Chapter Six

You know what would be great? Like, in the world. I know the classic answers are "world peace" and "end world hunger" or whatever, but I have a counterproposal.

It would be freaking awesome if people looked on the outside like their personality on the inside. For instance, if a guy looks gorgeous and strong and is totally willing to pirouette in public with little ballerinas, he should be a nice person as well. He should be sweet. Kind. Forgiving.

I just think people should bring matching energy, inside and out. Is that too much to ask? Is it too much to ask that serial killers look like monsters and guys who look like former soccer players whose lives I may or may not have low-key ruined either be hot or an asshole? Instead of both?

Except ... even then, Orion wasn't what I expected.

I'd been around sports and the people who play them all my life. My dad's only way of connecting with me was by coaching whatever sport I wanted to play. Literally we'd go all week without speaking except at practice and games. And to be honest, I thought that was pretty cool for a long time? Like it took years for me to have the thought that it might have been nice if he knew I existed even when I wasn't on a soccer pitch or a basketball court.

Anyway, all that blah blah aside, I knew what athletes could be like. So I expected Orion to be either a total prick bastard or like ... a super-wonderful gentleman. Never had I met a competitive athlete who was so ... nothing. Neutral. Blasé. Boring. At least, now that he knew who I was and I'd crashed into his garage and trapped his truck inside and also I ruined his life this one time and he was sorta stuck with me because otherwise I'd die of exposure.

Well. All right. Put it like that, then I guess "neutral" was probably a pretty good outcome. But that didn't mean I knew what to do with it or how to ... how to be . With him. Not with-him-with-him, but in-the-same-small-cabin-with-him.

He said nothing. I mean, he handed me a towel and said he didn't want me to die in his front yard. So that was good. But then he just ... pretended I didn't exist.

Fuck. This suddenly felt like one of those "Am I the asshole?" posts where you can tell the person writing it has literally zero self-reflection, and even on Reddit the commenters can all agree that yes, Original Poster, you are the asshole.

I was the asshole.

Not for crashing into the shed or garage or whatever; that was the flipping snow's fault. I didn't cause the snow. I mean, yeah, I took his point: I guess I could have checked the weather more carefully, but I'm from the coast! It never occurred to me that it could snow in April in California. I still couldn't decide if that was normal. Like was he sorta having me on with it, like Ha ha ha, stupid dude doesn't know about snow ? Or did it ... genuinely snow all the time in April, and I was the asshole who didn't bother looking at the weather?

Whatever.

I was stuck now. In a blizzard. In a one-bedroom cabin. With a grumpy Orion Broderick.

Uhh, only not in a fun porn story way, like he'd be grumpy until suddenly he couldn't help himself and ripped my clothes off and ravished me deliciously because the grumpiness was just a mask for his uncontrollable lust and emotional intimacy issues.

More like now that I wasn't going to die in his yard, he'd pulled out his computer and was sitting in the only armchair, typing on it. Like. There was no Wi-Fi. (I'd checked.) And he couldn't be using his phone as a hot spot unless he had miracle coverage somehow. So ... what the hell was he doing on his computer?

I, on the other hand, was awkwardly perched on his couch fucking around on my phone and rediscovering apps I'd forgotten I'd installed. (Duolingo, past-me? Really? I mean, good try and all, but ...)

Many of my lost apps did not work without the internet. There's the rub, as we say. I don't really say that, but it feels like it might be from Shakespeare or something, so it was the general "we" of the English-speaking world.

It was getting seriously dark outside. I restlessly went to the living room window, trying to see out. The back side of the house was all woods, and I could only see a yellow window-shaped light on fresh snow and then nothing. Darkness. Cold, icy darkness.

I shivered again.

A sigh from the armchair. "Hang on. You need dry clothes."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, you'll feel that way, but your core body temp is probably a few degrees lower than it should be, and you can't be used to that level of physical exertion, so you shouldn't demand your body heat you up in wet clothes as well."

I turned to look at him, feeling my face contort in a frown. And I don't have a cute frown. I have this like old-man-frown-on-a-young-man's-face thing going. I've heard that from no fewer than four separate people. I guess I have extreme frown wrinkles or something? So I tried to smooth it out, but also, I was frowning, so I probably looked like a half-melted wax frowny face.

Thankfully, my frown was lost on Orion, who was halfway out of his seat but still staring down at something evidently urgent on his computer. He finally shut it and looked up.

Which was awkward. Because whatever had sparked between us wasn't, like, vanished. It still fizzled a little. Sadly. Like a lit match dropped in water. All dead and useless now.

We both looked away. I'd meant to argue with him, but in that brief flash of the sexual tension of two hours earlier, I'd lost my train of thought.

So Orion Broderick wasn't going to let me die. And he also wasn't going to let my body temperature go lower than he was personally comfortable with. Right. Got it.

(Hint: I did not get it. What the hell was he even talking about?)

He disappeared into his bedroom and returned with ... uhh, track pants and a T-shirt. His track pants. His T-shirt. Sure, no problem.

I swallowed hard before saying, "Thanks."

"Just hang your stuff up in the bathroom so it dries out."

"Okay." I hesitated. "Just so I'm clear ... are we giving up on the idea that I'll be able to get out of here tonight?"

And he did give good Are you fucking kidding me? eyebrow energy. "You mean, since we can't call anyone to tow your car, or pick you up and take you anywhere that isn't here, and you crashed into my truck so I also can't drive you anywhere but here? Oh, and you clearly can't walk it?"

"I didn't crash into your truck," I said testily. I've always liked the word "testily." It reminds me of testicles. That mix of vital and fragile. Intense and also vulnerable.

He waved a hand. "Please change your clothes. I've got the central heat on now, but if the power goes out and we're left with the stove, I just want to make sure you're not still wet from your little adventure."

My face went into old-man-frown mode again. Which wasn't fair. I smoothed it out, but that took like fifteen entire seconds (I was glad he'd gone back to looking at his computer, since it probably wasn't very attractive, watching me iron out my forehead through sheer will and the movement of tiny muscles). By then it would have been dumb to keep arguing, so I didn't.

I went to the bathroom. And took off my, yes, fine , still-damp clothes. Well, took off some bits, peeled off other bits.

At which point I was standing naked and not a little shriveled in Orion Broderick's bathroom. I huddled over the heater vent, trying to dry myself out before putting on the other set of clothes.

The bathroom was pretty stark for a place where someone actually lived. I snooped around, something I'd neglected to do earlier, when everything had been going ... better. Alas, he was not a man whose personality was writ across his toiletries. A bottle of shampoo, a bottle of conditioner. Not the cheapest kind, but probably the highest quality you could still find at a Walmart Supercenter. (Did a tiny village even have a Walmart? Where did they shop? Definitely no Target.) There was also a plugged-in electric toothbrush sitting beside a thing of foaming hand soap.

Feeling slightly guilty but also like it was inevitable that I would do it eventually, I tugged open the mirrored medicine cabinet, wincing as it clicked.

Hell. The dude was a monk. One tube of toothpaste. Three bottles of over-the-counter painkillers: ibuprofen, Tylenol, and a bottle of generic migraine pills. A small jar of cotton balls and a thing of rubbing alcohol. A midrange electric razor with a neatly wrapped cord.

And, bizarrely, one relatively expensive daily face wash. But tucked away in the cabinet like he either didn't use it or didn't want anyone to know he used it. That is, anyone with proper boundaries who wouldn't go poking into his private stuff.

I shut the door and considered the face wash. Still. Weird.

I opened the door again and checked out the expiration date, but no, it was still good. And—I tried to judge the level inside—maybe three-quarters gone. So he used it.

Okay. File that away and stop being a creeper.

Or more specifically, stop being a creeper after one last check under the sink, but that was more of the same normal, boring stuff. More toilet paper, a thing of bleach wipes, an ancient-looking nail brush.

The living room felt like a place where someone, you know, lived . This bathroom felt like an Airbnb that he was staying in just long enough to take his toothbrush out of his toiletries bag. What did a guy like this even put in a toiletries bag? A razor and toothpaste and really expensive face wash?

A sudden knock on the door brought back to me the fact that I was standing naked in the bathroom of a dude who hated me, idly going through his things. No need to ask AITA this time.

"You didn't pass out, did you?" Orion called, a little too loudly.

"No, no!" I hastily yanked on his track pants and pulled the shirt over my head, trying not to overthink the smell of clean laundry and how snuggling with Orion under a blanket would smell just like this, but with a good helping of Orion thrown in. "Sorry, just huddling over the heater. I guess I was kind of cold after all!" Don't babble to cover up the fact that you were snooping. I cleared my throat. "Coming out now!" I called, like I was going to Hulk through the door or something and he should step back.

"Okay, just making sure."

I went out, then paused weirdly in the doorway, realizing I hadn't washed my hands (I hadn't needed to) but also that if he assumed I'd gone to the bathroom, then he was now thinking, Wow, this schmuck takes a leak and doesn't even wash his hands .

But it was too late. To wash my hands. If I did it now, I'd look really weird. Which might be better than looking like a guy who didn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom?

We stood there in an awkward tableau for a long moment.

"Can I ... get by?" he asked finally.

"Oh. Um. Sure, yeah." I shifted my Orion-bedecked self out of the way and cringed as he went into the bathroom and closed the door. Which was about when he would be noticing that I'd left my wet clothes in a heap. "Uhh, sorry!" I called, hearing my own voice rise in panic. "I forgot to hang my stuff up! I'll do it in a second! I'm not usually a slob, I swear, it's just that it's, you know, been a long day and—"

"It's fine. Do you plan to stand there while I pee?"

Oh my fucking god. "No! Sorry!" I stumbled back, almost tripping over the little side table where he'd left his computer, but I managed to catch it before it fell (okay, that's one for Cleary, at long last) and to be on the couch again by the time I heard the water running while Orion, of course, washed his hands.

I should have kept walking. I knew it at the time. I knew that even perishing on a frozen highway in a blizzard would've been better than facing Orion again, and that past-me, that lucky, half-frozen man, was entirely correct. I would have curled up in a ball and tried to disappear, except I didn't want to look even more ridiculous.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. Like he hadn't noticed anything strange at any point.

"Um. I don't ... know." It was dumb. It was not a real answer. But it was also true.

"I'll heat up some food," he said and then went into the kitchen, on the other side of the wall. If I'd really stayed in this little cabin as a child, I would have run around in circles until I was sick: kitchen, living room, entryway, kitchen, living room, entryway. Or until my dad yelled at me to stop. Whichever came first.

What would Dad have said if he were still around to see this? He'd died my second year of college, suddenly, heart attack, and we hadn't had the type of relationship that made me miss all his support and warm hugs— what support and warm hugs?—but I didn't think I'd ever stopped feeling a little hollow when I thought of him. Like there was some space in my head where all the memories we'd never made still lived.

He'd never seen Orion play. Upside: he also hadn't seen me destroy Orion's career.

He would have laughed at me trying to walk to town in a blizzard. He would have told me not to bother apologizing. What's done is done had been a favorite phrase of his, and I'd always assumed he liked it because it essentially meant Don't expect me to care if your feelings are hurt .

But now? What's done was done. Of course. There was no taking back the article I'd written or the consequences of it. There was no taking back my failure to check the weather report, or my inadequate snow driving. I was stuck in Orion Broderick's house, wearing his clothes, about to eat his food, trying not to beg his forgiveness. My dad had taught me that lesson too: he was of the Better to ask forgiveness than permission, but on second thought, don't bother asking for either persuasion. He'd neither offered nor accepted apologies.

But I wasn't my dad. I wanted to say I was sorry. And, somewhere in a dark pocket of my head, or maybe my heart, I really wanted Orion to say, Look, I get it, you were young and stupid and you did a thing you thought would work out, but it instead destroyed my future and actually my life, but I still forgive you, because I get what it's like to be young and stupid .

Except most people don't ruin a man's career when they're young and stupid. Which I had.

No. Big. Deal.

He was never going to forgive me. And, as I thought about it, I kind of didn't think he should. Fuck. Being older and wiser sucked.