Page 125 of Jaded

“See?” He flops straight back onto his pillow. “My morning breath did change your mind.”

“No, my empty stomach did.” I shift off the wall, and before he can slip away this time, I tug him against me. “You’re the one who didn’t want to be kissed.”

And then I slide out from under the covers. Head for the door.

I just catch his muttered words behind me. “The view would be so much better without the jeans.”

Laughing, I push through the door.

By the time he reaches the kitchen, I’m halfway through frying eggs, toasting bread, and hunting down plates in his incredibly disorganized kitchen.

“Isn’t it kinda late for breakfast?”

I turn at the hum of his voice, pan in hand. “You didn’t put anything away logically.”

“Organization isn’t my strong suit.” He pauses beside the kitchen table to stretch his arms high overhead. He’s donned a white TriviumT-shirt and grey sweatpants, and the gesture lifts the shirt up enough to give me a glimpse of dark skin between his low-slung pants and shirt.

I turn back to the stove. “I found a pan but not plates.”

“Oh. Um.” Olli scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, I think they might be . . . Be right back.”

He scurries away down the hall, reappears a moment later with a stack of plates in hand. “So, let’s never talk about that.”

“Right.” I dump eggs onto the top plate. “Instead, you can tell me where we’re going hiking.”

“Hik—what?” He sets the stack of plates down on the counter with a crack. “Isn’t there afternoon practice?”

“No.” I shift the top plate off the stack so I can pile the rest of the eggs onto the second plate, thrust it into his chest. “I told Coach you were still sick. There’s no way you should be back on the ice. We’re going hiking instead.”

He stumbles back a step, his face unreadable as he stares down at the plate of eggs half embedded into his shirt. Like he’s trying to unravel what I’ve said, or formulate a response, or maybe an argument.

When he finally speaks, the words are quiet. “Why are you here, Nat?”

“Because I want to be.” Silence follows in the wake of those words, broken only by the scrape of chair legs as I pull one out to sit. “Because . . .”

That word hangs. Because why? Why am I here? Because he needed me, and somehow I knew that? Or because I needed him, because I couldn’t face a day without his sunshine?

Because somehow, holding back his darkness helped me find my own light—enough for both of us?

“Because I want to go hiking this afternoon,” I say, finally, and that’s that. We dig into our eggs, neither of us talking because we’re both clearly starving. Our forks tap the plates, jaws and teeth crunch through toast, throats gulp down much-needed sustenance.

“You’re gonna need better shoes, though.” Olli sets his fork down. “I let it slide with Avery, but so help me God, I’m not bringing any more Vans-wearing gringos into the woods.”

“I have boots, calm down.” I roll my eyes as I swipe our plates away. “I am not a Vans-wearing gringo. And I’m not Avery.”

“And no washing dishes!” Olli calls after me. “It’s prime winter hiking time. Let’s go.”

Luckily, my boots are still in the trunk of my car from the last hike, and no good Day River native leaves home without a jacket, gloves, and hat. So in no time, we’re traipsing through Olli’s back yard.

The just-past-noon sun sets the city aglow, throws a sea of glittering diamonds across the yard, over the trees, atop the neighboring roofs. Blazes white fire across the world like the sun and the snow together conspire to burn it all down.

Beautiful, I realize. Breathtaking even, to see the world in such light. To see my city, my oppressor, my darkness, drawn in vibrant shades of white.

Olli doesn’t speak as we march through the crushed snow, and I wonder how much of his darkness still lingers.

He’s clearly trodden this way before, many times; the snow’s packed tight under my boots, in a wide enough path to show he doesn’t always follow the same trail he’s made.

Always blazing a new way for himself. Why is that so entirely Olli?

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