“We don’t have a vault full of gold coins to swim in, if you were hoping to put that on the agenda,” he said, carrying both of our suitcases. His phone buzzed, and he took it out of his pocket. “It’s my dad. Their private plane was diverted into Philadelphia because of the storm. We’re lucky we landed when we did. But that means we’re on our own tonight.”
If this wasn’t the setup for half of my favorite rom-com movies. “Is this where you tell me there’s only one bed?”
He made a confused face and gestured toward the house. “There’s like, fifteen beds.”
Now I was the one saying, “Never mind.” I followed behind him, trying to step in his footprints because while the snow was gorgeous, it was also bitterly cold. A desert girl like me wasn’t used to this, and I hadn’t dressed appropriately. Marco stood in front of the door and waited for a second.
“I hope you’re ready for this. You’d bat a pretty good average in assuming my family is the worst. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Then he put in a key code and opened the door and I quickly went inside with him, trying to ignore the sense of foreboding he’d just caused.
The house was cold, too. I stood there shivering while Marco tried to flip the light switch. “The power’s out.”
“Oh.” I edged closer to him. “That’s not great.”
“You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”
I paused before I answered. “I’m not afraid. But you should know that being afraid of the dark is a reasonable adaptive evolutionary reaction,” I told him.
He laughed. “Let me make a phone call. The staff should know something about this.”
I rubbed my arms while he paced back and forth, talking to someone.
He finished his call. “The housekeeper and the groundskeeper were snowed in earlier today. The storm is supposed to let up in a few hours, and everything should be good to go tomorrow. You and I are on our own tonight.”
So maybe it was fifteen beds instead of just one, but I was definitely seeing the appeal.
I shivered again, hard.
“Why don’t you go upstairs and get changed into some warm clothes and I will get the fire going.”
“You know how to start a fire?”
He gave me a withering look. “It’s not hard.”
“Are you going to chop wood?” I asked hopefully. I would pay to watch that.
“There’s already firewood.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.” I grabbed my suitcase and asked, “Which room is mine?”
He’d started stacking logs in the fireplace. “Our room is the last door on the left.”
I froze in place. “Our room?”
“My family will think it’s weird if you sleep in a different room.”
He was right.
And I wasn’t just saying that because the prospect of sharing a bed with him was very, very appealing.
Huh. Turned out there was only one bed after all.
Despite Marco’s assertion, I wasn’t afraid of the dark. Just slightly uncomfortable with it.
Like now, as I had to go up the stairs and walk down a long, kind of scary hallway. I took my phone out and turned the flashlight on. I tried to think happy thoughts. About Marco.
I reached the end of the hall without incident and was so overrun with images of being snuggled up next to Marco that I couldn’t remember if he’d said the room on the right or the left.
Picking right, I opened the door and walked into what looked like a teenage boy’s room. I set my suitcase down and started to explore. This was probably an invasion of someone’s privacy, but I couldn’t help myself. The room was neat and had been cared for. Probably by the housekeeper Marco had mentioned.
There were tons of bookshelves, and I held my phone up to read the spines. I saw Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Whose room was this?
I went over to a bulletin board, and there were pictures of a teenage Marco. Holding up a fish. On the back of an ATV. Playing outside in the grass with a dog. Sitting in front of a Christmas tree with Craig and baby Lindy.
In a Jedi costume with a plastic pumpkin on Halloween.
I knew it! I started scanning the room more earnestly and found another shelf that had a lightsaber, a stuffed Ewok, and a replica of Boba Fett’s helmet.
On the shelf below that one were a number of trophies and medals, and I assumed they were for sports. But on closer inspection I saw that Marco Kimball had won the state science fair when he was thirteen years old. All the ribbons and awards were for academics. Science, specifically.
There was a diploma on the wall. It was from Harvard, and he had gotten his degree in biochemistry.
No wonder he knew so much about my job.
I would have bet good money that he’d majored in finance. Or business. Nope. Chemistry.
I took out my phone and texted Catalina because I had to tell someone or I was going to burst.
Marco is a huge nerd. I just saw his lightsaber.
She responded immediately.
Is that a euphemism?
I shook my head and wrote back:
No. An actual lightsaber. He’s a dork. And he has a degree in biochemistry!!!
I saw the three dots at the bottom of my screen, and they stayed there for a long time, and so I was surprised when her answer was short.
It’s like he was made just for you.
My heart fluttered at her words, and I looked around his room again. It was like that.
Another text.
Tell him.
I wanted to, but it was too scary. Not just because I was this close to turning Aviary Cosmetics into a reality but because Marco had come to mean too much to me. I didn’t want to risk our friendship, and I was afraid that if I confessed that I cared about him, he would go running the other way.
Maybe I can test the waters, I texted her.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Shaking my head, I responded, Okay, Yoda.
“Did you get lost?” he asked.
I yelped when Marco came into the room. He smelled faintly of woodsmoke, and it was incredibly appealing and added to the whole rugged-outdoorsman thing I was currently picturing for him.
“I couldn’t remember if you said right or left.”
“Left.” He came into the room, looking around like I had, but there was pain on his face. “I haven’t been in here in years. The last time was to hang that.” He pointed at his Harvard diploma.
That thought completely broke my heart. That Marco would come in here just to hang his diploma. Like he was trying to show that he mattered, that his accomplishments were worth paying attention to. “I thought you said your stepmom packed up your room and let Craig move in.”
“That was at the estate in Los Angeles. Not the Vermont house.” He said that like I was the strange one. Of course, at the Vermont house. How silly of me.
I picked up the lightsaber. “Lindy mentioned she had a brother who dressed up for a Star Wars convention, and I thought—”
He finished my sentence. “You automatically assumed she meant Craig.”
I had. Because I had wanted it to be Craig so that we would have at least one thing in common.
“My brother calls Star Wars the one with the big teddy bear and glowing swords. Sorry to burst your bubble.”
“Oh.”
“Speaking of, the fire’s started and I’ve got my laptop. Did you want to hate-watch The Rise of Skywalker again and tell me about how Ben Solo is alive in the World Between Worlds waiting for Rey to rescue him?”