Chapter 5 #2
He didn’t step back, and neither did I. My hand was still in his, and I could feel the calluses on his palm, the careful way he held me like I was something breakable.
“Maya,” he started, his voice low.
My phone buzzed, breaking the silence in the room, making us both jump. The moment shattered as I fumbled for the device, pulling up another text from Heidi: YOUR MOM SAYS YOU CRASHED YOUR CAR??? CALL ME RIGHT NOW.
“I should…” I gestured at the phone. “I haven’t actually called my family.”
“Yeah, of course.” Geoff released my hand and headed to the kitchen, giving me space.
I called Heidi, who immediately launched into a tirade about winter driving and why didn’t I call her and was I okay and did I need her to drive up and murder the weather.
“Heids, come up for a breath. I’m fine,” I assured her, my attention focused on watching Geoff move around the kitchen. “Completely fine. A local found me and gave me shelter. The car’s probably totaled, but I’m not hurt.”
“Define not hurt.”
“Bruised. Sore. Nothing broken.”
“And this local who found you, are you sure they’re trustworthy? You’re safe?”
I looked at Geoff, who was pulling out bread and cheese with careful precision. “Very safe. He’s actually… well, he’s a friend. YetiBeGood.”
“Wait, what?” Heidi’s voice shot up an octave, and I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “Your gaming buddy? The one you’ve been crushing on for a year?”
“I have not been,” I lowered my voice. “I haven’t been crushing on him.”
“Bull. You absolutely have. You get a specific tone when you talk about him. Maya, what’s he like? Is he hot? Please tell me he’s hot. He’s single, right? If he’s hot and nice and single, ask if he’s got a brother. Or a best friend.”
“Heidi,” I groaned.
“Because if you’re snowed in with your online crush, this is literally a romance novel plot. Do not waste this opportunity.”
“Don’t start. It’s not like that. We’re friends.”
“Friends who are now trapped in a cabin together. Alone. During a romantic snowstorm.” She made a sound that was probably her attempt at being mystical. “The universe is handing you a love story. Don’t be stupid. Take it.”
“The universe almost killed me yesterday. I don’t think it’s invested in my love life.”
“Or,” Heidi said in a conspiratorial tone, “it knew the only way to get you two together was dramatic intervention. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“You didn’t cause the blizzard, Heidi.”
“Did I not?” She paused and laughed. “Okay, no, I didn’t. But I’m claiming credit anyway. Now hang up and go flirt with your mountain man.”
“He’s not,” I started, but she’d already hung up.
I stared at my phone, Heidi’s words echoing in my head. Was I that obvious about my feelings? Had Geoff noticed? More to the point, with his advanced hearing, had he heard Heidi’s part in our conversation?
“Everything okay?” Geoff called from the kitchen.
“Yeah, just Heidi being Heidi.” I joined him at the counter, where he was assembling sandwiches. “She’s convinced the universe is conspiring to set us up.”
I said it like a joke, trying to keep things light. But Geoff’s hands stilled on the bread, and when he looked at me, his expression was unreadable.
“Would that be so bad?” he asked quietly.
My heart stopped. “What?”
“The universe conspiring.” He set down the butter knife, turning to face me. “Would that be so bad?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Had no idea what to say. Was he asking what I thought he was asking? Or was I reading too much into it?
“I,” I started.
“Sorry.” He turned back to the sandwiches, his ears twitching. “I made it weird. Forget I said anything.”
“Geoff.”
“Grilled cheese coming right up.” His voice sounded forcibly cheerful now, the vulnerable moment packed away. “Want tomato soup with it? I make it from scratch in big batches. I’ve got some frozen. All I have to do is reheat it.”
“Sure. Sounds great,” I said, because what else could I say? My brain was short-circuiting, trying to process what had just happened.
Had Geoff implied he was interested? Or had I completely misread that?
We worked in silence for a few minutes, him cooking, me setting the table. The easy comfort from earlier was gone, replaced by a tension that made my skin feel too tight.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I didn’t mean to make things weird.”
“You didn’t. I did.” He ladled soup into bowls. “It’s been nice having you here. I don’t want to mess it up by being inappropriate.”
“You’re not being inappropriate.”
“I asked if you’d mind the universe setting us up.”
“And I didn’t answer, which was rude of me.” I took a breath. “The answer is no. It wouldn’t be bad.”
Geoff froze, his back to me. “Maya.”
“I mean, it would be complicated. Obviously. Less complicated now that we both live in Calamity Creek, but we’d have to figure out the whole species difference thing, and I haven’t even moved into my apartment.
” I rambled on, my nervous energy on full display.
“But the core question of would I mind? No. I wouldn’t mind. Not at all.”
He turned around slowly, soup forgotten. “You wouldn’t?”
“Geoff, I’ve been talking to you almost every day for three years.
You make me laugh. You’re kind and thoughtful and you remember my coffee order and you carried me through a blizzard and made me hot chocolate and let me wear your hoodie.
” I gestured at the garment in question.
“It’s really comfortable, by the way. You’re basically perfect except for your terrible puns. ”
“My puns are excellent.”
“They’re awful.”
“They’re exquisitely awful.”
And just like that, we were smiling at each other across his kitchen, the tension from before long gone.
“So,” he said. “We’re admitting there’s something here? Something between us?”
“I think we have to. It’s kind of there whether or not we admit it.”
“Fair.” He moved closer, around the kitchen island, until he was standing in front of me. “For the record, I’ve been into you for at least a year. Maybe longer.”
“Really?”
“Really. I figured you wouldn’t want a relationship. Yeti, human, online friendship. Seemed like too many obstacles.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re here. And you’re wearing my favorite hoodie. And you said I’m basically perfect. Which is fantastic for my ego, and I might never let you live that down.” His smile was soft, hopeful. “Now it seems like maybe the obstacles aren’t as big as I thought.”
I reached up, hesitant, and touched his arm. His fur was incredibly soft under my fingers. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before? About being a Yeti?”
His expression grew serious. “Fear, mostly. You were the only person who just saw me as me. I didn’t want to risk that. And I knew once you knew what I was, everything would change.”
“It hasn’t changed.”
“Hasn’t it? You’re looking at me differently now. Touching me differently. Being careful.”
He was right; I realized. I was being careful, but not because I was afraid, but because I was now aware of him in a way I hadn’t been through a headset.
Every detail felt significant, from the texture of his fur to the warmth of his skin beneath.
The way his breath hitched when my fingers traced up his forearm.
“Maybe it has changed a little,” I admitted. “But not in a bad way. It’s more now.”
“More?”
“More real. More…” I searched for the right word. “Present. You’re here and no longer a voice through my headset and I can touch you and see you and it’s overwhelming in the best way.”
His hand came up to cup my cheek, so large his palm spanned the entire side of my face. “You’re overwhelming me too," he said, his voice low. “I’ve imagined meeting you a thousand times, but reality is so much better. You’re so much better.”
We stood there in his kitchen, sandwiches growing cold, soup cooling on the stove, the storm’s aftermath glittering outside like a winter wonderland. For the first time since the crash, I felt like I could breathe properly.
While this wasn’t how I’d planned to meet him, maybe Heidi was right. Maybe the universe knew what it was doing.
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“Now we eat an even later lunch before it gets completely cold.” He stepped back, the moment breaking but not shattering. “And then maybe we talk about where we go from here. What we could be.”
“I’d like that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
We ate our lunch at his oversized dining table, sitting closer than necessary, knees brushing under the table. The conversation flowed. We talked about everything imaginable, about the convention getting rescheduled, about my new apartment in town, about his search and rescue work.
After lunch, we migrated back to the couch with the plan to continue gaming.
But we ended up just talking instead. I asked so many questions about his childhood in Alaska, about my family and my lack of knowledge of cold weather, about the first time we’d met online and how neither of us could have predicted where it would lead.
“I was so nervous on that first raid,” Geoff admitted. “Tank said his friend was joining the guild, and she was fantastic but kind of intimidating.”
“I’m not intimidating!”
“You absolutely are. You joined voice chat and immediately started analyzing everyone’s builds, and I thought, ‘oh no, she’s going to hate how I play.’”
"Your build was actually very good.”
“You said it was ‘adequate with room for optimization.’”
“That’s a compliment!”
“Try terrifying!” But he was laughing, and so was I, and somehow we’d ended up even closer on the couch, his arm along the back, my shoulder tucked against his side.
Everything felt natural.
Outside, the sun was starting to set; the snow covered in shades of orange and pink from the sun’s fading rays. The cabin was warm and cozy, and I was sitting next to someone who made me feel seen in ways I’d never experienced before.
“Maya,” Geoff said, his voice low and serious.
I looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“I don’t want this to end when the storm clears. When you go to your apartment in town and I come back here and we go back to just being voices through a headset.”
“Me neither.”
“So we figure it out? Whatever this is, we’ll figure out how to make it work?”
I thought about all the reasons it could be complicated.
The distance wasn’t an issue anymore. I’d be about twenty minutes by car.
Having no car could be a problem. Our species difference didn’t matter, especially in my new town.
Even though our relationship was new, we’d known each other for years.
Or I could focus on my gut instinct. I was happy here. With him. At this moment. And I wanted more moments like it.
“We’ll figure it out,” I agreed.
His smile made me melt. “Good. Because I’m not letting you go that easily.”
“Possessive much?”
“You have no idea.”
And the way he said it, warm and certain and just a little bit feral, sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
I was going to do it. I was going to seize the moment and take my chance with Geoff.
Heidi was going to lose her mind when I told her.