Page 15 of Snowed In
She tells me more about her work as we go, and it’s only another few minutes before she slows to a stop in front of a small, three-story building.
A low, buzzing noise emanates from the streetlamp overhead, the same one that casts an eerie orange glow over our little patch of pavement, but the rest of the road is dark. I peer down it, but Megan seems comfortable as she produces a fluffy pink keyring from her purse and gestures at the door.
“This is me,” she says.
“It was nice bumping into you.”
“Yeah.”
“Say hi to the family?”
“Sure. And same.”
It’s a clear end to the conversation, but she doesn’t move. Just continues to fiddle with her keys as she looks at me with a small line between her brows. And I’m about to say goodnight, already mentally mapping my route home, when she opens her mouth and erases every other thought in my head.
“You want to come up?”
I freeze, and I swear to God, even Megan looks startled by her offer, but she doesn’t take it back. She doesn’t blush or backtrack. She just waits, still spinning those keys, still staring up at me, and for the first time tonight, I take a proper look at her.
It’s not the first time I registered that Megan O’Sullivan is kind of hot. Kind of beautiful, even. She always was. Gray-blue eyes, delicate features. Her brown hair falls to her shoulders in the same cut I remember from when we were young, but in the haze of the streetlamp, I spy strands of red scattered throughout, glinting in the artificial light.
She’s done this before. That much I can guess by the confident way she holds herself as she waits for my answer. And it’s that knowledge that helps me make up my mind. That, plus the little tug inside that made me walk her home in the first place, the pulling curiosity that doesn’t want to say goodbye just yet.
The one that says screw it.
“I’d love to.”
FOUR
MEGAN
Oh no.
Oh. No.
Maybe they took more blood from me than I thought.
That can be the only explanation for what just happened.
Do you want to come up? Do you want to come up and have sex with me, Christian Fitzpatrick? Thenstep this way.Come right in. Be myfreakingguest.
That’s thinking with the vagina and not the head. Except for my eyes. Because the eyes see what the eyes see, and I see…him.
Every one of my friends was in love with him growing up. Or at least love as in the preteen, “he has messy hair and sits at the back of the classroom” way. He doesn’t have messy hair now. He has very tidy hair. Very dark, thick, tidy hair and nice clothes and a nice coat and an expensive watch on his wrist. It’s why I invited him up. Because he’s gorgeous. There’s no depth to my intentions here. Nothing other than I haven’t had sex in a few weeks, and I am a shallow lady with shallow needs. Needs that, let’s be honest, that man looks like he would have no problem fulfilling. But ideally, he would also be a stranger while doing so. Someone who doesn’t know about my past and who doesn’t care about my future. Who’s only thinking of tonight.
But then again, there’s no rule saying I have to see the guy again.
And it’s not like he said no. Not like he’s…Oh my God, I’m considering it.
I drum my fingers against the sink as I stare at my reflection. Five years. It’s been five years since I last saw him, and who’s to say it won’t be five before I see him again? Or ten? Twenty? Ever? I could drop dead tomorrow and—
Leave the bathroom, Megan.
Be a normal person and leave the bathroom.
I give myself a spritz of the communal perfume before (bravely) opening the door, half-hoping he’s snuck out so my decision’s made for me.
He has not snuck out. He’s made himself at home exactly as I told him to before I mumbled something about needing to pee. His coat is folded neatly over the back of a chair, his phone is on the table, and the man himself is busy looking at a Polaroid of Frankie and me taped to the mirror.
