Page 7 of A Very Bumpy Christmas
Conversation thins as pizza disappears. The heater ticks. The dogs melt into sleepy piles of fur and twitching paws. Charlotte leans into Asher, drops her voice. “I’m calling bedtime,” she says, standing. “We have an early start.”
Asher squeezes my shoulder in passing. “You good?”
“Always,” I say. It’s automatic, and true.
Charlotte hugs Melanie. “Steal any blankets you need,” she says. “We overstocked after that first winter.”
When the bedroom door clicks shut, the cabin drops into a softer quiet, like someone turned down the gain on the world. The fire settles, snapping only when a log shifts its weight.
I should go. Easy call. Big day tomorrow? Probably. Even if it isn’t, the right move is thank-you-and-goodnight, exit while the lines are still clean.
“Wine?” Melanie asks, already on her feet, hands in motion. She tucks her hair behind one ear and smiles up at me like we’ve been friends a long time. “Or are you more of a stoic stare-into-the-fire type?”
“Depends on the wine,” I say, standing. “And the fire.”
“Mulled?” She tilts her head.
“That works.”
We end up at the big farmhouse table with mulled wine mugs and the kind of silence that isn’t heavy. She scrolls through the day’s shots, turning the screen so I can see. Major’s bowtie, Moose’s grin, the gray-muzzled shepherd pressed against Charlotte’s knee. Her photos don’t just capture what happened. They catch what it felt like.
“These will help,” I say. “People will see the ones that need them.”
She looks up, surprised but pleased. “That’s the hope. It’s not world peace, but…it’s something.”
“It’s not nothing,” I correct. “Not for the dog that ends up sleeping on a kid’s bed instead of a concrete floor.”
Her eyes soften. “You think like that a lot, don’t you? The single difference a person can make.”
“Comes with the job,” I say. “And with trying to sleep at night.”
She nods like she understands. I think she does.
We talk equipment, then music, then the fact that Denver weather in March needs therapy. She tells me about the one time she tried to surf for a brand deal and ended up with a heroic sunburn and seven million views. I tell her about a cargo plane with a broken heater and a deck of cards we used until they turned to fabric.
Time folds without fanfare. The fire sinks to coals. The dogs snore like small motors. The wind noses the eaves. Somewhere in that drift, Melanie leans her chin into her palm and just…watches me.
“What?” I ask, half-smiling because it feels impossible not to around her.
“You’re different than I expected,” she says.
“How’s that?”
“Quieter,” she says. “But not closed.”
I study her, the frank curiosity, the warmth. “You’re louder than I expected.”
She laughs, unoffended. “But not obnoxious?”
“Not obnoxious,” I confirm. “Just…alive.”
For a beat, neither of us looks away. Then she stands abruptly, like if she doesn’t she’ll talk herself out of something. “Come on.”
“Where?”
She grabs a blanket from the back of the couch and heads for the sliding door. “Stars.”
We step onto the deck. The cold finds every uncovered inch of skin, clean and bracing. She lifts her face to the sky and sighs like she’s been holding that breath since October. The stars are obscene—thousands of them, needles stuck into black velvet, a white smear of the Milky Way low over the ridge.
