Icy Conditions Ahead

It was mid-November, and I was out and about with my friend, Annie. She’s a bit obnoxious, but I don’t mind - for the most part. I knew we were going out to a pub, and I knew it was going to be cold as balls, so I put on a long body-hugging dress, it’s a dark green dress, and it always keeps me warm. Plus, since it’s so long, I don’t have to wear thighs underneath. I mean, I still froze my butt off, but I only planned on being inside anyways. The only thing that’s a bitch is that I have to wear a thong with them since you can see all the lines on the dress since it’s so tight, but I could bite through it for an evening. Grabbed some boots and my coat, but I left my hat, gloves and all the other “winter equipment” behind, since the winds were strong and I didn’t think there was a chance of snowing, and honestly, I don’t feel like carrying all of that with me, we’re going to be inside anyways.

I live a bit ways out of the town, so Annie picked me up, since I don’t have my own car, and I managed to persuade my brother to come and take me home once we were done. It was Thursday afternoon, so it’s not like he had anything better to do. Annie and I arrived to the pub around 19:30h. We had to park a bit away since the parking lot was full, so by the time we got in, my hair was a mess, and I regretted not bringing at least a hat. As I walked in, I was hit by the warm air, the smell of coffee, beers, and cigarettes – but that’s typical. We said hello to the waiters and quickly scanned the room for a spot. Anne spotted the one in the corner, so we made our way over there. The pub had about twelve tables, plus the one all the waiters always sat at, and while everyone is quite laid back, the place was packed, so there were two waiters tonight.

We sit down, and I finally take of my heavy black coat, and drop it on the chair next to me. Annie is continuing the story from the car, how she had the absolute best summer of her life, and visited probably every party island in existence.

“Ugh, I’m so jealous of you. You had such a great summer” – honestly, I am. We’re both 23, but I went to uni after high school, while Annie worked out a career for herself. The career being insurance worker with mid pay and no promotion options, but still, her mid pay gives her freedom in early twenties, which is still kind of impressive.

“C’mon, you know this is waiting for you once your done with uni, and I did tell you that uni is a waste of time” – I roll my eyes as Annie is giving me a lecture about how unnecessary uni is.

Luckily, the waiter comes and interrupts her asking us what will we have to drink. It’s Josh - he’s all smiles, like usual, but the sense of urgency is obvious on him, and since the place is packed it only makes sense that he wants to be as fast as possible. Honestly, he’s so skillful and so fast when working, it blows my mind. I waited tables for a while in high school in a dinner, so I know it can be stressful and hard, so I’d always admire him for being so fast.

Annie immediately stops talking and turns to him:

“Hi Josh! How are you, Josh?”

Honestly, it freaks me out how she keeps saying his name like that, and I could see that he’s in a rush, so I interrupt:

“Hi, can you please get me a cappuccino? Thanks!” – he nods his head slightly and smiles.

Annie orders a cider of some sort, but flavoured – he’s a little taken aback, but moves on to the next table. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised, I always associated that type of drink with people who pretend it’s non-alcoholic, because it has more of a fruity taste, and less percentage of the alcohol, but I don’t say anything about it.

Annie goes on about how she met Josh a few times, when she was here alone. We live in a small town, so usually everyone knows everyone, but I never saw Josh before, not until he started working here, so I always assumed he was younger than us. As she is telling me how she hung out with Josh, I interrupt quickly:

“Ah, so I guess he’s younger than us, since I don’t remember him from school”

“Yeah, he’s 19 I think”

“Hm, thought I would have seen him in high school at least then”

“I think he went to the one on the other side of the town, or maybe we just weren’t paying attention.” – she continues – “I don’t remember him either.”

Then she goes on to tell me about her new apartment, which does sound nice, so we continue to talk about that a bit more, and before we know it at least half an hour has passed and we drank half of our drinks – or half was left, depending on how you look at it.

The pub has emptied out a bit by now and the waiters sat at their usual table to rest a bit. It was directly across from our table, with a few empty tables between us. Annie has now switched to talking about her summer again, and how she went here and there and slept with this guy and that guy. So, I tuned out a bit, nothing unusual for us, since she likes to make it all about herself little too often. She kept on talking and I kept nodding my head, but I didn’t actually hear anything.

That’s when my gaze met Josh. He was sitting and resting a bit while smoking, and my eyes kept looking over him. I usually always thought he was cute, he was all smiles and always happy, but younger than me so I never thought about him. Even if it’s just a four-year difference between us, I’d feel weird being with someone younger than me. But I started noticing him now. He’s tall, it’s hard to say how tall, but I’m 175 at most, so I’d say he’s at least 195cm. He’s kind of on the thinner side, but when I looked a bit closer, I could see that he has some muscles. He always wears black, and today was no exception, with a short sleeved, oversized, black t-shirt and black pants, all the way down to his black sneakers. My eyes lingered on his bicep for a few seconds; he seems to be so lean and fit. I guess his job does include some heavy lifting, so that does make sense. Then I noticed his hands and fingers. His hands have a few veins popping out on them, and his fingers are long and slim, a typical guy hand...only prettier. Everything about him was prettier. His hair is black, so I guess it does match with the rest of his outfit, and a bit messy, like he doesn’t spend any time on it, or maybe it’s simply after a long shift. Then my gaze turned to his face. He has dark eyes, it’s hard to see from here what colour are they, but I can tell it’s a deep and dark courol. His eyes are protected by beautiful, long and dark eyelashes, which make everyone that has ever used a mascara jealous. Boys don’t deserve eyelashes like that. His face is somewhat slim, and I notice a dimple on his cheek as he smiles to his coworker’s story. I was looking at him for a few seconds, but it felt like forever, like everything slowed down. That’s when he lifted his arm and ran his fingers through his hair. Shit. Something turned in me. Suddenly, he went from being cute to being hot. I felt my blood rush to my cheeks, and my cheeks turned red quickly. I excused myself to Annie to go to the bathroom.

The bar is in the middle of the pub, and the waiters table is next to the bar, so I knew I had to go past them to get to the bathroom. As I quickly made my way to the bathroom, he lifted his gaze and our eyes met quickly. He probably thought I was getting up to order something, but when our eyes met, we both smiled, which probably made my face go even more red. I pass two more tables full of guests, as the universe felt everyone needed to see my red face, and as I got into the bathroom I washed my hands with cold water to cool of a bit. My mind was racing. I kept telling myself he’s just being polite and he’s always smiling so that doesn’t mean anything. That’s when someone came out of the stall, so I quickly dried my hands, took a big breath and went back out there. This time his eyes were on his phone, and I walked by quickly, hoping he looked at me after I passed him.

I sat back down, and Annie said:

“Are you okay?” – she asked - “You seem a bit distracted?”

“Sorry”- I said - “I guess my mind ran away”

“But enough of that” - I continued as I noticed Josh getting up to clean out the table next to us - “Do you maybe want to order something else? My brother won’t be picking me up until 9.” – I said hoping to change the subject.

“Oh no, sorry, I’d have to get going soon.” – she added apologetically – “I’m sorry I won’t be able to drive you back home.”

“I’d have to get going now anyways” – Annie continued as she started gathering her things.

“Are you sure you’ll be able to get out with your car?” – Josh chimed in, asking Annie

“Yeah, why? You think girls can’t drive?” – Annie fires back quickly, you’d think someone insulted her personally.

“No, I think you might be snowed in” – Josh said, pointing to the window.

We both take a look and see that the huge winds and snow have combined and created a huge snowstorm in just a bit more than an hour. Just as we take a look a snowplough goes by. Anne jumps up and says:

“This is my chance. I’m sorry to leave so suddenly, but it’s now or never”

I laugh, give her a quick hug and shout:

“Be safe and let me know once your home” - as she runs out.

Josh turns to me and asks:

“You’re not going with her?”

“No” – I say – “My brother is supposed to pick me up”.

He smiles and picks up her glass and carries it away, as I grab a quick smell of his perfume. Fuck. How does someone work a whole shift and still smell that amazing. I try not to think about it, so I grab my purse and take my phone out, only to see a missed call from my brother. Fuck. I give him a call back, and I can barely hear him. But what I do hear is that our street is completely snowed in and he cannot get the car out. Double fuck. I hang up the phone and get visibly upset. I don’t know what to do now. That’s when Josh comes over and asks if everything is okay. I explain how I’m fucked and have no idea what I am going to do. He just smiles and says:

“I’ll drop you off”.

“Are you sure?” – I ask, not wanting to be a burden.

“Yes, you’re on the way..ish, and the streets will be cleared by the time I’m done.”

“Thank you so much! You’re a life saver!”- feeling a bit bad, I continue with - “Can I help you close up at least?”

“No, I got it, don’t worry” – he says and continues clearing out the tables.

As it’s only 20:30h, and they don’t close for another half an hour, I grab my phone to pass some time and to let my parents know I’ll be late, but that someone will drop me off. Whenever I visit from uni, I always stay with my parents, and they worry often, so I just wanted to let them know. After about 15 minutes of doomscrolling, I get a text from Annie informing me that she got home safely. By now, I’m already bored, so I pick up my cup and bring it to the bar, as he’s putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Not being able to think of anything better to say, I say:

“Just heard back from Annie – she got home safe” – I cringe a bit, why couldn’t I think of anything better.

“Right” – Josh says – “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure” – my heart skips a beat.

“Why do you hang out with Annie?” - he continues as he’s loading the dishwasher - “I mean she talks soo much and it’s always about her.”

I chuckle and before I get to say anything he says:

“I’m sorry, that’s not cool of me. She’s your friend” – he looks embarrassed and quickly continues justifying himself - “it’s just that every time she’s here she always seems to look down on everyone. And you seem so different than she is.”

“Different?” – I say, with my eyebrow slightly raised

“Yeah, it’s just that” – he is interrupted as his boss walks in, covered in snow.

We both greet him and they start to chat a bit about the shift, as the other waiter has left by now. I go and sit back down, while secretly looking at him again. Maybe, just maybe, I’m not so crazy after all - I think to myself. He thinks I’m different… My mind pauses for a second. I hope he means good different. My mind keeps racing again and my eyes keep running towards him. I can’t get away from his smile. God, why does he look kind of beautiful. Fuck it, he’s so cute, and pretty, and handsome. Why is this happening, I think of him as a kid. So fucking pretentious of me, I need to get over myself, it’s only a 4-year difference at most, I tell myself.

Fuck, he keeps smiling while he’s talking to his boss, and it’s such a cute smile. His teeth are so white and his eyes sparkle so beautifully when he smiles. I’m just melting away looking at that dimple. As I’m about to melt away in my chair he takes a quick look at me and goes in the back. My mind is like fuck, did he notice me staring at him like an idiot. I quickly take out my phone and start scrolling again.

That’s when he comes up to me in a huge winter jacket. It’s honestly ridiculous, it has a huge hood, with the fur around it, and of course, it’s black. But given the weather, the size of the jacket is understandable. I look up, and with the most adorable smile he says:

“Okay, we’re good to go. Matt [his boss] will lock up.”

I grab my coat, purse, and just say “Let’s go”, with an even bigger smile on my face.

We say bye to his boss and are about to leave, when he turns around and says:

“You don’t even have a hat and you’re wearing a dress – you’re about to freeze out here”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. I won’t melt” – great job me, 1st place for saying cringiest stuff ever.

“Hope not” – he says, following it with that cute smile.

Fuck. What does he mean hope not. I have to stop looking at his smile. I keep thinking to myself as he opens the door and we go to his car. Luckily his car is parked near, not so luckily, the car is covered in snow – as expected. We quickly sit in the car, it’s a bit of an older car, but cute. Honestly impressive that he can afford a car at 19, I know I couldn’t, at least not myself. He turns around and grabs a short broom from the back seat. He turns on the car to give it some time for the heat to start and goes out to take the snow off the car. Luckily, the snow is still fresh, so it doesn’t take him long to take the snow off the car. He uses the same broom and his legs to remove the snow from in front of the car, so he wouldn’t have any troubles leaving the parking spot. After about 3 or 4 minutes he’s back in the car. It’s still snowing heavily, so he removes his snow-covered jacket and throws it to the back seat. To break the silence, I chime in with:

“You know if you gave me a second, I would have offered to help”.

He chuckles and responds – “hahah don’t worry about it. I got it all.”

The drive to my house is about 30 minutes usually, but with the snow still falling heavily and the strong winds, I anticipated at least a 45 minute drive. Now, I’m not the best at small talk, and I’d guess that neither is he. He seems a bit shy. So, I was bracing myself for 40 minutes of a bit of an awkward and silent drive, as we took off. I kept trying to think of something to ask him or to say, since it’s already been a few minutes and we’re both quiet. He’s so focused on the road, that I think that he didn’t even notice. To be fair the snow is heavy and he has to be focused on the road, but still, I felt awkward. The car was silent, no radio, and other cars would rarely pass by us, lighting the car in a warm tone. The only sound was the wind hitting the car, and the wipers working on max speed. I finally break the silence:

“Thank you so much for driving me home! The weather really sucks, and I have no idea what I would do.” – weather talk, really? I think to myself.

“You’re welcome!” – he slightly smiles.

Is there anything he doesn’t smile to; it’s killing me that he looks so good when doing so.

“Is your street cleared out? Will I be able to drop you off at your place?” – he says, still focused on the road.

“I don’t think so, but don’t worry, you can just drop me off at the main road, and I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“In knee deep snow? That a long walk.” – he raises his eyebrows slightly.

“Actually, it’s not that far. My parent’s house is the 3rd one on the left. But I appreciate the concern” – I smile slightly.

“Wait is that the one with the…”

“The ugly swan sculpture” – we both say at the same time and share a laugh.

“Yeah, not my choice either, but my mom loves the stupid thing.” – I add.

He chuckles again saying – “Yeah don’t worry, it’s not that ugly.”

“Well, thanks a lot!” – I say, teasingly. – “You’re not the one looking at it all the time.”

“Well, you’re not here all the time, now are you?” – he says, somewhat provocatively.

“Fair enough.” – I say, continuing with - “I still visit a lot.”

“I noticed.” – he smiles slightly and makes me blush, so I turn my head to the window.

“Wow it’s really going, isn’t it?” – weather?? Am I stupid? There was my shot at something. I don’t even know what that something is, but still. I’m above talking about the weather. Idiot.

“Yeah, yeah it is.” – he says

As I turn my head, I notice that he’s blushing a bit, and he quickly says – “Do you mind if I turn the heat up a bit? I took my jacket off, and now I’m regretting it”.

“Yeah, yeah. Go for it. I’ll take my coat off anyways.” – as I finished my sentence, I unbuckled my self and untied my coat, while he turned up the heat. As the coat is a bit longer, after taking off the sleeves, I had to push myself a bit forward, including my chest, to pull it out from under me. I think he might have noticed, but it is hard to say, as his eyes are glued to the road. I turned around to put the coat in the back, and I put the seat belt back on as I adjusted my hair.

Now, at least 30 minutes have passed by since we started the ride. We’ve talked a bit more about uni, his plans and some other small talk. On the bright side, I learned that he is 20 years old, which made me smile slightly, as, you know, three is better than four I guess. But we’ve been quiet for the last two minutes, and I kept thinking of what to say, when, luckily, Josh finally said something:

“It’s really picking up. Both the wind and the snow are getting stronger.”

“Hm, I haven’t noticed, looks the same to me.” – as soon as I finished the sentence, a huge tree branch flies in front of us and hits the windshield at a high speed. This causes us to spin off the road, even though we were going at a lower speed.

It all happened so fast, and it was extremely scary. The branch made such a loud noise, you’d think it was a whole tree that hit us. At the moment I was so confused and scared, because the impact and the bad road conditions made the car spin off the road. Josh has grabbed the wheel even harder, and before I knew what happened, we were off the road buried in snow. I was scared, and the first thing Josh did was turn to me and ask:

“Are you okay?” – he added - “I’m so sorry, it came out of nowhere” – he said, with panic in his voice.

“No, I’m okay, don’t worry. Are you hurt?” – I say, still in shock.

“I think I’m fine” – he says, a bit calmer now.

That’s when I notice his hand on my thigh, I look at it and he notices it too, so he quickly moves it away. I think he didn’t even know he did that.

“Fuck” – he says, somewhat angrily, as his head hits the headrest slightly.

He turns around to grab his jacket in a rush, and so do I. We both make our way out, and with the huge blizzard we can barely see anything. But what we do see is that we’re snowed in. And there it was, the culprit that got us off the road. A huge branch. I’m shocked that it didn’t break the windshield.

“I’ll try and start the car again, maybe I can drive out of it” – Josh says, as he’s getting into the car.

I honestly don’t think that’s possible, but I say nothing and just get back in the car. He tries starting it, we hear an awful noise and nothing happens. He tries again and the same thing happens, awful noise for a few seconds, then nothing.

“I hope you’re not in a rush.” – Josh says, as he takes his phone – “I’ll try calling someone to help us out.”

“Good idea” – I says as I grab my phone from the purse.

“Just about my luck” – he says as he turns his phone to me. No bars.

I unlock my phone, only to see the same thing. – “No signal either, a tower must be down due to the storm.”

“I don’t know what to do now. I don’t have a shovel in my car” – Josh says, with concern on his face – “and even if I did, I can’t start the car.” – he tries starting the car again, but the same thing happens.

“I’m sorry for being bad luck.” – I say, trying to cheer him up. It’s a bsituation, but it’s so weird seeing him anything but happy.

“You’re not bad luck, it’s just a fucked up situation” – Josh said, which is followed by a few seconds of silence.

I squint my eyes and notice where we are – “I think I know where we are!” – I was so happy I think my face literally lit up.

“What? Where?”

“Isn’t Smitty’s Motel right around this turn?” – I say with what can only be described as glee on my face.

Smitty’s Motel is a common spot for tourists and anyone on the road. Locals never go there, but we know it. I pass it every time I go home. It’s nothing fancy, but I guess for people that have been on the road for so long, it doesn’t even matter.

“It’s not great, but hopefully they have a shovel and maybe someone can help us!” – I keep going.

“Yess, you’re right!” – his eyes sparkle slightly.

“Let’s go!” – I say, as we quickly make our way out of the car.

“Hold on” – Josh says, as he opens the back door and pulls something out – “at least put this on” – he says as he puts his scarf around my neck.

“Thanks!” – I quickly make a makeshift hood out of the scarf, and we start going to the motel.

It’s windy out so we can’t hear each other, and the snow makes it hard to talk, so we walk over there in silence. It would usually take about 2 minutes to get there from where we are, but due to the snow I’m fairly sure we walked closer to 7 or 8 minutes. Josh had it easy, he has big legs, so he was always ahead of me, but I knew he slowed down a bit, so that I could keep up with him.

While it doesn’t seem like a long walk, trust me, in these conditions, it was awful. He somewhat shields me from the snow as he is in front of me, but the cold wind feels like blades on my skin, and the snow keeps piling up on us. After what felt like an eternity, we finally walked up to the hotel, but it was dark. The sign that was usually lighting up the road, was now dark. We saw several cars out front, so we just assumed they had no rooms left. But we weren’t there for the rooms anyways, so we agreed to go in and ask for some help.

We get in and I take the scarf off, to clear some snow from it and from my coat. My boots were filled with snow, and the bottom of my dress is wet, while the small, exposed part of my legs is red and so cold I thought they’ll fall off. My cheeks feel like they’re on fire, but cold at the same time. While brushing the snow off myself, Josh takes his hood off and brushes the snow piled on top of his hair. It was such a small moment, but so hot I almost forgot how cold I was. There were some people in the lobby, and Josh approached the front desk immediately with his trademarked cute smile. He asked the man working the desk if they happened to have a shovel, and explained how his car was snowed in. The man was visibly upset and overwhelmed with the number of people. They’re not used to this many guests, and I suppose many people decided to wait out the storm.

The man working the front desk quickly answers – “No, we don’t” – in such a snippy tone.

This ticks me off in a wrong way, and before Josh could say anything, I interrupt:

“Are you telling me you don’t have a single shovel we could borrow? Seriously?” – I said somewhat assertive – “You must have at least one”.

“No. We don’t” – the man continued – “Some tourists came with the same story and took the last one. The one before that I broke shoveling other guests out of the snow half an hour ago.” – he said angrily

“As you can see, we have a lot of people here who need help, it’s not just you, and if you noticed I don’t even have electricity here. So do what you want, but we don’t have a shovel here.” – he said, making us both feel a bit bad for asking.

I look around and notice that all of the lights were actually candles placed along the walls, on various shelves. I take a look at Josh and say:

“What are we supposed to do now?”

“Maybe we can try and wait it out in the car” – Josh continues – “at least until we can get some signal on our phones.”

The man jumps in before we could say anything else – “Look, the towers are down, and there is no electricity. You aren’t going anywhere until morning – I don’t care how important. You’ll die out there before you make it anywhere.” – no sugarcoating with him, apparently.

“I can offer you a room here, until the storm passes and someone can pull you out of the snow.” – he continues.

Josh and I look at each other, and nod.

“I guess we’re staying here” – Josh says.

“You’re in room 231, here’s the key.” – the man at the front desk says, handing us a key with a wooden circle with number 231 on it.

“Actually, can we have two rooms” – I quickly say – “I’ll pay for both of them”

“Listen” – the man at the front desk says – “there is only one room left, and you’re extremely lucky at that. If you don’t like it, go outside.” – somewhat shocked, we look at each other, grab the key, and head to the room.

“Well, there’s no bullshitting with him, is there?” – Josh says smiling

“Honestly, I don’t even care anymore, I just want to be warm.” – I say while we both head to the room.

The motel has only one floor, but it’s quite large, so we make our way to the room with flashlights turned on, on our phones. I finally unlock the room, and as we go in, Josh tries to switch the light on – pitch black.

“No electricity – remember?” – I say teasingly.

“Right.” – he continues – “Let me go ask him if he has any candles.”

“Yes, please.”

As Josh left, I turned on the flashlight on my phone and turned it upside down, just so that I could see something. The room was very cold, but better than I expected honestly. As you walk in, the bed with old fashioned bedding is right in the middle of the room. On the left of the door is the closet, and on the right side there is a bathroom. In the corner there is a small, brown couch. The room looks surprisingly clean. I go over to the bathroom and notice a toiletries bag on the counter. This shocked me. Since when do motels offer toothbrushes, soaps, glasses, and the rest of the common toiletries.

I didn’t want to dirty the bathroom floor with my boots, so I just took a quick look from the door. As I went to sit on the couch, Josh walked in holding a few candles.

“All they had were these three candles” – he says as he hands me one.

“Good enough I guess.”

He puts one on the shelf next to the bathroom door, directly opposite of the bed, and lights it. I put one next to the left side of the bed, on the nightstand and ask him to throw me the lighter. As I’m lighting it, he says:

“Where should I put this one?”

“Maybe in the bathroom?”

He heads in and lights the candle on the counter in the bathroom.

“He said that the heat was off, and there is no warm water, but there are some extra blankets at the top shelf in the closet.”

“That’s okay, I guess.” – I add – “You won’t believe the toiletries that we have in the bathroom.”

“A toothbrush! So fancy!” – he says, making me laugh.

“Fuck. I can’t text my parents that I’m stuck here.” – I remember and kill the mood instantly.

“This old place probably has a landline; you should check at the front desk.”

“Good idea, I’ll go right now.”

I go to the front desk again and ask there. Luckily for me, they have a working landline, but I have to wait on another guest to finish his call. I’m so panicked thinking that my parents probably called the police by now, that it doesn’t even register with me that me and Josh are going to be alone in the room. Just as the realization is setting in, the man before me hangs up the phone, and I call my dad. He says it’s better safe than sorry, and that he’ll pick me up in the morning. I explain that there is no need, and if I need anything else I’ll call him. He thanks me for letting him know and lectures me on being safe and locking my door. I obviously skipped the part that I’m not alone in the room. As I hang up, I notice someone else waiting for the phone. I thank the man at the front desk and make my way back to the room. On my way back to the room, I stopped and started to wonder – shouldn’t we have used the phone to call for help with the car? Would anyone have come to help us in this weather? Probably not, and the first tow truck is one town over so no way they’d come out here even if they had the time, I think to myself as I make my way to the room.

As I walk in, I see Josh next to the window.

“It’s getting worse. We’re lucky we got out safely.”

I get closer to the window – “You’re right.”

I take my coat off, and drop it on the couch, leaving the scarf on the coat. I sit down on the little ugly couch and start taking my boots off. As I took my left boot off, water dripped off from my sock.

“Too bad we don’t have any dry clothes.”

“Mine are luckily dry, well except from my socks.” – Josh says as he’s taking his jacket off and leaving it on top of mine.

There is no room left on the couch, so he sits on the bed and starts taking his shoes off. As soon as I took off my shoes and socks I make my way to the bathroom to wash my hands and get myself some water.

“Would you like some water, Josh?”

“Sure, thank you.”

I bring Josh a glass of water from the bathroom. As I’m handing him the glass his fingers lightly brush against mine, and something lights on fire in me. What is he doing to me? I go and leave my glass on the nightstand, next to the candle, and make my way back to the bathroom. I’m trying to think of a way to take my makeup off, but I don’t have anything with me. Luckily, it’s waterproof, and I’m not wearing a lot, so hopefully, it’ll survive a night. I know it has before.

Josh is coming into the bathroom, and he heads to the sink, to pour out the water that’s left in his glass. As I’m about to move out of his way, his left hand grabs my waist slightly, as to make sure I don’t move, so that he can pour out the water. My body instantly and involuntarily makes a small sound and my eyes close in pleasure. Which he obviously saw, since there was a mirror in front of us. I quickly opened my eyes. Josh is standing right behind me.

“Sorry” – he says quietly.

“No, I’m sorry, let me move out of your way.” – I say as I turn around. I’ve never been this close to him, and then I notice. His eyes are brown. I know that now.

After one second too much, I move out of his way and go to the room, my cheeks blushing and heart rushing. This is it, it will either be a nice night, or I’ll make this completely awkward. He is shy, I can obviously tell, so I decide I’ll go for it. There is nothing really to do here anyway and my heart is already beating fast, so might as well, I think to myself.

“Is there any chance you have any extra clothes?” – I say.

“I’m sorry?” - he says, as he moves to the frame of the door, backlit from the candle behind him.

“Well, I can’t really sleep in this. It’s not that comfortable to sleep in” – I point on my dress – “and it’s wet.”

“Sorry, I don’t usually carry extra clothes with me” – he smiles.

“Could I maybe borrow your shirt?”

“This one?” – Josh says as he slightly pulls on the shirt he’s wearing right now.

“Yes” – I smile.

“What will I sleep in then?” – he keeps the smile on his face.

I shrug my shoulders.

“Sure. Once we get ready for bed, I’ll give you the shirt.”

“Thank you.” – I said with the probably stupidest grin on my face.

He goes back in the bathroom to wash his teeth. As I hear the water running, I grab my phone, and leave it on the nightstand, on the right side of the bed, forgetting that my glass is on the other side.

As he gets out of the bathroom, he goes for the couch, and says:

“I’ll take the couch; you can sleep on the bed.”

“C’mon, we’re both adults, we can share a bed.” – I say – “Right?”

“Um, sure.” – he says hesitantly – “yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll go and brush my teeth, and once you’re ready for bed can you just give me your shirt in the bathroom?”

“Of course.” – he says as he approaches the right side of the bed. I close the bathroom door and start brushing my teeth.

I’m almost done when I hear a knock on my door, he opens the door slightly, and hands me the shirt. I don’t take my eyes from his. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable, but I sure was tempted.

As soon as I was done, I take my dress and my bra off and notice how fucking cold it actually is. I put his shirt on and noticed the amazing smell. It’s just long enough that it covers my ass, well for the most part. I shake my hair out and think to myself how it was an excellent choice to wear a thong, just in case something does happen. Even though, I’d much rather take that thing off, but I can’t really do that now, so I just quickly adjust myself.

I open the bathroom door and carry the dress and the bra to the couch and place it on top of his pants and make my way to the left side of the bed, next to the candle. As soon as I lay down, the bead creaks loudly, but the wind keeps banging on the windows, so the bed is the least of the noise.

We’re both laying down on our backs, staring at the ceiling, afraid to move and make the bed creak even louder. The room is extremely cold, especially since we’re both half naked and only lit by the two candles in the room.

“Did you turn on the alarm on your phone?” – I ask, breaking the silence.

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s going to die by the morning” – Josh answers me immediately.

“Let me try mine” – I say as I lift up slightly, make the bed creak.

I stretch over him to try and grab it, when my hand slips, and my torso ends up on top of his, and my face next to his. We share a small moment, but I quickly get up and apologise.

“I’m so sorry, my hand slipped”.

“Don’t worry” - he leans to get the phone on the nightstand next to him and I catch a glimpse of his bare back. My heart speeds up again.

“Thanks” - I say as he hands me my phone.

I leave the phone on my side of the bed this time. It’s not even midnight, so I set the alarm for 07:30h. We go back to the same position and keep staring up for a few more minutes.

After a few minutes I turn my head and as I notice he’s still up I ask:

“Where did he say the blankets were?”

“In the closet” – he answers quickly – “but there are none, I checked”.

“Oh, too bad. I’m a bit cold.”

“Yeah, me too, I hope we’ll get warm soon” – he says.

A few more minutes pass by. It’s still not my bedtime, so I’m wide awake and freezing my tits off. We’re both still on our backs just staring above. All we can hear is the wind and faint noises of other guests that are mostly muffled by the walls. The warm light dances on the ceiling from the candles and everything seems so calm. Suddenly, his hand falls from his torso right next to mine. Our hands are slightly touching. Not enough that would prompt me to move my hand, but enough to make my heart and mind race. My finger twitches involuntarily, causing him to lean his hand a bit more towards mine. My heart rushes even faster. His hand goes over mine slowly and he makes his way into my hand. We both say nothing. But you can hear both of our breathing speed up. His hand feels warm in mine, and I can’t get enough.

He leans his arm on mine. His forearm feels so hard on me. It’s like a chiselled statue is touching me. His skin feels so warm against mine. I’m just enjoying this wonderful moment, when all of the sudden, Josh breaks the silence:

“You’re freezing” – he says quietly – “Come here”.

Suddenly his right hand is on my left arm, and he pulls me into his arms. I’m nestled just bellow his head, and his body feels so warm. He puts his arms around me and holds me tightly, while my right hand is pressed against his chest and my left hand is on his back. His skin feels so nice. His body is so hard and warm, and his skin is soft. It’s like I’m in heaven. Being pulled so close to him, I’m not sure if I’m smelling his shirt that I’m wearing or him, but it smells fucking amazing. Fuck, how is he doing this to me. I just want to stay in these arms forever.

Our eyes meet as I lift my head up and the candlelight gives a slight sparkle to his eyes. I really, really want him to kiss me right now. I moved my gaze from his eyes to his gorgeous lips and that’s when he moved in closer, as if he was waiting for a sign from me. He placed his right hand on my cheek and slowly moved his lips to mine. His top lip brushed mine, as he went in to kiss me. It was the most romantic kiss I’ve ever had. My whole body trembled, and my heart picked up its pace. The first kiss was nice and slow. We’re both quiet, but you can feel the tension. He doesn’t move his lips from mine, when he goes in deeper for another kiss. This time the kiss feels stronger, as if he was waiting for this moment his whole life. His lips are pressed firmly against mine, as I feel his hand grab my face a bit harder now. I start moving my hand on his back, ever so slightly. He’s sucking lightly on my lower lip, making me even more turned on. As we’re kissing, I pass my tongue lightly on his top lip. He immediately takes my hint, and we start making out, hard. He’s now moving his hand from my cheek to my shoulder slowly, and he pushes me on my back and gets slightly on top of me with his torso, without breaking the kiss. I place my left hand on the back of his head, while placing the right hand on his ribs, which makes him twitch slightly, as he’s surprised, but I can tell he’s enjoying it. His left hand is slightly above my head and is holding him up. His right hand is slowly making his way down, then as he reaches my hip, he goes up my shirt and as he grabs my waist he makes a small noise through the kisses, a moan, which makes me smile slightly.

He felt my smile, which caused him to pull away slightly from the kiss. Fuck. I’m desperate for more. He moved his lips from mine, but his hand keeps grabbing my waist harder and his breathing got more intense. We’re both still quiet, no one wants to risk running the moment by saying something. He is so close to me, and we just keep eye contact, when my breathing speeds up a bit as he grabs my waist harder. My chest is visibly moving from my deep breaths, and I can see his eyes running away to my breasts, as if he is wondering what they’d feel like in his hands. I bite my lip in anticipation of the next kiss, when he leans in for more. He must be the worlds greatest kisser as this feels fucking amazing. I keep thinking to myself how I never want this to end. His warmness keeps me warm and comfortable, while his hand grabbing my waist is making me more wet than I’ve ever been, and we’re only kissing! I can feel the warmth on my underwear from how wet I am. I quickly try to think of a way to hide it from him, but I get carried away in the kissing and bite his lip. He lets out a small moan, which makes me forget about wanting to hide it, and only makes me think of how I want him to fuck me all night long.

The wind is still hitting the window hard, which combined with the old wooden bed creaking, and the slight light coming from the candles makes for the perfect mood in the room. I pull away slightly from the kiss, which brings us face to face. He’s staring at my eyes and breathing heavily. You can hear both of us breathing heavily, when I smile to him, and sure enough – he smiles back. Fuuuck. We don’t want to ruin the moment, so we both stay quiet, but the passion is building up between us even more now, as he looks at me smiling, out of breath. His smile wakes up something in me. A primal urge I’d say. I jump on him like a wild cat and turn him on his back. I start slowly kissing his neck, from his jawline all the way down to his clavicle. With the first kiss, right bellow his ear, I can see his right hand grab the sheets, while he moves his left hand on my back. I’m a bit disappointed, as he doesn’t lift my shirt, but I keep going. I place my second kiss a bit lower and make it a bit longer. He tilts his head back, further into the pillow and lets out a small moan. God, that makes me hot. I place the third and fourth kiss even lower and when I got to his clavicle, I hear him:

“Fuck” – he moans in a deep voice.

This makes me so fucking hot, it can’t be put into words. His voice is so fucking deep now, and I can’t hold on anymore, so I jump on top of him, putting my left leg over him and straddling him. As I got on top of him, I sat, placing my pussy directly on top of his hard dick. He leaves out a deep and loud moan, while my eyes roll up, involuntarily. I can feel that he’s big, but what impresses me is the hardness, which, honestly, flatters me. He is so warm and hard, it’s making me feel a heartbeat in my clit. Suddenly, his hands grab my waist hard, going slightly up to my ribs as he pulls me in for a kiss, leaning up a bit himself. As he is kissing me he scoots up the bed a bit, so that now he is half sitting, with his back leaned on the headboard. The kissing is getting pretty hot and heavy. My arms are running through his hair and neck, down his chest while we’re making out. That’s when I feel his grip loosen on my waist, and I can feel him moving his hands down to my hips slowly. As we continue making out, he grabs my hips and starts moving them on his hard dick. A high-pitched moan escapes my mouth as we’re making out. I can tell that he liked that as I could feel him smile slightly, even though the kisses. So, I quickly comply and start moving my hips up and down his hard dick myself. His hands are now making their way to my ass, and just as he reached it, he grabs a handful with his right hand, and I can hear a deep grunt coming from him. All of the sudden, he went from being cute and all smiles to being hot and having a deep voice with a serious expression on his face. I could never have imagined him like this, yet here he was, ready to bite through my clothes and fuck me all night long. And I couldn’t wait.

After a few more minutes of making out and grinding on top of him, the kissing slows down and he pulls back slightly. I stop moving my hips, and I just stare at those beautiful brown eyes again, with my arms around his neck. He moves a strand of hair behind my ear and slowly moves his hands to my hips. That’s when he grabs my shirt and pulls it over my head, leaving me only in my underwear. I guess this now levels the playing field, as he was only wearing his boxers. He throws the shirt to the side and after only a second, he couldn’t hold on anymore, so his eyes make his way down to my breasts. We’re both breathing deeply, and I can hear a deep moan come from him as he takes it all in.

“Fuck, you’re hot” – he says in a deep voice, breaking the silence.

This flatters me and makes my breathing harder and my cheeks blush. He places his hands next to my boobs, on each side – right bellow my armpits, and he is sliding them down to my waist. He’s grabbing my waist even more intensely this time, and his eyes are glued to my torso. He starts getting up to his knees slightly, with me still on his lap, and as he places both of his hands and forearms on my back, he lowers me on the bottom half of the bed. He looks me in the eyes, and that second feels like eternity. I take a deep breath in anticipation of what he’ll do next and close my eyes out of pleasure, tilting my head back and pushing my chest out.

I feel a quick and warm kiss on my lips, when he pulls away and starts kissing at my neck. Fuck, my breathing gets louder, and I start moaning slightly. He made his way down to my shoulder, and those kisses just feel amazing. You know that one spot on your body, where you have extra nerve endings and everything feels 10x times more intense. Well, he was kissing mine – right at the top of my shoulders, above my clavicle. This sent me into ecstasy. My eyes closed from the pleasure, and I moaned loudly.

After a few moments, he starts kissing my lips again, and while kissing he slowly places his hand on my breast, making me twitch slightly in surprise. He is being so gentle and lightly grabs it, while still kissing me. He is now fully over me, so his right forearm is keeping him from fully crushing me with his body, while his left hand is grabbing my right breast. Our bodies are centimetres away from each other. He pulls away from my lips and goes on to kiss my neck, as his hand is now starting to grab my breast a bit more intensely now, making sure to avoid my nipple. Making my head fall back with excitement. As he reaches the middle of my neck, he starts sucking on it and leaving a small hickey.

“Oh, fuck” – I say quietly, as this surprises me.

That’s when his thumb and index finger meet on my nipple, pinching it lightly. This makes me moan loudly and my hips jump up, rubbing me against his hard dick. I’m about to lose my mind, when he stops sucking on my neck, as he is surprised by my reaction. But this only prompts him to start playing with my nipples even more, so he sits up above me, and starts using both of his hands to play with me. Both of his hands grab my breasts, and he’s making his way in, towards my nipples. I can’t keep my eyes open from all the excitement, and I’m certainly getting louder with my moans. I’m hoping the wind sounds muffle me and that no one can hear me. He keeps lightly pinching my nipples and playing with me, when I take my hands and start pulling them down from his chest, light scratching him with my nails. That’s when I make my way to his boxers and slightly brush against his hard dick as he moans and trebles. I then grab it fully with my hand, through his boxers, and moan from excitement. He moans in a deep voice and falls on top of me, being mere centimeters away from me again. Now his eyes are closed as I’m slowly striking him through his boxers, making myself wetter hearing him moan repeatedly.

I can feel his weight on me, and more importantly, I can feel how hard he is in my hands. Just as I’m about to make my way under his boxers, I feel his hand come down to my underwear, as he touches my clit. Fuuuck. I’m sent into ecstasy, and as this surprises me, I grab his dick even harder. He starts circling her slightly as I moan in satisfaction. He wastes no time, and upon seeing my reaction, he slides over my underwear and slides a finger inside me. I let out a high-pitched moan, and then I hear him:

“Fuck” – he says, in such a deep voice.

My hands already moved to the side and gripped the sheets, when he pulls away slowly. My face must’ve showed some disappointment, and as soon as he saw it, he said:

“Don’t worry, I’m not done with you yet” – he said with that cute smile on his face.

As he pulled away from me, he grabbed my underwear and pulled it off of me and threw it from the bed. He started kissing me again, but shortly after he started moving down with his kisses. First, my neck and my chest. Then, he moved to my stomach. And finally, he made his way down to my clit. First, he gave it a little kiss, which made me jump up a bit. But then he started kissing and sucking on it and circling his tongue on her. At this point I was so loud, and I didn’t even care. I just let go, kept moaning and enjoying myself. Fuck, this is so hot. Suddenly, he slides two fingers inside of me, as he’s griping my thighs with his other hand. My chest jumps out, and my whole body shivers as he keeps going. He noticed my chest jump up, so his other hand has now moved from my thigh to my nipples, as he keeps teasing me.

After a few more minutes, I can’t take this anymore. I’m thinking my whole body is just going to explode from the pleasure. I lean up and pull him away from my clit. I bring him in for a kiss, and say:

“I can’t wait anymore” – I continue, out of breath – “please fuck me”.

This makes him smile more than ever, as I’m pulling on his boxers. He moves a bit back, and stands next to the bed, facing me. I’m taking his underwear off, as his dick comes out, right in front of my face.

“Impressive” – I say, with a smile on my face.

He leans down to kiss me and says:

“Hold on for a second” – he says as he walks away from me, and towards the little couch. The candlelight doesn’t provide much visibility as to what he is doing so I wait there for a quick moment. He is coming back, with a condom in his hand. As he is ripping it open and putting it on himself, he says:

“Are you sure this is what you want?” – he asks quietly.

The room is silent as he is rolling the condom on his dick. All you can hear is the wind banging on the window.

“Yes” – I answer him, eager to finally feel him inside of me.

He leans over me as I lay down and I place my hands on his back, while his hands are supporting him above me. He starts kissing me, when he slowly pulls back, and moves his hips closer me to me, putting his dick inside of me. I let out another small moan, as I try to feel all of him. My eyes close and my head pushes into the pillow.

I open my eyes, and I notice how he’s looking at me. The deep eye contact makes me feel more connected to him, than I ever have with any of my boyfriends, yet there is still so much mystery about him.

“Is this okay?” – he asks, as he’s pushing it in deeper

“Uh-huh” – I answer

He pushes his dick deeper inside of me, and the feeling is indescribable. Just as I thought he was all the way in, he lifts my right let a bit at the thigh and pushes it all the way in. Fuck. I start moaning, and as he starts moving I can hear him get increasingly excited. I love hearing him moan. He picks up his pace a bit and starts kissing my neck again as I go into ecstasy.

Everything about this feels right, feels amazing, and I get lost in the moment.

After a while I pull him from my neck and start kissing him, while his hand moves over to my clit again. He starts playing with her, slowly, and it makes me feel it. Fuck. I’m going to cum before he does. But at this point, I’m feeling so amazing that I just let go and said:

“I’m about to cum”

“Yeah baby?” – he answers quietly, in a raspy voice

Ugh, him calling me baby – just does something to me. He starts focusing more on his fingers now and everything gets more intense. As I’m about to cross that finish line, I close my eyes and push my head back into the pillow. I can feel him going faster with his dick now and as he does, I explode. I’m sure he noticed from my loud moans, but he’s not stopping. As he keeps going I’m not even sure how many orgasms I’m experiencing, but it must’ve been two back-to-back. I’ve never felt anything like that. Somehow during all of that I could see his arms start to shake slightly and as I heard him moan loudly, I knew that he came almost as hard as I did. As my clit and my whole body is getting overstimulated by the orgasms I say:

“Please stop” – I just couldn’t take any more.

He moved his hand from my clit and stopped moving inside of me. He was out of breath and just looking at me from one eye to the other. He leaned in and started kissing me as if I was the last woman on the earth. The kiss felt amazing, but I was now realizing what we had just done so I slightly pulled away. He stood above me for a second, then leaned down and kissed my forehead, before he quickly pulled his dick out of me and went to the bathroom. Probably to dispose of the condom. I laid on the bed for 20 seconds and just watched the candlelight dance on the ceiling, when I got up and put his shirt back on. I was trying to find my underwear, when I heard the creak of the bathroom door. He was just standing there, fully naked, looking at me. After about a second, he comes to me, lifts up my head slightly and starts kissing me, and this time no warning or cute little, small kisses, it’s one of those kisses that consumes you. I have no idea how we managed to stop, but we did. I excuse myself and go into the bathroom, to clean up.

After about 5 minutes, I come out to see him laying on the bed, one hand behind his head, looking right at me. As I come up to the bed, I ask:

“Have you seen my-” – I stop my self as I notice him pointing to my underwear on the bed.

“I found them near mine” – he answers.

As I put my underwear back on, I quickly get under the sheets and into his arms. The wind is still hitting the windows hard, but the silence was louder than ever. I’m trying to come up with an acceptable etiquette for this situation, but I keep coming up blank. My mind just keeps replaying everything that we had done, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Being so close to him, it’s all I can think about.

“That was fun” – he says, breaking the silence.

I turn to him, and I can see him smiling that stupidly cute smile again, and I smile back. I just get back into the same comfortable position within his arms, as I feel him kiss the top of my head. The sounds of the wind and the feel of his warm body make me feel so safe that I fall asleep almost immediately.

I am woken up suddenly, by the sound of my alarm. It’s 7:30 already. The sun is shining through the window, lighting up the room, and I notice the space beside me is empty. All the candles are now extinguished as they burned out, but the room is warmer than it was last night. I guess the power is back on. I can hear people talking outside as they’re trying to fix something, or lift something, I’m not sure. I notice that the bathroom door is open so now I’m just wondering – where is Josh? Could he have left me here? I notice all his clothes are gone from the couch, except his shirt – that’s still on me. I get up to investigate what’s going on outside, so I go to the window to look. The sun is shining brightly, and its reflection off the snow is even brighter. I notice some men picking up branches from the parking lot. When Josh walks in the room:

“Hey, you’re up” – he says happily.

“Yeah, um, just got up a minute ago” – I say, still somewhat confused.

As he is taking his ridiculously large jacket off, I notice a new shirt on him, so I say:

“Where did you get a new shirt?”

“Well,” – he smiles – “you stole that one, so I went to my car and got the spare one I had.” – he says pointing to his shirt on me.

“So, when did you get up?” – I ask.

“Around the time the power came back on” – he goes to leave his jacket on the couch beside me and continues – “I helped clear out the snow since the storm passed and was picking up the bigger branches that were blocking the entrance with a few others”

“That’s nice of you” – I smile.

“Yeah, I also dug the car out of the snow and parked it out front, so we can leave if you have somewhere to be”.

“Um, sure, yeah” – I say, as I collect my clothes from the couch and head to the bathroom to change.

After I few minutes I come out of the bathroom to find him sitting on the bed, scrolling on his phone. He lifts his head up and looks at me. I can’t help but to question what we did last night, but seeing him all cute like that and that cute smile, I think I’d do it all again. Every time he looks at me, I can feel his touch, I can feel his hands on my waist and his warm breath on my chest. But I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking.

“All ready?” – he says, smiling

“Yeah, just need to grab my shoes.”

“You do that and I’ll go warm up the car” – he says and leaves the room.

I sit down on the couch and start putting my boots back on, and keep wondering does he think this was a mistake, was I maybe just a ‘score’ for him. I start doubting everything and just think to myself I should’ve known better.

I do one last check of the room to make sure I didn’t leave anything behind, and as I open the closet, I notice 4 blankets on the top shelf. As soon as I saw them, I knew, so I close the closet and pretend like I never saw them.

Before I walk out to the parking lot, I go up to the reception to pay for our rooms:

“Thank you so much, you saved us last night!” – I say to the man and the front desk – “We’re about to leave, so can you please charge me for the room.”

“No, no. No need.” – the man refuses – “Your friend helped clear out the parking lot, no charge for you”.

“Please, I insist.” – I say

“Don’t worry about it” – he says, as he winks at me.

I thank him and go to the car, where Josh is already waiting for me. The drive to my home is relatively short from here, but I was still hoping he’d say something about last night. I try to break the silence and say:

“Well, thanks to you, our stay was free” – I smile and look at him.

“Yeah, I already tried to pay, but he refused” – he says as he’s pulling out of the parking lot.

We continue to ride in silence for a few more minutes when he says:

“I’m sorry about last night” – he pauses – “about the accident I mean”.

“Oh, yeah” – I pause to think what to say – “Don’t worry about it. It ended well” – I smile.

We continue the ride in silence, with the faint sounds of the radio. We finally reach my house and he pulls in.

“There’s that ugly swan” – I laugh.

“Don’t worry, it’s not that bad” – he smiles again.

I take a few seconds to look at that smile when I thank him and get out of the car:

“Thank you for giving me a ride” – I say, as I get out of the car

“I’ll see you around” – he says and drives away.

As I make my way into the house, I go straight into my room to leave my stuff and head for the shower. As I’m taking off my clothes, I can still smell him on my skin. Every time I touch my skin I can feel his touch. I can feel his kisses on my neck, his hands on mine, and all of him on top of me. As the warm water hits my body my mind just goes back to him and I keep wondering will I see him again, will we ever do this again.