrow could bring whatever it wanted.