Triple Sec, page 20
Mel pulled out her phone and frowned at it. Still no reception. She levered herself off the couch and snatched up the little card with the Wi-Fi password. Once she got connected, her phone pinged relentlessly with about a million missed calls and texts from Bebe. Mel smiled to herself. Sweet of her to check in. She called Bebe on video chat, and Bebe picked up within seconds.
“Oh, thank god.” It looked like she was standing in a nondescript office hallway. She was perfectly made-up, as usual, though two strands of hair had escaped her businesslike bun to hang in her eyes. She brushed them away with a swipe of her hand. “Are you okay? Are you still in Calgary?”
“Uh…” Mel held her phone out at arm’s length and moved in a circle so Bebe could see her surroundings. “We’re at the cabin. Mansion-cabin. Why would we still be in Calgary?”
The Wi-Fi must have had its hands full with the video call because Bebe’s face froze for a long moment, her voice cut off into garbled robotic nonsense. “—the storm?” was all Mel caught.
“Storm? What storm?” She moved around the room with her arm outstretched, hoping to find a spot where the signal was stronger. “Sorry, you’re breaking up.”
Bebe thankfully resolved after a moment. “The blizzard!” she said with an exasperation that meant she’d probably repeated it several times. “You haven’t heard?”
That sounded… not good. “Kade!” Mel called over her shoulder. “Can you come here for a second?” Then, turning back to Bebe’s worried face on her phone, she hissed, “No, I haven’t heard. I haven’t had cell service since we got into the mountains.”
Kade appeared at that super opportune moment, poking their head over Mel’s shoulder to see the phone. “Hello, Love.”
“Darling, there’s a massive blizzard headed right for you,” Bebe said in lieu of a greeting.
Kade’s reaction was infuriatingly nonplussed. “I see,” they said. “That is unfortunate.”
Mel’s head spun. “Wait, how massive are we talking?” she asked Bebe. “Are you still flying out tomorrow?”
Bebe gave a miserable huff. “All flights in and out of Calgary are canceled. I can’t book a ticket.” She checked her wristwatch. “I called the company our friend hired to maintain the cabin—”
“Mansion,” Mel muttered under her breath.
“—and they told me the best thing for you to do if you’re already there is to hunker down.”
“Leaving is not an option?” Kade squinted out of the plate-glass window. Mel could see ominous gray clouds blotting out the sky, but it wasn’t snowing or anything. “The weather doesn’t look too terrible at the moment.”
“The weather channel says the blizzard is moving fast. If you leave, you could get stuck on the roads,” Bebe said. “Sit tight. That’s all you can do at this point.”
Mel’s heart sank into her Docs. A long weekend trapped in a luxury cabin alone with Kade? The thought made her more panicked than the threat of a storm. Weather, she could understand. Kade St. Cloud? Not so much.
“I wish I could be there with you,” Bebe said, as if reading Mel’s mind. She forced some cheer into her voice, though the janky Wi-Fi connection cut off some of what she was saying. “—the worst might miss you. If not—” Another lag. “—for a snowplow to dig you out.”
A snowplow? Oh, hell no. “Uh, Bebe, can I talk to you alone for a minute? I’ll be right back, Kade.” She hustled upstairs with the phone still in hand, looking for some privacy. Kade had placed her backpack in one of the two bedrooms, so she entered that one. It was a very nice room with a picture window facing the woods. Outside, the wind howled like barflies who’d been told it was last call. Fat flakes of snow were falling one by one, picking up speed. Mel shut the door behind her and addressed Bebe on the phone in a low whisper. “Are you absolutely sure Kade and I can’t make a break for it? Because if we get trapped on a mountain alone together, we might murder each other.”
Bebe laughed. Laughed! At Mel’s potential demise. “What on earth are you—?” The call glitched briefly. “—can’t be that bad.”
“It is,” Mel said, piecing Bebe’s point together as best she could. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure they hate my guts.”
“What makes you say that?” Bebe asked.
Mel blew out a breath. That morning at the airport lounge loomed large in her mind. “It’s a long story, but I kind of blew up at someone who kept misgendering Kade and they told me”—Mel adopted a chilly monotone for her best St. Cloud impression—“ ‘I would never have done that.’ Or something.”
Bebe stared at her for so long, Mel was convinced the screen was frozen again. “I don’t think they meant it in a bad way.”
Mel groaned and scrubbed her face with her free hand. “Yeah, right. That must be why we’ve barely spoken two words to each other the whole way here.” And those that had been spoken only seemed to rub each other the wrong way. “What are we going to do all weekend alone?”
Bebe’s eyebrows did a little dance. “I have a couple suggestions.”
“Bebe. Be serious.”
“What? It’s cold, you’re snowed in—if you two wanted to spend the time getting to know each other, biblically or otherwise, you have my blessing.”
Mel shook her head. She couldn’t begin to imagine being biblical with Kade. “They would rather walk into the woods and disappear forever. They hate me.”
“That’s simply not true.” Bebe’s face softened on the screen. “Look, I’ll be the first to admit that it takes a certain amount of… practice to communicate effectively with Kade. But I promise you, they don’t—” The picture froze with Bebe’s eyes in a half blink. “In fa—”
Mel shook her phone like it was an Etch A Sketch, hoping it would help somehow. “Bebe? I’m losing you.”
“—told them I wouldn’t say anything to you, but—” She cut out again.
Mel’s eyes went wide. “Say what to me? Bebe!”
The call dropped. Mel tried to redial but couldn’t get through. The Wi-Fi, her phone helpfully informed her, was gone.
CHAPTER 19
Hey, quick question: Are we going to starve to death?” Mel tried to sound upbeat about the whole experience, but it was difficult to put a positive spin on what could easily become a Donner Party situation. She paced along the confines of the sunken living room with her arms folded tight across her chest. Outside, the sky was turning black from more than just the setting sun. She stopped to look out the huge window-wall. The storm was getting worse, snow falling in great, gusty sheets now.
Kade opened the fridge in the sleek kitchen and peered inside. They had changed out of their Ferragamo ensemble and into more practical winter clothes: thick trousers and a wooly sweater with a wide neck. “There’s plenty of food.” They closed the fridge and turned their attention to the pantry. “We should try to make it last, though. If we get snowed in, who knows how long it will take to dig out.”
Mel wrapped her arms tighter around herself and shivered. “Not sure I could eat anything right now, anyway. My stomach’s in knots.” With the Wi-Fi down and no reception, they didn’t have any up-to-date information on the stormfront, but the last piece of info Kade had seen on their phone before everything went to shit wasn’t promising. It looked like they were right in the path of the blizzard. Canadian news said to expect up to three feet of snow and high winds.
“People around here have dealt with worse storms than this,” Kade reminded her. “We’ll be fine as long as we stay inside.”
It was exactly then that the power went out.
Every light in the house snapped off with a frisson of electrical power giving up the ghost. Deep in the guts of the cabin, something gave a mechanical ca-chunk. Mel stood blinking in the pitch-black darkness, where not a speck of light was around to help her eyes adjust. She got out her phone and turned on its flashlight. Kade stared back at her from the shadows, a box of pasta in their hand, looking startled.
“Oh yeah,” Mel drawled, “I’m feeling absolutely fine.”
“Sarcasm will not help the situation,” Kade said. They smacked the pasta box onto the counter.
“Okay, so what will?”
“Candles.” Kade began the painstaking journey through the house in the dark. “Or flashlights. They must keep something around for emergencies.”
She moved her phone in front of Kade, trying to light their way. “Does this place have one of those binders? The ones hotels and rental places have sometimes? ‘Check out time is blah blah blah; here’s how you use the coffee maker; in case of emergency, candles are located here’ type stuff?”
“Yes. That makes sense. There should be a binder.” Kade swept their hands over the surface of the kitchen counter and, finding nothing, moved on to accost the living room’s coffee table. “Do you see one?”
“No, but—” Mel swished her light around the room and landed on the empty fireplace. “We could build a fire.”
“Excellent idea,” Kade said. They bumped into tasteful mid-century-modern furnishings as they picked their way over to the hanging fireplace. It looked like a huge black smokestack that ran from the ceiling to a few feet above the floor, where it ended in a widened mouth of a grate. Kade crouched beside the spacey-looking circle of iron that held a handful of logs. “I’ll hold the light and you can start the fire,” they said.
Mel made a doubtful noise. “I don’t know how to start a fire.”
Kade’s head snapped up, their mouth a distressed oval. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know! I’ve never had to light a fire before.”
“You’ve never been camping?”
“I wasn’t exactly Girl Scout material growing up.” It had been more of a tarot-and-witchcraft vibe at that age. She shifted on her feet. The light bounced along Kade’s arms. “Can’t you do it?”
Kade’s lips thinned into a line. The look on their face said more than a biography.
Mel nearly dropped her phone. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You don’t know either?”
“I’m not an outdoorsy type,” Kade said defensively. “Bebe’s always been the one to light the fire here before.”
Mel rubbed a hand over her face. “Well, we can’t exactly ask her how to do it, now, can we?” What kind of tops were they? Completely useless, the pair of them.
Kade peered into the fireplace. “I remember she needed paper to get it started last time. Or cardboard?”
Mel snapped her fingers. “I’ll dump the pasta out. We’ll use the box.” She picked her way carefully toward the kitchen. “What about the flue?”
“What about it?” Kade asked.
“I don’t know. Shouldn’t it… do something?” Mel set her phone down so she could tear open the box of ziti. “All I know is that it’s part of the whole chimney setup.”
Kade hesitated, then said, “Maybe it’s not crucial?”
Turned out, it was crucial, which they only discovered after many false starts: lighting the cardboard box with the gas stove. Running it over to the fireplace to stick on top of the stack of logs they’d arranged in the grate. Realizing the logs would never catch without more encouragement. Finding some bamboo skewers in a kitchen drawer that could act as kindling. Cheering when the fire at last caught the wood. Watching in horror as the living room filled with a huge puff of smoke. Then—finally—turning the knob on the fireplace to open the flue as wide as it would go so they wouldn’t cough up a lung.
“See? That wasn’t so hard,” Mel panted as they both collapsed onto the carpeted floor in front of their hard-won flickering fire.
“Child’s play,” Kade agreed. They had a smudge of soot across their cheek. Mel thought about wiping it away, but she was too exhausted to move. Also, Kade would probably shy away from her touch.
Outside, the wind howled. In the firelight, Mel could see the storm pounding away at the windows, whorls of fat snowflakes turning everything outside the cabin into a blank canvas. It was a total whiteout. She was glad they were safe inside a sturdy and well-appointed mansion.
“How long will the fire burn, do you think?” Mel asked.
Kade shrugged, then reached over to grab the last fresh log from the holder, tossing it on the roaring fire. “All night, I imagine.” An uncharacteristically optimistic estimate, but Mel didn’t know enough about logs to argue.
There were two sofas arranged at a right angle, so they claimed one each and settled in for the night. It seemed an unspoken fact that they weren’t going to wander far from their only light source. The firelight was too unsteady to read by, so Kade gave up fairly quickly on the novel they’d brought.
“We could—talk,” Mel suggested. She herself had done nothing for the past hour except watch Kade try to read. They were kind of pretty when they were frowning at a book, all perfect skin and freckles on their neck. She picked up one of the sleek throw pillows and held it across her stomach like a shield. “There’s not much else to do.”
“How gratifying to know speaking to me is slightly preferable to doing nothing,” Kade muttered.
Mel rolled her eyes but was not deterred. “Can I ask you something?”
“If I say no, will that stop you?”
Mel barreled onward, not caring in the least that she was proving Kade’s point. “Why does Bebe call you her wife? You’re gender neutral about most things, but not that.”
They pursed their lips in thought before answering. “I like the word ‘wife.’ It appeals to me in a way the other words for ‘spouse’ never could,” Kade said. “Bebe and I have imbued it with a kind of magic, I think. Words are just symbols, and a symbol can mean whatever you ascribe to it. I don’t think you need to be a woman to be a wife. Even men could be wives, if they tried hard enough.” They cast a dry look in Mel’s direction. “Most of them don’t. But there’s always hope.”
Mel pursed her lips to keep from laughing. “So you’re not the biggest fan of men?” Finally, something they had in common. It wasn’t like Mel hated men—Daniel was a man, after all, and he was one of her favorite people in the world—but she had never been attracted to them. It was like how some people didn’t like cilantro. She’d never begrudge anyone for it, but she didn’t get the appeal.
“Some of them are all right in small doses,” Kade said. Then they hesitated, which seemed strange for them. “Sawyer and I—you met him at brunch, didn’t you? We used to share a bed off and on. But that time has passed.”
“You’re just friends now?” Mel asked.
Kade thought about this; Mel could tell the gears were turning because they had caught their bottom lip between their teeth. She filed away the tell in an imaginary box marked KADE. “ ‘Just’ friends makes it sound like something lesser. Easier. I don’t think it is. It’s still a garden that needs tending, even if it’s growing something else. In some other season.”
“Hm.” Mel mulled that over. A garden that needed tending—maybe her friendship with Daniel, the only person who’d stuck by her through the divorce and everything that had followed, required more attention. And not just bullshit fertilizer. No one else had been there when she and Bebe were rocky. She made a mental note to set aside some time when she got home to sit down with Daniel. Really get to the bottom of what was eating him lately.
She lifted her head and realized Kade was staring. Right, this was supposed to be an exercise in getting to know her lover’s lover. “And, uh, what about now? Any updates on your love life since we had our late-night tea session?”
That got a hint of a whiff of a smile from them. Their eyes tracked down to the floor. “No, I’m not currently involved with anyone but Bebe.”
Mel’s curiosity wouldn’t let it lie at that. “How come?”
Kade didn’t do the intense eye contact that Bebe did, but their fleeting glance was no less affecting. There was a vulnerability there, Mel realized with a start. There was something that had been hurt. “It hasn’t been the right time,” they said, cryptic as ever.
Mel opened her mouth to ask more probing questions, but she paused with her lips parted. She could see her breath frosting in the air.
“Are you getting cold?” she asked, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. The fire was settling into a glowing ember-ish state, but even so, it should’ve been throwing off plenty of warmth. Especially when coupled with the house’s heating system.
Oh shit. Mel froze. The heating system.
Kade’s voice sounded a million miles away. “I’m a little chilly, yes. I’d put another log on the fire, but we’ve used up the ones in the rack.” The artsy geometric firewood holder next to the fireplace was indeed empty.
Mel levered herself off the sofa and headed to the far wall that met the A-frame of glass. She could feel the cold seeping through the window. Her breath was even more noticeable this far from the fireplace. She went to one knee and put her hand on the metal bar of the baseboard heater that ran along the bottom of the wall. Stone cold.
“Uh, Kade?” she said. “The cabin’s heating system is electric.”
The couch springs creaked as Kade sat up very slowly. “What?”
“It’s out. We’re not getting any heat.” Mel slapped her hand against the heater, producing nothing but a hollow ringing sound. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Kade’s face had gone pale.
“We’re going to get very cold. Very fast.” Kade gestured to the A-frame’s glass feature wall, which soared two floors high. “This place isn’t exactly designed for efficient heating. It takes a lot of power to get a huge open space like this up to a comfortable temperature.”
Mel gnawed her lip. “We could wear a couple extra sweaters?” They could also cuddle for warmth, she thought dimly, but she didn’t see Kade leaping at the chance to be her little spoon.
“It’s likely in the negatives outside,” Kade said. “We can’t put on extra layers and hope for the best. We need heat.” They got to their feet and went to the glass wall, peering into the torrent of snow. “We have to get more firewood.”
