Snowdrop in a Storm Read online

  There. He’d said it.

  Daniel didn’t offer him pity. Instead, he hummed, and Nick couldn’t tell if it was with understanding or not.

  “I know that doesn’t excuse—”

  “Nick.”

  “—but I wanted to explain—”

  “Nick, it’s okay.”

  His teeth clacked as he snapped his mouth shut.

  Daniel smiled at him. “Okay,” he said again, and patted Nick’s cheek before returning to the table.

  If that didn’t feel like absolution, he didn’t know what else would.

  “All right, everyone.” Jeff’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and he retook his seat. “Around Christmas, we have some traditions. Yes, yes, already. For one, we make Chinese dumplings at home, but since we’re not at home yet, I guess we’ll have to share those next year, when you’re all invited to get your hands dirty.”

  Laughter rippled over the table, but the joke was lost on Nick.

  “On the Eve, though, we do apples.”

  “Apples,” Sara started to say, and then abruptly switched to, “Ooh! I heard about that. You gift special apples to friends and family.”

  “Yes,” Daniel said. “There are some variations on how to buy the apples, but since we’re here with limited options, I thought we’d decorate them instead, to make them meaningful.”

  During this time, Jeff had stepped away, but he returned with another tray. This one held round red apples and a few small knives. Daniel pulled out a few strips of paper from his pocket and let them fall on the table.

  “We’ll draw names, and then you have to carve something on the apple for that person.”

  They plucked at the papers, one by one, until Nick had to grab the remaining name.

  Leon. Of course it was Leon. He, who had somehow ended up next to Nick again, who kept an arm around his shoulders half the time, who smiled so brightly it made the room fuzzy around the edges.

  Nick took his apple, rubbed his thumbs on its skin, and immediately thought of drawing a dick on it. He laughed at himself as he picked up a knife. Laughed while he carved a snowdrop instead. He started with a thin stem, curling downward from the top where the bell of the flower would be attached. The elongated petals turned out wobbly, but Nick was pleased with the result. He kept on laughing when Leon kissed the apple with a flourish, and didn’t stop when Jeff gave him one with a replica of his cake-flower on it.

  There, somewhere in the middle of all that, he thought he heard Leon’s breath hitch, just a tiny whisper in a sea of delight. It settled in his chest, hooked itself there, and Nick wondered what it might turn into.

  THE PENSION BEING as large as it was had been a good thing during the mini-tournament. It meant they had a large hall at their disposal with various chairs and tables and sofas lining the walls. Only, in the past few hours, a hurricane of paper and plastic and cardboard had been unleashed.

  Christmas morning meant presents, which had been carefully wrapped by parents, collected by chess club supervisors, and mailed to the pension beforehand. At least that was how Amber and Sara had described it, as they all stared at the mess left in the wake of fifty kids opening presents. Sure, the gifts were small enough to be taken back in suitcases, but there’d been so many.

  Someone had commented along the lines of not leaving all of it for the staff to clean up—maybe Daniel—and Nick, of course, had promptly opened his mouth.

  “I can’t believe you volunteered us for this,” Leon said, fluttering a trash bag open.

  “I volunteered myself. You can go.”

  Leon raised an eyebrow. “And miss the opportunity to stare at your ass while you bend over to pick all this up?” He extended the hand with the bag, grin wide. “Get to it.”

  Hell. Nick couldn’t help laughing, not anymore.

  “Aw, there it is again,” Leon crooned, self-satisfied as usual. “I knew you had more of it in you.”

  “More of what?”

  “Laughter.” He said it with such simplicity that something shuddered inside Nick. Something old and cold.

  Leon had already turned away, though, picking up boxes, and Nick pushed that weird feeling aside.

  They worked in silence for a while, dividing the trash into piles of plastic and paper, and, in one disgusting instance, the contents of a small abominable slime jar.

  The commotion in the dining hall was in full roar with a late lunch when Sara dropped off sandwiches and tea for them.

  “There’s a choir concert down in the resort, next to the statue,” she said. “We’re taking all the kids there after they eat. Join us?” She blinked at Leon; Leon blinked at her. “Or don’t.” Her gaze skittered briefly to Nick. “See you later!”

  “What was that all about?” Nick asked.

  When he looked over, Leon had half of a sandwich in his mouth and eyebrows raised in an expression that was supposed to convey ignorance.

  Nick hummed, unconvinced, and grabbed a sandwich for himself. Whatever was in it was delicious, and the tea hot. Sitting there, thighs pressed against each other’s on the sofa, Nick felt mellow. The emotional turmoil of the past few days had drained him, and he leaned back to enjoy the quiet in his head; a break was just what he needed.

  They were down to the last mouthfuls of tea, Leon’s thumb warm as it shifted across his shoulder—and when had he put his arm along the back of the couch?—when Nick thought to ask.

  “Why did you come out to me like that? It doesn’t seem like you.”

  It didn’t, not really, now that he’d gotten to know Leon better. What Nick had learned was that Leon came across as an overt and flirtatious guy, but he was still pretty reserved. He made people laugh, but he didn’t reveal much of himself, other than inane tidbits. He was the opposite with Sara, Amber, the guys, and, surprisingly, Nick. Warm instead of cordial, truly open instead of simply polite. Nick couldn’t quite understand why he’d been privy to his secrets from the start. Why, actually, Leon had tested him.

  “You had drool on you.”

  “Huh?”

  Leon withdrew his arm and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He held his mug between his palms for a moment. The small smirk he threw over his shoulder didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Usually, I don’t share beds with strangers because I invariably end up all over them. As you’ve no doubt learned by now. But it’s stupid and silly. I forgot to ask for an extra pillow that night, too tired from the flight, and honestly? I was expecting some awkward morning shuffle from you. Was ready to tease the hell out of you.”

  He drank from his tea, and Nick matched the gesture, if only to give his mouth something to do.

  “But you had to go out with my drool on you to get us coffee.”

  Leon swallowed audibly and set down the mug. He turned to Nick, then pried the one from his hand, too.

  Didn’t let go of his fingers after.

  “I thought I might grow to like you, so I had to know where your line was.”

  Nick cleared his throat. “I see.”

  “You see,” Leon repeated, amused. “What do you see?”

  Irresistible splendor, Nick almost said. Instead, he gripped Leon’s fingers tighter. Found it hard to look away from his eyes, solid and light and saying everything words weren’t.

  “So that’s how it is.” Leon shifted closer. “You’re gonna make me do all the work.”

  “No,” Nick countered immediately. “I want—”

  He reached to—to what? What did he want?

  The stubble on Leon’s cheek was not unfamiliar as he whispered, “Me, too,” against Nick’s palm, and—

  His lips were hot, and Nick floated fuzzily somewhere in the space between them. He hadn’t felt like that in a very long time.

  So that was what he wanted.

  That place inside his chest, that part of him that stung and scraped—he wanted it to be soft again.

  Like fresh snow. Like how kissing Leon felt.

  Like a snowdrop
instead of pine needles.

  They parted, and Leon’s teeth glinted under his grin as he said, “Not bad. We can work with that.”

  Which meant more kissing and more softness, going on dates and smiles and touches, maybe a relationship somewhere on the horizon if it worked out, warmth and life—

  —lifeless eyes staring at the light overhead, cold and dark and stinging.

  Nick’s breath froze halfway down, settled in a painful lump somewhere along his windpipe.

  That was how panic usually started to set in; he was starkly aware.

  How he managed to say, “I have to go,” was beyond him. Or maybe he hadn’t gotten more than a rasp out, but his legs listened, and he moved.

  HE NEEDED A quiet place to curl into, to breathe and count and calm down. To ride the exhaustion after. But everything was loud, so loud. Children shrieking, bumping into his legs. Hands on his arms. His room, maybe, but Leon had followed him there, right behind him, so he grabbed his coat and moved.

  Kept moving.

  The trees were silent, and they blanketed the rushing in Nick’s ears somewhat. Not enough, not yet, and he pushed further.

  Funny how the snow crunching under his feet seemed to follow him, his own name pulsing in the wind, as if the forest were scolding him. It only drove him to move faster, until the air turned sharp as it whipped over his cheeks—maybe he was flying—and he came face-to-face with a wooden door.

  Refuge, it said on it, in four languages.

  Yes, that was exactly what he’d been looking for, and he slipped inside.

  WHEREVER HE’D LIVED in the past years, he’d always made sure to have a place to curl into. At the hospital, it had been a small space between the frame of the bed and the wall beneath the window. At home, he had positioned the bookshelf far enough from the corner that he could sit there, walls around him, and close his eyes. He even had a pillow on the floor, a blanket or two as needed. It made him feel safe and warm and not broken.

  In the small room of the refuge, though, the air was stale and cold, the floor unyielding and the wall behind his back not that reassuring.

  A mistake.

  There was an empty space around him where Leon’s warmth should’ve been, if only Nick hadn’t run.

  And that, more than anything else, refocused his senses. There was still panic there, at the back of his mind, pulsing like it had a will of its own, but it wasn’t trying to claw its way out anymore.

  Not good, he reckoned. That only meant he’d crash later rather than sooner, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, he prodded back at that softness, that kiss, to unwrap the fear and see beneath it.

  Leon was nothing like Lauren.

  Aside from a couple of obvious similarities, the parallels of their existence were so far apart they might as well have been on different planets. The number of idiosyncrasies and microexpressions they shared was too small to coalesce into anything to show likeness to each other. Their lives, as much as he’d learned from Leon so far, had been wildly different. Divergent, even.

  And yet, and yet, and yet. He couldn’t help but predict, with ridiculous irrationality, that they’d both end in the same way.

  Nick pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes, waited for pressure-light to draw swirls on the back of his lids before letting go. He looked up just in time to see the door open and close.

  Leon sat next to him, there in the dank cold. Nick kept track of his hands as they shifted, first on the phone screen, then up to his ear.

  “I caught up to him, yes.” He paused, listening to the other end, then asked Nick, “Are you hurt?”

  Nick shook his head.

  “He seems fine. We’re at Refuge 14.” Another pause. “Yes, the small one to the west.” And again, longer that time. “Really? Damn. No, we’ll be fine, see you soon.”

  He hung up, let the phone dangle from his fingers.

  “There’s a storm coming,” he said. “We should go back before it hits or before it gets dark.”

  Nick knew Leon was looking at him, felt his gaze burning into the side of his head.

  “Wanna tell me what this is all about?”

  Nick closed his eyes. He could hear Leon’s breath, harsher and harsher, and he counted. Twelve, eighteen, twenty-two.

  “I see.” Cracked all the way through, that’s how those words sounded. Leon cleared his throat.

  “No, you don’t,” Nick whispered, against his better judgment.

  “Then why don’t you explain it to me?”

  Why didn’t he, really? What was stopping him? Wasn’t it better to shut it down before it even started? In the quiet, Leon’s warmth seemed to seep toward him even through their thick jackets, and Nick felt it deep in his bones, like a psychosomatic reaction to his closeness. Nick pried his eyes open, not without difficulty, and looked at him.

  “Do you really wanna know?”

  Leon nodded. “Yeah.” He elongated the word so much it sounded like a duh.

  “Okay. I just… I need a minute.”

  A MINUTE TURNED into ten, and Leon kept checking outside, then tapping at his phone.

  “Can that minute you need happen while we’re walking back?” he asked. “’Cause that storm is coming fast.”

  Nick’s fingers were still shaking. He doubted his legs would hold him. “No.”

  “Whoa, what’s—” He was there, suddenly, kneeling in front of him, taking Nick’s hands between his own. And then, with that teacher voice Nick had been hearing for the past week and a half, he said, “Tell me what you’re feeling. Does anything hurt?”

  “No, nothing. It’s an aftereffect.”

  “Panic?”

  “Yeah,” Nick rasped.

  Leon sighed. “We’re not leaving soon, are we?”

  “Sorry.”

  At that, Leon winced, squeezed his fingers. “Don’t be. I have to call back and let them know we’re staying here, okay? And then you’ll tell me how to help.”

  Nick felt selfish for accepting it so easily, but he really didn’t want to be alone. Not anymore.

  “Cold,” he said. “I’m cold.”

  WITH FOCUSED EFFICIENCY, Leon laid out one of the two folded cots and then bundled Nick on top of it into a nest of thick, scratchy blankets. He started a fire in the stove, even brought in some more wood. Already cut. Must’ve been a stash out back.

  There were supplies inside, too, bottles of water and cans of food, a well-stocked first aid kit, all shelved neatly in the storage space behind one of the two doors that didn’t lead outside.

  “There’s no running water,” Leon said as he came out of the tiny bathroom. He gestured with the metal basin in his hands. “But we should be able to wash our hands.”

  He went out, the wind already howling in a way that sent shivers down Nick’s spine, and returned with snow in the basin, which he set down next to the stove.

  “Where are we?” Nick asked.

  The look Leon gave him was thoroughly unimpressed. “It’s a refuge that belongs to the resort, put out here for idiot tourists who get caught on the mountain at nighttime in a storm.”

  “It’s not nighttime yet.”

  “Don’t you snark at me,” Leon admonished, a hint of his usual amusement under there. Not enough to bring the smile back, though.

  Nick pulled the blankets closer and circled around what he was going to say once Leon finished making tea.

  Too soon, he handed over a metal mug, and then dragged one of the folding chairs in front of where Nick was leaning against the wall, cross-legged on the thin, lumpy mattress.

  The wind sounded like the mountain was dying. Scraping, making it bleed.

  “Feeling better?”

  Nick nodded. He sipped at the tea, a horrible tasting liquid, not like the one down at the pension. He felt stupid all of a sudden.

  “Sorry you’re stuck here with me.”

  Leon rubbed a hand over his face. “The things I do…” He le
t out a long exhale through his nose.

  Right, right. It jolted unpleasantly through Nick that Leon was there to hear Nick’s explanation. “Are you sure you wanna know?” he asked.

  “Sure-sure.”

  That was that, then.

  Nick must’ve been silent for too long, searching for a way to begin, because Leon cleared his throat. Startled, Nick almost spilled the drink on himself.

  “You’re nothing like her,” he blurted.

  A dawning kind of horror overtook Leon’s face. “Excuse me?”

  “Lauren.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Who’s Lauren?”

  Wife, sister, mother, specter. A lot of things. Nick patted his pockets, no phone. Maybe he should start at the very beginning, then.

  “She was Jeff’s twin.”

  Leon muttered, “Was,” seemingly to himself, but Nick took a deep breath and pushed forward.

  “I’ve known them since we were little kids. We grew up together, inseparable, us three against the world. Hell, Grams raised me along with them. Their grandmother,” he explained. “My home environment wasn’t the most nurturing, and she took me under her wing without a word. Anyway, we turned out fine under Grams’ watchful eye. She’s—she’s gone now, too.”

  He’d always felt it like a throbbing pain in his teeth when he remembered he’d missed her funeral, and he had to wait for it to pass. Thankfully, Leon waited with him.

  “Well, we went to college, expanded our horizons, made friends and dated and went through all the learning curves you’re supposed to have. In the end, it was still just the three of us. And then, through some miracle, Lauren and I, we—”

  He had to close his eyes for a bit, rub at them.

  “We got married in the summer, right after we graduated. Everything was absolutely, amazingly blissful, for almost four years.”

  “And then what happened?” Leon asked quietly.

  Nick barked out a laugh, hollow and dry. “Remember when you said you wanted kids like Abby? You definitely shouldn’t go through the whole experience.” He saw Leon start to frown, so he hurried to explain. “The night Abby was born, Lauren was gone. There were complications; her heart gave out on the operating table. I saw it happen; there was an observation room—”