Page 39 of Snowed In with Benefits

“You’ve been doing this a long time.” It isn’t really a question. I can tell. Someone doesn’t just develop the skill of seeing things like this overnight.

“My whole life, practically,” she says. “I got my first Polaroid camera when I was seven, and I haven’t stopped taking pictures since. Well, mostly.” She frowns slightly, then shakes her head like she’s shaking away a bad thought.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

I gesture at the photos. “Why do you take pictures?”

She pauses for a moment like she’s actually fully considering my question. I appreciate that.

“Because pictures… any art really, but for me it’s pictures… can evoke such strong emotions in a person. That’s powerful. It’s a big deal. There’s tremendous power in art, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Tremendous power in art. Power to evoke emotions. Something strikes my heart and I move, getting up off the couch quickly. As I head up the stairs I can hear her asking Hunter if she said something wrong. Never mind. She’ll understand in a minute.

I grab the photo off the wall, the one that stopped her in her tracks the other day, the one taken from the point of view of where she was proposed to. I take it back downstairs. There, in front of everybody, I take it out of its frame and throw it in the fire.

Her eyes widen. “Why did you do that?”

“That photo evoked a strong emotion in you, didn’t it? A negative one.”

She nods, a shadow passing over her eyes.

“Well, now it’s gone.” I sit back down and take the bottle from Beau. Apparently the rotation has shifted.

“Thank you,” she whispers. There’s something heavy in the air, something light in her eyes, as though something was released and just needs a moment to disperse.

I grunt and nod. It’s fine. There’s no reason for her to start every day miserable just because she has to pass that damn photo to get downstairs.

Beau groans as he gets off the little couch. “Well, as long as we’re burning shit…”

He doesn’t elaborate as he heads for the stairs. I pass the bottle to Josie, who takes a long drink before passing it to Hunter.

A moment later, Beau comes back down the stairs, a soft gray shirt in his hands. I recognize that shirt. That’s the shirt she’s been wearing in the mornings before she gets dressed, the one that makes her look smaller than she actually is.

Beau tosses it in the fire. He looks at Josie.

“You don’t need that anymore.”

Her eyes shine and she gives him a watery smile. She forces a little laugh. “Thank you,” she says. “But… you do realize that means that I don’t have any sleep things to wear besides…”

She trails off and all of us, at once, remember her skimpy little nightgown. I can see it on Beau’s face, I can see it in the blush on Hunter’s ears, and I can see it in my head.

It’s a good nightgown. It’s a bad thing to have to wear if you aren’t planning on taking it off quickly.

Hunter shifts in his seat. He’s already given her some clothes, the clothes she’s wearing right now (washed and dried, of course), and I’d bet my left foot that he’s planning to give her something else.

Beau also looks like he’s about to offer her something.

Feeling driven to get ahead of things, I get up and head for the stairs. I don’t know why it matters whose clothes she wears, but it does. She’s already got Hunter’s clothes on. She took a damn bath with Beau, for fuck’s sake. I don’t want to say it’s my turn, because that’s not what I mean, but I don’t know how to say what I mean.

What I do know is that my t-shirts will fall to her knees. I’ve got some softer ones in here somewhere, shirts that I picked up ages ago that have been laundered into gentleness. I find one of them. It’s a soft plum color and for some reason I choose it over the green one.

I head back downstairs to find everyone waiting expectantly. It’s not a big deal. They better not make it a big deal. I toss the shirt at her and she catches it.

“There. Now you have sleep clothes.”

“Thanks,” she says with a smile. She puts the shirt to her face, feeling the texture. The color of it makes her eyes seem bigger and brighter somehow.