Page 73 of Snowed In with Benefits

They share a look. One of those silent conversations they have with their eyes that I’m only beginning to learn how to read. Emmett nods, then Beau, then Hunter smiles at me. “We hear you,” he says. “Come with me.”

He ushers me out into the living room, slowly, at my pace, and the other two follow.

“We’re taking the day off,” Beau declares.

“All of us,” Hunter adds. “No projects, no chores, nothing.”

Emmett grunts in agreement. It surprises me that they’re all on board, since they aren’t really known for sitting around doing nothing. In the time that I’ve been here, I’ve never seen them take a day completely off. These are men who split wood for fun, who fix fences because they’re there, who treat idle hands like a personal failing. Which means they’re doing it for me. That touches something deep in my chest and for a brief moment I feel like I want to cry.

“You don’t have to do that for me,” I tell them as Hunter presses me down onto the couch.

“We insist,” Hunter says. The other two nod in agreement and my throat gets tight.

Hunter grabs a blanket and tucks it around my legs. Emmett stokes the fire and heads back into the kitchen to do something. Beau heads upstairs. Hunter sits down beside me, tucking me into his arm. I feel a little dismayed for a moment with the other two gone after they all said they were taking a day off with me, but Hunter’s arm around my shoulders soothes my hurt feelings before they can take root. He pulls me closer and presses his lips to my temple, and I melt into him.

It’s a good thing they didn’t take root, because the guys come back quickly. Emmett brings me a cup of tea that smells of herbs and honey and warmth. I wrap my hands around the mug and breathe it in, and something in my chest loosens. Beau returns shortly after, carrying one of his flannels and my laptop.

“Thought you’d want this.” He doesn’t say anything else, just slides the laptop onto my lap and drapes the flannel over my shoulders. The flannel is warm, like he held it by the fire for a minute before bringing it down. Hunter holds my tea while I shrug into the overshirt, and Emmett steps into his workshop for a minute. He’s back immediately with a hunk of wood and a small knife.

“Whittling,” he says, and gestures to my laptop. “It’s like editing.”

I get what he’s saying. He’s not breaking the day off by whittling, just like I’m not breaking the day off by editing, because both activities are restful and rejuvenating. Something a little creative, with low stakes and a lot of down time. Emmett sits down at the chair by the window where the light is good and starts peeling bits of wood off the block. The curls of wood fall to the floor in pale spirals and I watch them for a moment, hypnotized by the steadiness of his hands.

Beau grabs two books, the one that he’s been reading, and the one that Hunter started reading the other day. He hands one of the books to Hunter and keeps the other, sitting on my other side on the couch. With the way I’m curled up, my feet could easily stretch into Beau’s lap, but he doesn’t invite it so I don’t do it. Hunter, on the other hand, is touching me constantly, however he can. His thumb traces circles on my shoulder. His chin rests on the top of my head. When he turns a page, his hand comes right back to me like I’m home base.

At some point, Hunter puts his book down and pulls me into his lap, nuzzling my neck. He’s watching me edit, just existing in this space with me. It’s comfortable and cozy and everything I need right now. Emmett stands up, stretches, and looks over my shoulder.

“Is that color grading or color correction?” Emmett asks.

I look up at him, surprised. That’s not a surface-level question. You don’t ask that unless you know there’s a difference, and you don’t know there’s a difference unless you’ve gone looking for it. He’s obviously been looking things up on his own, learning what questions to ask. Something squeezes in my chest as I realize that he’s done this for me, to give us something to talk about. To meet me where I live.

“Color grading,” I tell him. “I’m going heavy on the blues and reds for this picture.” It’s a picture of a cardinal sipping the drops off an icicle through the window.

“What’s the difference?” he asks.

“Color correction is fixing what’s wrong. Making the white balance accurate, adjusting the exposure, getting the colors to look like what your eye actually saw. Color grading is choosing what you want the viewer to feel. It’s the mood. The temperature. The story.”

He nods slowly, like he’s filing that away. “So correction is carpentry and grading is woodworking.”

I blink at him. That’s a perfect analogy. “Yeah,” I say. “Exactly like that.”

We spend some time talking about editing, and he has more specific and surprising questions. He asks about luminance masking, about why I sharpen the bird but leave the background soft, about whether I shoot in RAW or JPEG and why. I answer them all, pleased and a little stunned that he’s taking such a direct interest in not just what I’m doing but how and why I’m doing it. The conversation lingers for a long time, wrapping me in another layer of safety and acceptance. At one point I look up and catch Beau watching us over the top of his book with the faintest smile on his face.

Beau finishes his book and puts it down with the kind of sigh that means it was good, too good, and now he needs a soft come-down off the high of a perfect ending.

“Anybody want to watch a movie?” he asks.

“What do we even have?” Hunter asks.

Emmett goes to the stack of DVDs and VHS tapes in the corner. There isn’t much to choose from, and some of the DVDs are just copies of the VHS. We talk over the pros and cons of some of the movies before settling on an old, very old, comedy.

“We don’t watch movies very often,” Hunter says apologetically. “Didn’t maintain a selection past what we watched when we were younger.”

“That’s okay,” I say, snuggling into him. “I’d watch anything with you guys.”

Emmett comes and sits on the couch between me and Hunter and Beau. All four of us, together on the couch, watching a silly western chock full of bad dad jokes and mildly problematic humor. I’m tucked between Hunter and Emmett, my legs folded under me, Emmett’s arm along the back of the couch behind my head. Not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the warmth of him. Beau is on Emmett’s other side, his ankle crossed over his knee, looking more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him.

“This must have been top-tier humor in the eighties,” Beau says dryly.