“What about her?” Nikolai pulled her close for a moment, his lips pressing the top of her head. At the sound of someone coming out the doors around the corner, he put distance between them.
She noticed. Of course she did. He was as cautious about revealing the truth about them in public as she was, and he hadn’t even lived in this tiny town where everyone knew your business for a long time. What did he care if gossip started? Soon enough, he’d be long gone.
Alicia put another few inches between them, then started walking toward the car without answering him. She pulled her coat tighter around her, wishing she’d brought a scarf. The temperature had dropped—it was an uncharacteristically frigid late February—and all reports were pointing toward at least one blizzard, maybe one as late as March. Figured: no snow all winter until it started to be time for spring. In fact, when she tipped her face up toward the pitch-black sky sprinkled with a few bright, sparkling stars, a lone snowflake drifted down and landed on her cheek.
“Alicia. Hey. What’s wrong?” He caught up to her.
She turned. “Maybe you were right. We can’t be doing this, Nikolai.”
“Having coffee?” He was smart enough to know what she meant, but he was playing innocent.
She didn’t want to laugh, so she poked the front of his coat. “Anything.”
“Nobody knew anything. It’s not like I had you spread out over the table . . . though . . . mmmm, that is something to think about—”
“Shut. Up.”
She poked him harder and pushed past him to get to the driver’s side. When they were both in the car, Alicia turned on the ignition and punched the seat-warmer buttons. She didn’t want this to become an issue between them, and certainly not an argument, but she’d come away from the coffee shop feeling as though something needed to be discussed. She could feel Nikolai looking at her as she drove.
“It’s snowing,” he said quietly. “Be careful.”
“Sure, because I’m usually so reckless,” she snapped, both hands gripping the wheel tight enough to hurt her fingers.
The single flake that had kissed her cheek had been joined by a few dozen million or so, thick sheets of fluffy whiteness slanting out of the sky. It covered the road within minutes so that their half-hour drive became forty-five minutes as Alicia slowed to keep from sliding. Their conversation quieted so she could concentrate. By the time she pulled into her driveway, it had become questionable whether she’d be able to get into the garage, even with her car’s front-wheel drive. Sitting in the silence unbroken by the shush-shush of the falling snow, she turned off the ignition and let out a sigh of relief at having made it safely. She unkinked her fingers from the wheel and rubbed them to ease the ache, turning to say something to Nikolai about the weather.
He kissed her before she got a word out. Long, slow, steamy. His hand slipped around the back of her neck. They strained to get at each other over the center console. Her seat belt choked her. They broke apart with a gasp, both breathing hard, fogging up the windows.
“We should at least go in the house,” she said.
Nikolai sat back in his seat, licking his lips. “Yeah. Give me a second to get up, though.”
“What . . . ? Oh. Oh.” She laughed, heat flushing her cheeks as she looked at his crotch. The long coat hid any sign of his erection, but the fact he had one just from kissing her gave Alicia a thrill.
They looked at each other, both grinning. Nikolai reached to brush a few curling tendrils away from her forehead. He traced his fingertips along her jaw.
“Amy wanted to know if you were single,” Alicia said.
Nikolai’s hand drifted to rest on her shoulder. “What did you tell her?”
“I said you weren’t. She tried to ask more questions, but I got out of there. She wanted to talk to me about Jenni, and I wasn’t . . . I just couldn’t.” Alicia drew in a breath, looking into his eyes.
The overhead garage light that came on when opening the door went out, plunging them into darkness lit only by the house’s outside lights and the lamppost at the end of the driveway. Alicia blinked in the dimness, watching the way Nikolai’s face fell into shadow. His fingers squeezed gently, then ran down her arm to take her hand. Their fingers linked.
His phone rang, and he dug it out of his pocket. “Yeah. Yes, I see it. No, I’m actually—I just got home. A few inches . . . yeah, Mom. I heard. Well, are you okay? Do you need me to come get you? Are you sure?” He glanced at Alicia, who made wide eyes. “It’s not really my business, is it? So long as you’re someplace safe, I guess. Oh, does he? Well . . . that’s . . . awkward, but okay, thanks for telling me. Yeah. Fine. Yes, fine.”
He disconnected and leaned back against the seat with a groan that turned into a laugh. He looked at Alicia. “My mother.”
“I figured.”
“She’s not coming home tonight. She’s with a friend.” The way Nikolai said the word made it clear what he thought about that. “She says the weather’s too bad for him to drive her home.”
“Hmmm,” Alicia said.
He shrugged. “She’s a grown-up. The roads were getting bad. Not for me to judge.”
“Speaking of the weather, we should get out of the car. It’s getting cold, and snow’s coming into the garage.”
They both got out. In the short time they’d been in there, another inch had fallen, drifting into the detached garage so that she had to kick the snow away from where the door came down. It wet her shoes and her ankles through her tights, making her wish she’d worn boots. With the door shut, all they had to do was make it across the snow-covered drive and sidewalk up to the front door, unless they wanted to cut through the breezeway and around to the back. Though the path there wouldn’t be any clearer.
“I could carry you,” Nikolai said with his hands on his hips, face tilted to the sky so that soft white flakes gathered in his eyebrows and over his mouth, making a kind of mustache, before he smiled and shook his head to make it fall away.
“It’s just a few feet. I’ll have wet shoes, that’s all.” From next door, the outside light came on, and the Guttridges’ door cracked open, so Dina could peek out.
“So . . . your neighbor,” Nikolai said. He carefully didn’t look toward the Guttridge house or raise his voice below a murmur, but his eyebrows went up. “She’s totally staring me down.”
“Wave at her.” Alicia demonstrated, teeth chattering in the chill. “Hey, Dina! Hi!”