“Artists are inspired by blank canvases.”
My smile grows wider.
“A blank canvas,” Josh continues, “has unlimited possibilities.”
I close my eyes, lean over, and kiss his cold lips. “Thank you.”
His shivering grows more severe.
I jump to my feet. “Oh, mon petit chou.” I pull out his arms from his snow-soaked coat. “I can’t believe you were waiting out there this whole time.”
His teeth chatter. “I-I would have waited all night.”
I hang up his coat inside my shower and return for his shirt. “This, too.” I tug it off, over his head. His skin is pale. Almost lavender-coloured. “And these.” I remove his shoes and socks, but his pants prove to be a challenge. They’re practically frozen to his legs. When they finally release, I topple over backwards.
He smiles through his shivers. “Not…quite…how I imagined…undressing with you again.”
I hang up his shirt and pants beside his coat to dry. Over my head, his socks and boxers go flying onto the shower floor. I laugh. He’s wrapped himself up inside my quilt, and only his face is peeking out.
“This doesn’t mean you can take advantage of me,” he says.
I laugh again.
Josh sweeps out a hand across the surface of my bed as a gesture for me to sit beside him, but the quilt catches on the manuscript. It knocks over on to the floor in a loud, crashing, never-ending nightmare. We freeze in horror. We listen for Nate. Nothing.
We smile at the miracle that has been granted to us.
I sit beside him. He scoots in towards me, but I pull back my head. “Don’t you want to know what I thought about your book first?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He laughs nervously. “Do I?”
“You know it’s good. You know it’s really, really good.”
His face disappears as his entire body slumps into the mound of blankets. “You can’t even begin to imagine how relieved I am to hear you say that.”
“I’ve always known you’re brilliant. And you’ve just proved it to the world.”
A hand pokes out from underneath the quilt. I squeeze it. “For what it’s worth?” he says. “You’d make a great editor someday. Everything you yelled at me was true.”
I look away from him in shame. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“No. I am. I’m sorry about so many things. And I’m especially sorry for…using your ex-girlfriend to fuel my own stupid insecurities. I want you to know that I don’t love this” – I gesture towards his manuscript, scattered across my hardwood – “because there’s less of her in it. Or more of me. I want you to know that I love it because it has you in it – the good parts and the ugly parts. I love you. I love all of you.”
He grips my hand harder. “Thank you.”
“The praise is a long time coming.” I rub my thumb against his index finger. “And I have so much more of it to give.”
“Tomorrow. Right now, I only want you.”
But my heart grows heavy again. “You mean today. Did you find out when your train leaves?”
“Isla.” He looks surprised. Like I should already know this. “I never bought a ticket.”
My breath catches. “What?”
“I’m not going to the Olympics. I came here for you.”