Chapter 8: First Kiss

The power went out at Gram's cabin on Monday night at 8:40, right in the middle of my fourth box of Tupperware lids.

I stood in the dark kitchen with a flashlight in my mouth and the breaker panel open in front of me.

I had no idea what I was looking at.

Headlights swept across the ceiling.

I knew the sound of that truck by now, and I hated that I knew it.

I opened the door before he could knock.

"Dolly called," Emmett said.

He held up a toolbox.

"She said the panel trips in a storm. She said you'd try to fix it with a butter knife."

"I was going to use a spatula."

"That's worse."

He came in smelling of cold air and cedar and put a lantern on the table.

It lit the whole kitchen gold.

He flipped one switch inside the panel, and the fridge shuddered back to life.

"That's it?" I said.

"That's it."

"I could have done that."

"You could have done it with the spatula."

I laughed.

I hadn't meant to, and it came out loud and real, and the cabin seemed to lean in to hear it.

The mailbox was two hundred yards away, and the chat could not reach this kitchen.

There was no one watching but the two of us and a stack of Tupperware.

He found Gram's deck of cards in a drawer and sat down across from me without being asked.

"Gin," he said. "She taught me."

"She cheated."

"I know. I caught her once. She said it was a lesson in humility."

I dealt, and we played four hands, and he lost three of them.

"You're letting me win," I said.

"I'm bad at this."

"You're a firefighter. You're supposed to be good at reading a bad situation."

"Cards don't burn," he said. "They just sit there and wait for you to lie."