Snowed In (8 page)

“I want to find a summertime drink to offer in the afternoons,” Mom said.

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“How ’bout lemonade?”

“That’s so unoriginal. I was thinking something more unique.” Mom took a bite of the sandwich, which she’d cut into little triangles.

Any other time, I probably would have thought the tiny sandwiches were cute. But I had watching-a-cute-guy on the brain. And cute guy always wins out over cute sandwiches.

“It’s pretty good,” Mom said.

I took a bite. It was.

Mom took a Post-it note and drew three stars on it. She had a cookbook system: three stars—like it, want to serve it again; two stars—it’s okay in a pinch; one star—tried it once, never again. She slapped the Post-it on the page in her
Teatime
cookbook. “One down, about two hundred to go.” I was horrified. “We’re not going to make all those sandwiches, are we?”

“Well, no, not all of them, but we need to have a nice selection, and I certainly don’t want to serve something I haven’t tasted. And then there are all the yummy desserts.”

Speaking of yummy . . .

Now was probably the time to tell Mom that I wanted to cut the teatime short.

The doorbell rang.

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“I’ll get it,” I said, hopping out of the chair.

“Wonder who it could be,” Mom murmured.

It was Nathalie.

“Heard there was going to be a tea party.

Thought you could use rescuing,” she whispered.

How had she heard that? Had my mom talked to hers? Not that it mattered. She was as welcome as a Saint Bernard, following an avalanche.

She peered around me into the hallway. “Hi, Ms. Sneaux.”

“Would you like to join us for tea?” Mom asked.

“Uh, no, actually, the guys are playing volleyball. I thought Ashleigh would like to watch. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” Mom said. “Y’all go have fun.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a quick hug before grabbing my parka from the hall closet. I pulled my knit cap down over my ears and put on my gloves as I followed Nathalie outside.

“Thanks so much,” I said. “We were making finger sandwiches.”

She laughed. “Wait until your mom decides to have a tea tasting.”

We went down the steps. “Excuse me? A tea tasting?”

“Yeah, it’s like a wine tasting, except you serve tea.”

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“Don’t you have to make each type of tea in a different teapot?”

“I guess.”

I couldn’t think of anything that would be more boring.

“Wait until you see my boyfriend play,” Nathalie said as we crossed the street. “He’s really athletic.” She bumped up against me. “And hot.

Quite honestly, he’s the hottest guy on the island.” Someone hotter than Chase and Josh? I couldn’t wait to see this guy. I wondered if some sort of mutant gene had developed on the island that made all the guys good-looking. I mean, really, what were the odds that there wouldn’t be any dorks around here? Let’s hear it for gene mutation.

We went over the knoll and down toward the beach. I could see some guys on either side of the net, playing very seriously. None of them were wearing coats. I wondered which one was Nathalie’s boyfriend. With the exception of a boy who looked like he was about twelve, they were all boyfriend-worthy.

Chase, Josh, and two guys I didn’t know were on one side of the net. Not only were they not wearing coats, they weren’t wearing shirts, either!

How insane was that?

“They have to be freezing!” I said, trying not to 89

notice how buff Josh looked. But it was a little difficult to miss.

And it made sense that he would be totally in shape. Construction work required a lot of heavy lifting. I already knew he was strong. I just didn’t think he’d look
that
great.

Chase wasn’t bad, either. Stirring fudge was apparently excellent exercise.

I felt a tad guilty that my attention kept going back to Josh.

“It’s too hard to play in coats and gloves,” Nathalie said. “The games don’t last long.” No kidding.

Corey and Shanna stood nearby, and we joined them.

“Still not used to the cold?” Corey asked me.

She was holding another coat in her arms. I thought about asking if I could borrow it. It was colder on the beach, because a breeze was blowing off the water.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it,” I confessed. “Are you using that coat?” She laughed. “It’s Chase’s. I’m being a good sister, so it won’t be covered in snow when he’s finished playing.”

“Is your boyfriend playing?”

“Oh, yeah.” She pointed to a guy on the other 90

team wearing a red sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. “That’s Adam. I’d be holding his coat, except he didn’t bring one. And that guy”—she pointed toward a guy who was at least wearing a long-sleeve T-shirt—“is Rand, Shanna’s boyfriend.”

“Are there many guys without girlfriends?” I asked.

“Nope. Just Chase and—”

“Watch out!” someone yelled.

A volleyball came soaring at us. I ducked. The girls laughed.

“Their hands get so cold they can’t control where they hit the ball,” Nathalie said.

“Isn’t there someplace where they could play inside?” I asked.

“What would be the fun in that?” Shanna asked.

But the way the guys were shivering, I wasn’t certain this method was much fun either.

I turned back to Corey, so she could finish giving me the official list of girlfriendless guys, but her cell phone rang and she moved away to answer it.

I thought about asking Shanna or Nathalie but I didn’t want to appear to be obsessing about getting a boyfriend. I mean, I didn’t want a boyfriend.

I was just trying to figure out how many dates I 91

could have before I ran through the menu. Chase.

Maybe Josh. I knew he didn’t have a girlfriend.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have invited me to come watch him play. I hadn’t considered that Chase would be here. I hoped it wouldn’t get awkward after the game. I probably should have mentioned to Josh that I had a date with Chase.

Josh hit the ball over the net. Another guy slapped it back at him.

“My boyfriend is so good,” Nathalie said. “I love watching him.”

So the other guy was her boyfriend. He was okay-looking, not what I’d call the hottest guy on the island. But of course, Nathalie would think that about her boyfriend.

It suddenly occurred to me that she always referred to him as “my boyfriend.” Like he was a thing, a status symbol. Maybe he was in this small community, where there weren’t many guys to choose from.

“Game point!” Chase yelled.

He served the ball. The wind off the cold lake caught it and sent it out of bounds.

All the guys groaned. The one who looked like he was about twelve ran over, grabbed the ball, and threw it to Chase. He adjusted where he stood, tried again, and got it inbounds. After a couple of 92

volleys, it went to Josh. He spiked it.

No one was able to move fast enough to return it. I was surprised they could move at all.

“Game!” Chase yelled.

“My boyfriend needs warming,” Nathalie cried, and she ran toward the players, unzipping her jacket.

Josh turned. He saw me. He grinned. I grinned back, raised my hand—

Nathalie leaped at him, her coat opened wide.

Slipping his arms around her, beneath the coat, he lifted her up and kissed her.

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8

Okaayyy . . . I had not expected that.

I tried not to look surprised, shocked, stunned.

But the truth was, I was all three. And maybe even a little hurt.

I remembered Nathalie saying that her boyfriend could paint my room. Oh, yeah. He could do a lot of things. He was a handyman.

“I could use some warming,” a deep voice said.

I tore my gaze from the couple playing tonsil hockey. Chase was grinning at me like a fool.

“That’s what coats are for,” Corey said, shoving the heavy coat she’d been holding into his arms.

“That’s not as much fun,” he said, but he put the coat on anyway.

“Come on, everyone, let’s go!” Nathalie shouted.

She was walking toward us awkwardly, since Josh’s arm was around her, keeping her anchored to his side. He’d thrown on a bulky sweater and a 94

jacket that he hadn’t bothered to zip.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To my house, to get some hot apple cider and warm up these guys,” Nathalie said.

Josh gave me an odd look as he walked by with Nathalie. The old furrowed brow, like he was trying to figure me out. What was to figure out?

Other than why he hadn’t told me he had a girlfriend.

“You’re coming, right?” Chase asked.

“Oh, sure.”

He walked beside me as we trudged toward Nathalie’s house.

“I hear you’ve been hanging out with my sister,” he said.

“Not really hanging out. We went to the mall together.”

“Like I said, hanging out. Don’t take anything she might say about me seriously, though, okay?”

“You mean I shouldn’t take it seriously when she said you’re the best brother in the whole world?”

“If she said that, then we’ve both dropped into an alternate universe. She’s more likely to tell you to steer clear of me. We have this whole sibling rivalry thing.”

“But she was holding your coat.”

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“Yeah, but I paid her to do it. So you have any sisters or brothers?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah, neither does Nathalie,” he said. “I think she gets lonely. I think it’s one of the reasons she hooked up with a boyfriend so fast, before anyone else had a chance to audition for the role.” It seemed an odd thing to say, until I realized that he was watching her back, more than he was watching anything else. I briefly wondered if his asking me out was to make her jealous.

Up ahead, Nathalie laughed. Josh looked down at her and gave her a quick kiss.

I was beginning to wish I’d stayed at home making finger sandwiches.

Nathalie’s house was warm and cozy, but still I kept my cap and coat on. I didn’t plan to stay long. I did finally remove my gloves, but only because I wanted to wrap my bare hands around a warm mug of apple cider. I’d never had apple cider that tasted like maple syrup. Nathalie had dropped a blob of spiced butter into it. Standing at the edge of the kitchen, with my hip pressed to the counter, I stared at the melting butter, wishing I could disappear as easily.

All these people knew one another. They were laughing and talking about things that didn’t 96

include me, like the first time Josh ever dared to play snow volleyball sans shirt, and the guys on the other team had tossed him into a snow bank.

Laugh, laugh, laugh.

Or the time that old Mrs. Hooper—whoever the heck she was—paid Josh and Chase to clear her attic of bats.

Or how when a group of tourists came over for the day and . . .

Ha! Ha! Ha!

All I could do was smile, nod, and pretend I knew what they were talking about.

Finally, I got tired of listening and backed into the living room. A fire was crackling in the fireplace. My hands were still cold so I walked over to it and knelt. I put my mug on the floor and put my hands near the dancing flames. The wood-burning fire generated a lot of heat. It felt really good and smelled even better.

I knew log fires were a lot of trouble, but I wondered if Mom would consider converting our gas fireplaces to wood-burning ones, for the atmosphere . . . and the warmth.

I was so absorbed that I didn’t know anyone was near until I heard knees pop. Josh crouched beside me.

“You okay?” he asked.

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“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” I didn’t look at him. I was pretending to be dazzled by the fire, because I didn’t want him to see the lie in my eyes.

“I don’t know. You just looked . . . surprised out there when . . . uh . . . Nathalie and I . . . you know.”

Where had the smooth-talking lumberjack gone? He seemed to be as awkward as I felt.

“You never said you had a girlfriend, so yeah, I was a
little
surprised.” I couldn’t bring myself to be totally honest about how it had stunned me, because he might correctly read that I was beginning to have an interest in him that went beyond painting walls.

“But you and Nathalie are friends. Didn’t she tell—”

“That she had a boyfriend, yeah, but she never told me who he was.” I did look at him then. He looked as confused as I probably had out at the volleyball net.

“So, what? She never mentioned me by name?”

“Right. She just said ‘my boyfriend.’ My boyfriend this. My boyfriend that. My boyfriend, my boyfriend, my boyfriend.”

He furrowed his brow deeply. “Huh.”

“Yeah,” I said. I almost added that it was like he 98

was a trophy, but I had a feeling he was already thinking that.

“So, when you and I were talking . . . you didn’t think I was coming on to you, did you?”

“Oh, no, of course not,” I lied.

He seemed to think about that.

“I was just being friendly,” he finally said.

“Me too. Totally.”

“I mean, I have a girlfriend.”

“Which I now know.”

“What if I didn’t?”

I went completely still. Not even breathing. I seemed to do that a lot when he was around.

“What if you didn’t what?”

“Would it make a difference if I didn’t have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t believe in playing what-if games.”

“It’s not a game.”

“It’s not reality, either.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Hey, you two,” Nathalie said, dropping down to the floor so she was sorta wedged between us, and almost sitting in Josh’s lap. “What are you doing?”

“Just trying to get warm,” Josh and I said at the same time.

Weird. Great minds and all that. So if we both 99

thought alike, why didn’t I realize he had a girlfriend? Why hadn’t he figured out that I didn’t know? And why hadn’t Nathalie ever said anything? She had to know he was working at my house.

Nathalie took Josh’s hand and began rubbing it. “His hands stay cold for so long after he plays volleyball. It’s insane, isn’t it? That the guys play winter volleyball half dressed?”

“Totally,” I agreed.