Eli wrapped the potholder around the handle and pulled the screaming kettle off the stove, pouring scalding water into the oversized mug. I watched the clumping cocoa as it mixed with the shimmering swirls of the whiskey as the icy liquor mixed with the cocoa.
“If you need it to cool faster, the marshmallows are practically ice.” Eli dropped the bag on the table. It thudded like a sack of pebbles.
“Thanks.” I pulled one of the rock-like white cubes out of the bag and dropped it into the cup. Ripples bounced off the white edge like surf against a cliff face.
Eli sat and looked out the window. The snow stopped falling two nights ago.
“We should be able to get out tomorrow. If you’d like, I can drive you to the highway, it should be ploughed, and then walk back for my car.”
I snorted into my cup. “That’s a six mile walk….”
He met my disbelieving gaze with an emotionless stare and shrugged.
Pulling his black coffee to his lips, he turned back to the window. “You know, this reminds me of college.”
“I don’t recall it snowing once during college, unless there was something after Cal.”
“A snowstorm is not the only thing that’s kept us cooped up together for ridiculous amounts of time.”
“Oh! Junior year…” I smiled at the memory and took a long sip, letting the warm liquid and the alcohol warm me from the inside.
“Spring semester, we holed up in your dorm room for two weeks.”
“The difference is,” I waggled my spoon at him. “We don’t have 400 take out restaurants to choose from.”
“Mr. Wong’s Chinese and Buffalo Wings.”
“Oh, his fried zucchini was so good.” This conversation was making me hungry.
Eli pulled his cell phone out.
“What are you doing?” I furrowed my brow at him over the rim of my mug.
He didn’t answer.
Clicking through a series of buttons, he hit the speaker phone and I heard it ring.
“Mr. Wong’s, pick up or delivery?” The voice of the kid working the phones came through in a mechanical drone.
I nearly spit out the mouthful of cocoa.
“Delivery, we’d like two orders of fried zucchini and crab puffs.” He grinned at me, looking like the college boy I’d fallen in love with all those years ago – maybe a little scruffier.
“What’s your address?”
“Can you deliver to Michigan?” The grin only grew, and I did my best to get a sip down without giggling.
“Street or avenue?”
“The state.”
There was a pause before he hung up.
Eli put his phone away and chuckled to himself.
“Hey, do you know what Chinese restaurants serve for Easter?”He waited, I didn’t answer, “Colored eggrolls.”
I shook my head and laughed at the stupidity. “That one was bad.”
He smiled wider.
I wondered what had happened to the crabapple I’d been cooped up with for the last week and a half.
In need of more warmth, I went to the stove. I picked up the handle of the kettle without thinking.
The metal handle scorched my flesh and I dropped it, hearing it clatter to the floor, I instinctively closed my hand. That only made it worse.
Looking around, I couldn’t think of what to do. Where had Eli gone?
He was back in the kitchen as though he’d never been gone. Pressing a cold ball of snow into my reddened hand, he brushed a gloved thumb across my cheek and I realized I was crying.
“It’s gonna be okay.”
And somehow, I knew it would be.
Fridgid << >> Whiteout
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This week's RWH post gave us a prompt and a word limit.
The word count had to be less than 600 words - let me tell you, that took some editing.
The prompt was inspired by NPR's 3 minute fiction. The only requirements (other than word count) were that one character had to tell a joke and a character had to cry. They were allowed to be the same character.
