Chapter 7 #3
“They’re getting us a tow truck. But it won’t arrive until the afternoon. It won’t be for another 4 hours, at least.”
“Oh, shit.” I say. “Are we just supposed to wait here?” I ask.
“We could walk back,” Dean suggests.
“Are you crazy? It’s freezing!” I’m shocked at the suggestion.
“It’s like a 30-minute walk. We’ll be fine. I’ll walk back on my own when the tow truck is on its way.”
I stare at Dean blankly.
“Why are you acting like this is the silliest idea you’ve ever heard?
You don’t have a license, you walk everywhere back home.
” Dean laughs over my distraughtness, but I guess he has a point.
I do walk practically everywhere, even in our small town where sidewalks don’t always exist. “Get out, let’s go. ”
I begrudgingly get out of the van again.
Dean inserts dollars worth of quarters into the meter, and we turn back towards where the inn is, about two miles across town.
I mentally prepare myself for what is sure to be a long, exhausting walk.
I empty out Dean’s books and record into the van, keeping my own smutty novel for later.
If it really is only a 30-minute walk, I’ll still have plenty of time to get some work done, read a little bit, and to get ready for the concert tonight. I wonder if Dean plans on eating dinner with me tonight.
“Are we eating dinner together tonight?” I ask. We walk side by side on the wide sidewalk, my scarf whipping in the wind again. Dean steps in front of me to tie it for me/
“Do you want to?” He asks, his voice quiet and low.
“Yes, I’d like to,” I say nonchalantly.
“We’ll eat together then. I’ll come back and pick you up after the van is fixed.
They said the autobody shop in town should be able to take care of it today.
” We walk together in silence, but it feels like Dean says so much.
His body language has completely changed from when he first met me.
He’s facing me and he’s looking at me as we walk.
We stand at the corner, getting ready to cross probably the busiest road in the whole town, and when the light changes from yellow to red, just as I’m about to take a step, a car whizzes by, about to swipe my left side, as Dean yanks my sleeve, startling me and pulling me out of the way.
“Sheesh!” I exclaim.
“Madeline, you need to watch where you’re going!” Dean exclaims back, clearly exasperated.
“I saw the car!” I shout. “It’s fine.”
“It’s only fine because I pulled you out of the way,” Dean shakes his head, pulling on my coat sleeve, pulling me closer to him, away from the edge of the sidewalk, so close my back almost touches his chest again.
Even though there’s thick layers of down feathers between us, I can’t help but feel butterflies fluttering again, reminded of how we were in the bookstore.
As soon as the light turns green for us, he releases me and I’m forced to take a step as he starts walking again.
“Come on, now,” Dean tells me, stepping to the side so as to not trip over me.
I look down at his feet, and he’s wearing dress shoes or loafers or something totally hipster and they’re much bigger than I expected.
“You have big feet,” I tell him. “They’re like, clown feet, almost.”
“You’re annoying,” Dean smirks. “And you have small feet. And no filter.”
“Sorry, I didn't mean it in a bad way, I apologize. “You know what they say about big feet.” I start laughing, thinking about the penis diagram from earlier.
“Just keep walking,” Dean deadpan. The wind is cold against my face, even though at this point, the only thing that is exposed are my eyes. Still, the wind kicks up ice and snowflakes that land on my face and coat.
The walk is long—but it’s not as bad as I was expecting until we reach the bottom of the hill where the mansion sits. It’s one thing to drive up it in a van but climbing up it in the snow after walking two and a half miles is no easy feat.
By the time we make it to the front of the mansion, my feet are sore, and I feel like there’s icicles coming from my eyebrows. We rush in through the main doors, and my shoes are globbed with ice and snow from hurrying across the lawn instead of around and through the cleared path.
I immediately take a seat on a sofa in front of the fireplace, which is going steady with a large fire.
Right away, I fan my fingers out in front of the flames to warm them up.
Dean sits next to me, taking off his gloves, breathing heavily from following me at a quick pace.
I look at him and let out a small laugh.
He looks just as rugged as I feel, snow caught in his eyebrows.
“You have ice on your face,” I tell him.
“Where?” He asks, pawing at his face with his gloved hand.
“Here, let me,” I say, reaching towards his brow.
He hesitates, then nods. Although his face is cold, and my hands aren’t much warmer, the sensation of my fingers on his face sends me sizzling and spiraling.
I pick out tiny ice crystals from his black, bushy eyebrows, tossing them onto the floor where they immediately melt into the rug.
The act of picking ice crystals off someone’s face is not particularly intimate or affectionate, but I can’t tell if Dean’s face is pink from the cold or from me touching him.
“There you go. All gone,” I say.
“You have snow in your hair,” Dean says suddenly, needing to get even. He reaches out to pull a chunk of a snowball from my hair that isn’t covered by my hat. “How does this even happen?” He asks. “Were you rolling in the snow?”
“No. You saw me the entire time.” I say, my eyes fixed on his dark pupils.
Something about touching him is absolutely addicting, and the more he caresses my hair, even if just to remove a block of snow, the more I want him to touch me.
I’m totally, completely fascinated by his hands and the way they move when they’re close to me.
Dean places a hand on my knee, testing the waters, and I feel too hot and it’s not because of the fireplace. “I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?” He says. “I’ll come knock on your door.”
“Okay.” I agree, my breath is shaky, as he squeezes my knee and stands up. I watch him as he walks up the stairs, coat in his arms. When he disappears out of view, I hold my head in my hands. What am I getting myself into?