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I grin weakly.
She screams.
I rip myself backward, finally free, and throw off the covers. “I just woke up too!” I say quickly.
Liz is already standing. She’s still in her winter coat from last night and is looking at me like she’s hoping she’s still dreaming. “That’s so inappropriate, Rhett,” she says. “You can’t just, just spoon me.”
“Hey, it takes two to spoon,” I say, annoyed.
“Are you blaming me for something that happened when I was unconscious?”
“I was unconscious too!”
The fact sits heavily on us as we both stare at the bed, neither of us wanting to admit how nice it had been to wake up like that. In fact, I’m still reeling by how right it had felt. It has to have been the cold, our shared exhaustion. Besides, I’d feel the same way waking up next to any woman, right? We hadn’t even had sex!
“It was cold…” I start.
Liz jumps on the excuse like a lioness on a bloody steak. “Exactly! We must have sensed, uh, body heat. Life-saving warmth.”
“Like cavemen,” I add.
“It’s instinctual,” she agrees.
“Natural.”
We stare at each other for a blink.
Then, at the same time, “I’m going to check on the car,” and, “I’m finding the bathroom.”
Liz flees the room as I gather my coat and take a moment putting my boots on. The “hotel” isn’t any nicer in the daylight. There’s nothing other than a bed, and just beneath the cold is a smell that suggests animals were kept here once. Five hundred bucks, my ass. I’d steal a souvenir, but there’s nothing to take. Besides I’m not sure I want to remember this night anyway.
I go see about the car window. It, too, doesn’t look great. The entire pane is gone and overnight it snowed into the car. Liz seems to be hiding in the bathroom though, so I have some time to figure out how to make the next four hours feel like we’re in a Hellcat and not a dog sled.
“What?” the geezer barks from behind the door when I knock.
“I need tape. Clear packing tape if you’ve got it, but duct tape will work too.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it.”
“Great.”
A beat.
“Two hundred bucks.”
I rest my forehead against the door and count to five. Then I glance behind me. Liz still hasn’t reappeared. What do I want her to see when she comes back — me fixing the car or me screaming at an old dude who has all the power? I know what I want to do, but then I relent.
“Can I get a couple coffees with it?” I ask with a sigh.
The man doesn’t respond, but after a moment he returns, opening the door and thrusting his hand out. I put the cash in it; he gives me the tape. Then he slams the door in my face.
“What about the coffees?” I ask the door.
“What the hell does this look like? A café?”
I go back to the car and make quite a bit of progress before Liz comes back. She stops behind me and watches for a moment. I’ve already layered tape horizontally in strips up the length of the window. Now I’m laying them vertically, and will place them diagonally on both sides until I’m sure the wind won’t rip it all right off.
“That’s going to work?” she asks.
