Page 16 of Snowed In
He straightens when I emerge, turning around with a smile on his face. One that fades as soon as he sees the strained one on mine.
“Want something to drink?” I ask brightly. “I’ve got beer.”
“Beer’s good,” he says, his hands slipping into his pockets as I make my way to the small galley kitchen. “Nice place.”
“It’s not, but thank you for lying.”
“That your roommate in the photo?”
“Frankie. She’s doing a PhD in microbiology.”
“Impressive.”
“It’s mainly her snacking and crying, but I think it’s all part of the process.” I open the fridge, staring at it blindly as I babble. “I’m lucky with her. In a place this small, we should be at each other’s throats, but we get along okay. She’s pretty easygoing.” I grab two bottles from the shelf and turn around to find him examining one of the many baskets of wool dotted around the apartment.
I watch as he plucks a purple ball from the top, turning it over in his hands like he’s almost certain what it is but wants to make sure.
“You paint?” he asks after a long second.
“I…” Huh? “No, I— Shut up,” I say, and he smiles.
He full-onsmiles.
It’s a charming, eye-crinkle smile that thrusts me out of my childhood memories and into my teenage ones. A flash of the Christian I once knew, flirting with half the class.
“What?” he asks when I just stare at him.
“Nothing.” But then: “Everyone had a crush on you in school, you know.”
He props a shoulder against the wall, his smile turning to a grin. “I know.”
Of course he does.
“Not you, though,” he adds. “You didn’t even know I existed.”
“Me?” I pry the caps off the bottles, aghast at this complete rewrite of our history. “Other way around, Casanova.”
“I knew you existed. It was hard not to. Always sitting at the front of the class, answering every question. I had to lean around your raised hand just to see the board.”
“As if you ever looked at the board,” I scoff, and he laughs. It’s a nice laugh. Deep and husky and…I clutch the bottles, mulling over his words. He’s not wrong. I knew he existed too. But it was in a vague way. A peripheral way.
I didn’t have a crush on Christian because I had a crush on Isaac. I only ever had eyes for Isaac. To the point where it never occurred to me to so much as look at anyone else.
“I knit,” I explain, gesturing to the wool. “I have a shop online.”
“Oh yeah?” He looks mildly impressed. “You make much from it?”
“About minus twenty quid a month.”
He laughs again, throwing the ball in the air before placing it back in the basket. “When did that start? The knitting.”
“I can’t remember.” It’s like asking when I learned to talk. For as far back as my thoughts allow, I always had needles in my hands.
“All your hats,” he says suddenly, and I cringe as his eyes widen. I insisted on wearing every one of my creations as a child, whether or not they suited me. My mother probably thought she was doing the right thing by encouraging my interests, but looking back, maybe she could have hiddenoneof the uglier pieces and told me it shrunk in the wash.
“I’m better at it now,” I say, but Christian’s not listening to me, too busy reminiscing.
“And those cardigans you used to wear. With the holes.”
