Page 10 of A Fate of Ice and Lies (Fated #1)

Chapter

Five

TEDDY

This—this was why I rarely drank.

With my head pounding, I popped one gritty eye open to find Ryenne lying on my bed beside me, her sleek blond hair covering her face. Her loud snores reminded me of a lawn mower and was probably why Hee-haw wasn’t sleeping on my king-sized bed with us.

I poked her cheek to make her sputtering snores stop. She swatted my hand away and groaned. When her eyes stayed closed, I did it again but harder this time.

She shot up and almost fell off the side of the bed. I stifled a laugh when she held both hands to her head, which I hoped throbbed as much as mine did.

“What did you do to me last night?” I asked, my throat dry and crackly.

“Me?” She reached for her pillow, and when she lay back down, she pushed the pillow against her face and moaned. “I don’t even know how I got here.”

I propped an arm under my chin and poked her stomach. “If you don’t remember, I sure as hell don’t. ”

Where Ryenne brought the bad decisions, I was the lightweight in our friendship and made sure we paced ourselves.

She rolled over and rested her head on the pillow as she rubbed her eyes. “Shit, Ted, I don’t remember anything.”

“Nothing?” a voice said from outside my room. A man’s voice.

I lifted my nose at the sudden smell of coffee.

“Your brother is a saint among men,” I said as I shifted on the bed to grab some of the coffee Donnie was brewing in my kitchen.

Eyes wide, she gripped my arm. “Why’s he here?” she whisper-hissed. “Did I—I didn’t tell him about Nate, did I?”

While I knew I should worry about what Donnie may or may not know, I couldn’t find it in me to care. Not when my head pounded so hard I could barely keep my eyes open.

I patted her head or went to pat it but missed it entirely and instead sank into her pillow. “You stay here while I caffeinate and find out what he knows.”

She groaned again. “Yell goose if he plans on killing me or Nate so I can warn Nate to go into witness protection.”

This time, I hit my target and clapped my hand over her mouth. “Too many words, Ry.”

She giggled, and when I didn’t move, she licked my palm. I threw a disgusted look at her as I wiped my palm on her shirtsleeve.

“Tell him I like him,” she said. “Like him like him.”

“Like who?” Donnie leaned against my doorframe, tall enough his head almost reached the top, carrying a mug of coffee and a glass of water.

I pushed myself out of bed, tangling my feet around the blanket enough that I fell on the floor. With a stupid smile, Donnie kneeled beside me and handed me my steaming mug.

“I love-hate you,” I hissed.

His smile only grew, making his pretty-boy green eyes twinkle.

“Stop smiling,” I grumbled, but my annoyance disappeared with one whiff of the hot brew.

He tapped my nose the way he’d been doing since Ryenne and I were in diapers. Not that I remembered that, but it had been one of Mom’s favorite memories of one of my oldest friends.

“So?” he asked when he stood back up, rubbing the scruff on his chin that grew overnight because clean-cut Donnie hated facial hair.

Warily, Ryenne took the glass of water he offered her while pink blossomed on her cheek. “What do you know?”

“What do I need to know?” He quirked up a single brow.

“Not a damn thing.” I looked at him over the top of my mug, enjoying the taste of the coffee on my tongue.

Enough sugar and cream to take away the bitter bite but not so sweet it made my eyes water. Absolute perfection.

“If you ever decide law enforcement isn’t your thing, you could try your hand at being the best, most well-known barista in Colina Verde,” I said.

After Donnie helped me up from the floor, he sat on the edge of my bed while I lay back down.

“You girls had quite the party last night,” he said.

“Seems like it,” I agreed. “How’d you end up here?”

“This one”—he tipped his head toward his sister—“text me worried about you because she couldn’t get ahold of you. Took me a bit to get here with all the snow. . .”

“Snow?” Ryenne and I questioned in unison .

He pinched his lips together as he stared at us.

“I’m too tired to see if you’re screwing with us,” I said with a contented sigh.

With another questioning look, he stood and swiped my curtains open. Snow fell. Actual snow fell. In the middle of spring. In south-central Texas, where it rarely snowed during the wintertime.

No. It wasn’t possible. Except it was. Unless. . .

I grinned at my idiot friend.

“That’s good.” I croaked out a laugh that I immediately regretted. “You almost got me.”

“Ted . . .”

I laughed harder at his serious expression. “A snow machine must’ve set you back quite a bit, but shit, we’re gonna have fun.”

Ryenne looped her hand around my arm and rested her head on my shoulder. “Just as soon as the hangover from hell goes away.”

I nodded. “You should invite Nate.”

Although Ryenne kept her eyes on the snow outside the window, she squeezed my arm in encouragement.

“You guys can build us sleds like you did a few winters ago,” I added.

“Ted, Ry. . .” He ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t do this.” He laughed. “It’s actually snowing outside. Everywhere. Not just here in Colina or Texas. Everywhere.”

He unlocked his cell phone and gave it to me. It took me a few blinks to get the small print into focus, but once I read it, blood rushed to my head, making me lightheaded.

He wasn’t joking. Unless of course this was some elaborate hoax, and he spent hours or days putting together blogs and news reports. Which wasn’t like him at all .

“It’s snowing everywhere?” I handed Donnie’s phone to Ryenne.

“Not just a light snow, but storming,” he replied. “Snow has built up so high in some places people can’t get around anymore. Homeless shelters are overfilled from people trying to get off the street, but a lot of people have already died.”

Ryenne bit on the side of her thumb, a nervous habit she never got under control despite Grandma Richter’s nagging. “Is this like some sort of apocalypse?”

Donnie’s laugh didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You watch too many movies.”

“But you didn’t say no,” Ryenne said.

With a mischievous grin, he sat on her lap. It was enough to make her huff out a laugh as she pushed him to the floor. His easygoing way, always trying to make people—especially Ryenne—feel better was my favorite thing about Donnie.

“It’s just some snow,” he said from the floor. “It’ll die down.”

I crossed the short distance and shuddered at the cold that seeped through my old windows. While the forest beyond my property was heavy with snow, the area surrounding my house wasn’t. There was some snowfall but nothing dreadful.

A woman whispered in my ear, the remnants of a dream I must’ve had last night.

Her voice was familiar since I’d been dreaming about her for the past three years.

Leanora hissed about vengeance and blood spilling, which made me eager to go back to my dream journal and see if I could remember anything about last night’s dream.

In the distance, a tall tree seemed to move forward, like it’d taken a giant step before it stood still with eyes the color of moss .

“Do you see what comes for you?” Leanora asked, her voice a caress across my mind.

The tree blinked. I swear it did. And when it smiled, its teeth gleamed like a light.

Blinking, I shook my head, and when I looked again, the strange tree monster was gone. And thankfully, Leanora had gone quiet. While I loved writing her story, sometimes her character seemed too real, as if she lived inside me.

“I put a space heater in your well house, just in case,” Donnie said, ripping me away from my thoughts. “Nate did the same at our house, and then he got stuck with Grandma and all her worries.”

I cringed. Grandma Richter was a professional worrier, but it was because of her that Donnie made sure we all had extra space heaters, that our pipes were insulated, and that I even had a generator.

“Is he. . .?” I turned around to ask Donnie about Nate, but he lifted a finger and answered his chirping phone.

Ryenne stood beside me by the window, placing a soft blanket over our huddled shoulders as Donnie left my room to talk on the phone. I pulled the pretty but unfamiliar blanket tighter around me, fingering the soft material and reveling in its warmth.

“It looks so pretty,” Ryenne whispered.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Do you think Donnie remembered to light your fireplace?” she asked.

“I’m sure he did.”

It wasn’t just the warmth in my room that had me saying that, but the simple fact that Donnie was reliable. I wouldn’t be surprised if he chopped up some firewood for me before he left .

She looped her hand through my arm. “Let’s go sit by the fire.”

I drained the last of my coffee and followed her, eyeing the gorgeous blanket draping over her shoulders. Something about the blanket called to me, making me want to tear it off my best friend and claim it as mine, which was ridiculous.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked, running her blanket through my fingers when we sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace.

Great, not only was it probably the end of the world, but I now sounded like Gollum from Lord of the Rings . I dropped my hand and suppressed the sudden urge to whisper my precious.

She eyed me curiously. “Your room.”

“That’s not mine.” I’d remember buying it.

“It was covering you this morning.” She shrugged.

Then technically, I wouldn’t be a complete jerk if I took it off her and wrapped it around myself.

I crawled the short space to my couch, the same one Mom had bought after Ryenne and I accidentally spilled red soda over the previous one.

This couch had seen things, witnessed boyfriends and teenage drinking that I hoped Mom still didn’t know about in heaven.

I grabbed the blanket with our state’s football team’s logo on it from the couch and extended it to her.

“Trade you,” I offered.