Page 28 of Cookie
Ryan
T he two of us snuggled together in bed, and while I had ideas of making love as soon as we were upstairs, as soon as I hit the bed, I was ready to fall asleep.
Charlie held me in his arms, and we were both out within minutes.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the sound of the blowing wind woke me.
I looked around the room, but there was no light coming from outside.
“Power’s out,” Charlie said.
“Am I wrong, or does it seem colder?” I asked and pulled the blankets up tighter under my chin.
“I just looked at the weather and there was a new storm that blew in that’s hitting us fast and hard. They’re predicting two feet of snow here overnight,” he said so calmly while I felt my heart rate speed up.
“Should we do something?” I asked, not really sure what we should be doing.
“No, we have enough wood for at least a week, and since we’ve been stocking the pantry, there’s plenty of food. We have the small generator ready to go so we can charge our phones and turn on a light if we need to. It’ll be alright.”
“Do you think we should close the store tomorrow?” I couldn’t wait for the day that I just knew all this stuff. Every day I was reminded of something else I didn’t know, but with Charlie I knew he’d make sure everything was as it should be.
“Let’s wait and see what we wake up to. If it’s too heavy, you might need to open a little late, but I doubt it’ll keep the diehards away. Plus, if they’re bored, they’ll be looking for something that doesn’t require power to keep them entertained.”
“It was so busy today. Do you think there could be more shoppers tomorrow?”
“Could be. Let’s not worry about it now,” he said and kissed my forehead. “Get a few more hours’ sleep and we’ll see what we’re dealing with in the morning.” I closed my eyes and snuggled in close to him and after a few minutes of shifting and turning, I finally dozed off.
Dim light peeked in through the window and I knew the sun was up, but it was so diffused it felt more like early evening rather than morning. “Morning,” Charlie whispered next to me.
“Good morning. It’s still so dark out. What time is it?” I asked and reached for my phone.
“It’s still early,” he said.
“Seven, I thought it was earlier. Have you looked outside yet?” I asked.
“Not yet, but I checked the weather. It’s going to keep snowing the next three days.”
“Three days?” I squeaked and sat straight up before rushing to the window.
“Oh my god, Charlie, come look. That’s more than two feet.
” He squeezed in next to me as the two of us watched the snow fall as heavily as I’d ever seen.
The wind blew it into drifts on the side of Main Street, and it was so deep it looked more like a ski run than a street.
There were no cars moving and no people out and about.
Outside the window was a beautiful winter wonderland.
I turned to meet Charlie’s eyes that twinkled with mischief and excitement. “Let me call Mom and see if they’re closing.
He hurried to his phone while I stood and stared a while longer. “Nothing like this ever happened in Sacramento,” I mumbled. I turned around just in time to see him toss his phone on the bed before picking me up and spinning me around.
“Snow day!” he said and laughed like a madman.
“Seriously?” I managed to say between my own bouts of laughter.
“Seriously. Get dressed in your snow gear. We need to walk over to the shop and make sure everything is okay. Then we’ll clear the front walk and maybe make a batch of soup or hot chocolate for whoever stops in.
” He was so excited, and it was contagious.
Since the day we’d had the last snow, Charlie had started keeping an extra set of winter gear here.
Both of us hurried to the closet and dressed as fast as we could.
“I’ve never had a snow day.” I stood to pull up the snow pants Charlie had bought me just in case I needed them.
“Well, this is going to be a good one. We haven’t had this much snow in one day in a while.
The last storm was a good amount of snow, but not like what this one will be.
You’re going to be sick of snow by the time it melts.
” He kissed me before pulling on his boots and his beanie.
“Meet you downstairs,” he said before brushing his teeth and rushing downstairs.
After pulling on my own boots, I brushed my teeth and splashed some water on my face that was so fucking cold I didn’t think I’d need a cup of coffee to get going.
W ho am I kidding? “Babe, can you make me a cup of coffee?” I yelled down the stairs as I closed the door to the apartment and hurried down the stairs.
A hot mug of coffee was placed in my hand as soon as I was at the bottom. “Wow.”
“Hey, I know what my man likes,” Charlie said as I took a sip.
It was then I glanced out front. From upstairs the snow looked deep but seeing it from the store was a different thing all together. “Oh my god, can we get out the door?” I set my mug down on the counter and unlocked the door.
“No, Ryan, wait—” was all Charlie got out before I flung the door open, and a pile of snow landed inside the store.
“Oh shit,” I said and looked up at Charlie, who stood there frozen, holding his mug mid-drink with wide eyes. He was so shocked he couldn’t react and when I looked again at the snow, all I could do was laugh.
“I can’t believe I did that.” I pushed at the snow with my boot just as a gust of wind pushed a little more inside.
“We need to clear that out and get the door shut before we’re building snowmen on the counter,” Charlie said, and between the two of us and lots of foot action, the door was securely shut once again.
“Sorry,” I said, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as I finally took a sip of coffee. “Snow day, yay.”
Charlie’s eyes widened before he bent over laughing and pulled me in for a hug.
“Oh, Ryan, there’s never a dull moment with you.
Let me go get some towels to dry the floor.
” He hurried to the backroom while I watched him go and tried not to think about how glad I was that he’d noticed me on the bench across the street.
“Give me some of those.” He tossed me a few towels, and we got busy cleaning up the rest of the snowy mess.
“Maybe we should stay inside. This might not end well,” Charlie said as he took the wet towels from me.
“No way, it’s an adventure. Go put those in the washer. We’ll start it when the power is back on.”
“We should probably hang them,” Charlie said after looking outside again. “It might be a while.”
“A while? How long is a while?” I asked and tried to push all thoughts of the Donner Party out of my head.