The words poured out of me.
Near 6:00pm, the lights flickered on and off for almost a minute before finally staying on. We waited a few moments, staring at the lights, making certain. After a minute of no flickers, we raced into the kitchen. Chase grabbed the frying pan and began heating it up, while I rummaged through the stinky piles of dead fish carcasses for our dinner. I grabbed the two smallest ones I could find.
“I’m glad to see your taste in food is improving,” Chase said. He reached out to grab the fish wrapped in foil that I held out to him, our fingers brushing on contact.
“Desperate times.” I replied, bumping him with my hip as I stood next to him at the stove. He placed the fish on the hot pan, it sizzling and popping against the heat.
“That smells like death.”
Chase grinned as he put his arm around my shoulders, drawing me in close. “I love your sweet talk.”
We fried the fish up in the small kitchen, amid accidental brushing, nudging, and teasing. I believe there was even a wink thrown around in the ring. All through dinner, my heart was in a constant state of flutter. Anticipation swelled in my breast at every touch. At the table, we sat corner to corner, our legs brushing and even kicking at times, as we laughed, ate our fish, and drank our hot chocolate. My nerves made the food wonderfully tasteless in my mouth. My heart was flying first into battle, while my head was trying to reason with it; attempting more caution.
I felt Chase’s eyes on me. I looked up and met his gaze, pushing a strand of my hair back behind my ear as I did so.
“Popcorn and a movie?” he asked.
I smiled. “Yeah.”
Caution, caution, caution, my head warned. My stubborn heart willfully ignored the plea.
Soon, the fishy smell of the cabin was overpowered by popcorn and butter. For all the cabin didn’t have, we were elated to find an air popper and a bag of kernels in the laundry room, earlier that day. I thanked the heavens that we had found a stray stick of butter in the back of the fridge. I wasn’t going to think about how long it could have been there. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and I was feeling quite grateful that night. As we rummaged through the eclectic shelves stuffed full of videocassette tapes, the air between us was pinging.
Electric.
Both of us were feeling in the Christmas mood and we settled on ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ Chase plopped down on the left side of the couch, while I rewound the tape in the tape rewinder before pushing it inside the VCR.
“Good thing my grandma had a VHS player at her house growing up, or we might have never figured this out,” I said.
“I knew being in a cabin with a grandma in training would come in handy this week.”
A comment like that, I could not abide by. Grabbing the popcorn bowl off the table, I stepped over his feet that were propped up on the coffee table, ignored his motioning for me to sit by him, and sat on the complete opposite end of the couch.
“What the?”
I looked over at him and met his playful affront with my stare.
“You take all my clothes and then you sit clear over there? With the popcorn bowl?”
“I’ve seen you eat popcorn, I think I should get a few minutes head start.”
Chase smiled, shook his head, and turned toward the TV when the movie began to start.
A few minutes later, I looked over to Chase, shivering on his side of the couch. Dramatically, I might add.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, feeling a bit suspicious.
He looked over at me, a teasing gleam in his eye. “I’m freezing. How are you?”
I dropped my blanket and got up off the couch, sauntering toward him. He stopped shivering immediately, anticipation warming his eyes as he watched me approach. And then… I kept walking to the other side of the TV and grabbed the brown ratty cabin blanket. I hit him with it as I walked by him, once again settling down on my side of the couch, amid his deep chuckle.
* * *
Throughout the first half of the movie, I was aware of movement to the left of me. Chase was constantly getting up to grab a drink, use the bathroom, or refill his popcorn bowl. It wasn’t until George Bailey had married his Mary, that I realized he was now only an arm’s length away from me.
I eyed him suspiciously out of the corner of my eye. He seemed intent on the movie, mindlessly eating popcorn, same as me. Confused, I turned my attention back to the movie. Had he been clear on the other side of the couch? Maybe he hadn’t been as far as I thought?
Chase stood up again, walking to the kitchen and filled his cup by the sink. When he turned back around, his eyes scanned the room and landed on mine before I jolted and focused my attention back on the TV.