Everything Between Us (8 page)

Maybe he won’t show up. That would be okay. I wouldn’t be upset. I mean, I’m here, alone, and apparently there’s a blizzard descending on us, but this house is solid and safe and nothing can hurt me as long as I stay inside.

I call my mom. Her phone goes straight to voicemail. I call my dad. Same thing.

Don’t they know they’ve left me here by myself?

No, because they don’t talk to each other.

So who am I supposed to call if there’s an emergency?

911. Are you stupid?

I cover my face and tell myself to calm. The fuck.
Down
. I am almost twenty-one, for God’s sake. I’m smart, too. I can think my way through this—as long as the panic doesn’t take over.

“I won’t let it,” I say aloud as I pace. Then I go to the family room and switch on the TV. It’s all storm, all the time. The weather guy looks positively orgasmic about the possibility of snowfall records and widespread power outages due to ice and wind.

Power outages?

What would I do if there was a power outage?

Flashlights. Batteries. Candles. Matches. I scurry throughout the house, feeling faint and dizzy and desperate, scrounging in the utility closet, gathering everything that I might need while telling myself not to freak out. I line the stuff up on the kitchen island. It’s going to be fine.

“Stella?”

I scream before I register the familiar sound of Daniel’s voice.

“Stella!” His footsteps are heavy in the hallway. He must have gone to the enclosed porch and seen I wasn’t there. He comes tearing into the kitchen, his eyes wide, his hair disheveled. His beanie cap is lying in the hall behind him. “Are you okay?”

My hand on my stomach, I start to laugh. I’ve never been more relieved to see anyone in my life. I want to run over to him and throw my arms around his neck, but I don’t. He wouldn’t want me to. His friendly-but-distant behavior over the past few days has made that really clear. “You startled me, that’s all.”

He grins. “Sorry. This house is huge, and I didn’t know where to find you.”

“What are you doing here?”

He checks his phone. “It’s a few minutes after ten? This is where I’m supposed to be.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Haven’t you seen the news?”

He raises his, mirroring my expression. “Yes?”

“Storm of the century, headed our way?”

“I think I heard something like that. But it’s pretty early in the century, so I thought it was kind of hyperbolic to call it—”

He’s making me laugh again. “Daniel! I thought you’d be staying home.”

He shrugs. “The lesson’s already paid for, and I
always
deliver.”

God, I hate when he says things like that, things that have a double-meaning, especially when he gives me a wicked smile that tells me he did it on purpose. My mind always skips over the innocent interpretation and straight to the one that makes my cheeks burn. A few days ago, I realized what this was, why I didn’t send him packing when I could have, why I care whether he’s worried or happy. I have developed a
bit
of a crush on Daniel, but I know how stupid that is. I have crushes on Henry Cavill and Ian Somerhalder, too, so I recognize a fruitless craving when I feel it.

“Seriously, you should go home before the roads get really bad,” I say. “I tried to call the co-op to tell you that, but there was no one there. Is it closed?”

He looks a little sheepish. “It might be.”

Why did you come here?
I want to ask, but Daniel never gives anything away if he doesn’t want to. “So what do I have to do to get you to leave?”

“Haven’t we been down this road before and established that the answer is … nothing? You can’t get rid of me.”

Somehow, his being here has chased away all the panic I was feeling this morning, replacing it with this unsteady, bubbly kind of excitement. I try to stomp it down, because he’ll be gone in an hour at the most, and then I’ll have to deal. “We’d better get sketching, then,” I say in my best casual voice.

His gaze lingers on my face for a few seconds, satisfaction in his eyes, and then he turns on his heel and heads down the hall, scooping up his cap on the way. I follow him, trying not to admire the rear view. But he looks really freaking good in his jeans, and it’s hard to look away. He opens his sketchpad and lays it on the floor, so we each have a full page. We started this a few days ago—we lie on our bellies and draw. I’ve never been that good sitting at a table. I like to be stretched out when I read, as long as I’m feeling relaxed. Maybe Daniel sensed that, because this was his idea. He takes off his jacket and hangs it over a chair, then lowers himself to the floor.

I do the same. We’re only a foot away from each other. This hour of the day has rapidly become the one I look forward to the most, for this exact reason. We prop ourselves up on our elbows and joke back and forth while we sketch. His always looks ten times better than mine, but he has yet to make fun of me. I think I might be getting a little better, even. Today he lays a picture from a magazine out above the sketchpad. It’s a car on a highway, sleek, clean lines. “I figured you might be getting tired of trees,” he says.

“Mmhmm,” I say, breathing in his scent. It’s not particularly strong, just soap and the faintest hint of male sweat, but I like it. A lot. “This doesn’t look too hard.”

He chuckles. “It’s harder than it looks.” He gives me a sidelong glance that sticks. God, his eyes are so blue. “But I think I can talk you through it.”

“Okay,” I whisper, the swooping feeling in my belly stealing all my volume. This is ridiculous, really. I’m setting myself up for hurt. The extent of my experience with guys is a few awkward dates in high school. Wellesley’s an all-female school, and I never went to the parties at Harvard or MIT, which are the places you had to go if you wanted to find a guy. I am the virginiest of virgins, and Daniel is … I don’t have a word for him, because man-whore sounds simple and sleazy to me now, and he’s more complicated than that, especially in the way he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s complicated.

I start to work on my sketch, drawing the outline of the car in the lightest strokes. Daniel makes a noise in his throat that freezes me in place. “Got something to say over there?” I ask sharply, nudging his muscular shoulder with mine before pulling back quickly.

He nudges me back. “You’re trying to draw it as if you were looking at it straight on. Your brain thought ‘car’ and automatically adjusted it to a familiar angle. But look—” He touches the hood of the car in the picture. “The camera is higher than the car, angled down, and slightly behind it. You have to force your mind to see and draw it how it
is
, which means letting go of preconceptions.”

“You’re treading perilously close to Jedi territory.”

“You must unlearn what you have learned,” he says in a perfect Yoda voice.

I snort. It just comes out of me, and that makes me laugh even harder. This is my life. I’m lying next to the hottest guy, and instead of being the slightest bit seductive, I sound like a piglet. And yet … I don’t really care. My eyes are wet with tears, but the good kind. “That was really excellent,” I say between gasps.

Daniel has put his pencil down. He’s watching me, like he’s just enjoying the view. If he reached for me, I’d let him touch me. If I was brave enough to reach for him, I would. Instead, I roll to the side, splayed out away from him, and close my eyes and smile. “You must learn control!” I say in a Yoda voice of my own, talking mostly to myself.

“Help you I can,” Daniel-Yoda replies, his voice shaky with laughter.

“Decide you must, how to serve …
me
best.” All right, that’s not an accurate quote, and my Yoda voice is slipping, but it was the best I could do under pressure.

Daniel’s phone chirps. My stomach drops, my happiness slipping away instantly. It’s eleven. He turns off his alarm and raises his head to look out the windows. “Wow,” he says.

It’s pretty much a whiteout. Huge, wet clumps of snow cling to the glass walls, and beyond that it’s impossible to see more than a few feet. “You shouldn’t have come,” I say in a small voice, feeling guilty for having enjoyed the last hour so much.

“It’s okay,” he replies, slowly getting to his feet.

I ignore my churning stomach as he packs his supplies and shuts his toolbox. “Would you do me a favor?” I ask.

“What do you need?”

“Call me when you get home? I’d like to know you’re safe.” I won’t make it through this storm if I’m worrying whether he’s in a ditch at the side of the road, freezing to death. He shouldn’t have come here in the first place.

He searches my expression, looks me up and down like he’s trying to figure something out. “Yeah,” he finally says. He pauses for a few seconds, then heads for the hallway, and I follow because I can’t stand to be alone just yet.

“Do you have a lot of work left to do on your paintings?” I ask, needing to hear his voice.

“Varnishing, mostly. But it takes time.” We reach the mud room and peer through the swirling snow at his car, which is covered in a thick layer of white.

“Be careful,” I whisper.

He doesn’t look at me. He nods, and then his jaw clenches. “See you Monday.” He shoves the door open and jogs into the blizzard, and I blink flakes off my eyelashes as the door swings shut again. I put my hand on the thick glass pane as Daniel grabs an ice scraper from his passenger seat and gets to work. I feel so stupid, standing here in my warm house while he struggles out there. My winter boots are on the mat, and I go over to them, my heart pounding. If I were normal, I could just slip them on, grab my coat, and go help him. But the last time I went outside, it felt like a belt had been wrapped around my chest, like each step away from the front door was pulling it tighter. Since then, it feels like an invisible wall has come down between me and the outside world, and now Daniel is on the other side of it.

His cap and shoulders are covered in snow by the time he finishes scraping the ice off his car and dives into the driver’s seat. The headlights switch on, two yellow cones of brightness illuminating the fat, heavy flakes dancing in the air. I clench my fists and then turn around and walk quickly out of the mudroom. I don’t slow down until I’ve reached the kitchen, and my breath is huffing from my lungs like I’m the one who just shoveled off a car in a blizzard.

My hands shake as I stand in the open pantry and pull down the cake flour. I set the big jar of it on the counter and go back for the baking powder and sugar. My fingers are a bit steadier as I reach for my measuring spoons and flour sifter, the mixing bowl, the measuring cups. My mind can’t handle anything more complicated than sugar cookies as I think about Daniel driving on the icy roads, trying to make it back to town. He came out here because he felt obligated, and now he’s risking his life to get back. I wish he hadn’t come. Being alone is better than thinking of him getting hurt.

I squeeze my eyes shut as a gust of wind rattles against the windows, crusting the screens with glittering snow. “He’ll be okay,” I tell myself as I try to slow my breathing. “He’d laugh at you if he saw you now.”

I’m taking butter from the refrigerator when the lights flicker and die. Fear coils around me and I slam the door harder than I should, making the contents inside rattle. My fingers are curled over the handle, white as the snow outside. They feel like they’ve been glued there by my panic. I look down at the stick of butter clutched in my other hand. It’s melting from the heat of my fear.

“Stop it,” I say from between gritted teeth. “There is absolutely nothing to be worried about.” I know that. I
know
that. But it takes a lot of effort to set the butter on the counter and release the fridge handle. Then I stand there in the nearly-dark kitchen, looking at my own fingers as my vision goes a little swimmy. I wait for the power to come back on, barely breathing as I realize it probably won’t, not for a long time.

A door slams. I flinch. “Stella?” Daniel calls.

I swallow hard. “Yeah?” I whisper, trying to pull myself together while simultaneously wishing I could sink through the floor.

His footsteps clomp down the hall. “I got stuck in the driveway.”

The news jolts some volume into my voice. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

“Totally fine. Just stuck.” He pulls off his cap as he reaches the kitchen, his blue eyes skating over me. Then he gives me a charming smile. “Mind if I stay for a while? At least until it lets up a bit?”

“The power’s out,” I say, my voice breaking.

He doesn’t take his eyes off me. “I can see that.”

 His presence is like a ray of the warmest sunshine, melting the icy layer of panic that had encased me. I’m not sure how he does it, but though he hasn’t changed the circumstances at all, Daniel makes me feel safe. “I guess you can stay a while,” I say, a smile pulling at my lips. “I mean, I’m not
sure
if there’s enough room in this house for the two of us, but we could try to make it work.”

He shakes his head, smiling, and then his fists clench. “So …”

“Hungry?” When in doubt, I feed people. “I was going to make cookies, but that’s not going to happen. I think we have … crackers?”

He walks forward until we’re only a foot apart. At five-eleven, I’m taller than a lot of guys, but Daniel’s the perfect height. I can look him right in the lips. Well. Maybe not perfect, because now I can’t look away. The corners of his mouth are twitching. “I’m
totally
in the mood for crackers,” he says.

I tear my gaze from his devastating smile. “Excellent.” I head back to the pantry in a daze.

“Have you called your parents?” he asks as we create a platter of crackers for ourselves. I’m at the cutting board, slicing apples and pears. We’ve also nabbed a jar of olives and a bag of sugared pecans. Willa wasn’t kidding when she said the kitchen was stocked.

“I tried. Both of them have their phones off.”

“What?” he asks sharply. “And they haven’t called you?”

“They have their own lives.” I sink my knife into a hapless pear and draw the blade along the board.