Chapter 16: Kiss in the Kitchen

The producer and the cameraman drove to Reykjavik that afternoon to use the edit suite, and they left the dog behind.

The brand manager had ended her call with one sentence, and I had been turning it over ever since.

"Northlight is pulling the rooftop campaign tonight," she had said, "and Miss Hartwell will hear it from me."

I had thanked her, and then I had sat there with the phone dark in my hand.

Nothing in me felt like winning.

By ten at night the crew house was empty except for us.

I sat at the kitchen table with the old file still open on my laptop.

I had read it so many times that the words had stopped meaning anything.

The back door banged, and Sunna came in from the yard with snow on her shoulders and the cold coming off her coat.

Her cheeks were red from the wind, and she was laughing at something she hadn't told me.

"The dog hid his ball," she said. "He is ashamed of himself."

"Where are your gloves?"

"On my hands, where they belong." She pulled them off with her teeth and dropped them on the counter. "And yours?"

I held up both bare hands.

"You are doing it on purpose."

"A little."

She crossed the kitchen and took my hands, and hers were so cold that I flinched.

"Good," she said. "That is what you get."

She held them against her stomach, under her open coat, where her sweater was warm.

I felt her breathe in.

It caught halfway, and she let it out slowly through her nose.

She was cold, I told myself, and so was I.

Neither of us moved.

"I looked over the file again," I said, because I had to say something.

"I know. I watched you read it for an hour."

"I'm sorry. I'm bad company."

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