I went upstairs and changed into another pair of jeans and my warmest sweater. Then the four of us pulled out fresh mozzarella and roasted peppers, green olives, avocados, and crisp spinach. Martha sliced up a long baguette that was still steaming from the oven. Luis opened a bottle of red wine. “Ssh, don’t tell your papa, Eric,” he said smiling.

We pulled up stools in front of the big island in the middle of the room and just ate and drank and talked and laughed. This time I was careful to take small sips of the wine. Martha and Luis told us about meeting in Florence. Martha had been traveling with her girlfriends after college. Her parents were very nervous about her going that far away, and she was only supposed to be there for a month, but instead she stayed ten years. We heard about their kids, their grandkids, the house they had in Scudderville, where there was a squirrel living in their roof and a shed where Luis was trying to make a rocking chair.

“He’s been working on that damn chair for three years now,” said Martha. “At this point it should rock itself.”

“I’m almost done,” he said, nudging her in the side.

“I hope I see it before I die,” she said, grinning. Her teeth were stained purple from the wine.

For the rest of the afternoon, Eric and I sat in front of the fire. Eric brought down a game of Scrabble and we played on the coffee table. I got thirty-four points for the word apex but he still beat me with a triple word score on juggle. Then we just sat and stared at the fire some more. Fozzie was snoring and making little yip yip sounds in his sleep. I wondered what he was dreaming about.

I started dozing, too, until Martha came through the door.

“For you, my dear!” she sang, handing me the house phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, chicken,” said Dad. “We just got the okay. Plows are almost through. We’ll be there in about a half hour.”

“Okay,” I said, and clicked off.

I looked at Eric.

“What is it?”

“The roads are clear. They’re coming home.” I put a smile on my face, but it felt pasted on. All I could think about was how much I didn’t want this to end. I just wanted to hold on to the glow of the fire, the sound of Martha and Luis chatting in the kitchen, the smell of garlic and butter floating under the door, and Eric in the chair next to me.

Agh, Levy! Didn’t you learn anything from that whole Drew experience? Guys are either unavailable emotionally or total horndogs.

But that didn’t seem really fair to Eric. I mean, he had started out kind of bossy, but that all made sense now. And now that we had spent some time together, I thought he was pretty funny, especially when he pretended he was Fozzie and said things like, “I’m the mayor of this town and I declare that we should all eat yellow snow and then take naps for the rest of the day!”

And he had a great laugh and he also said (as Eric) that he liked how I was full of stories and he thought my turtle hat was fantastic. And his fingers were long and skinny and stained with ink….

“Hey! Will you show me some of your drawings?” I asked, sitting up straight now.

Eric shook his head. “Nah, that’s boring. Don’t you want to just relax before the others get back?”

“No. I really want to see them. Come on, please?” It felt urgent now. Like a need, somehow.

“If you insist.” Eric smiled.

He went up the back stairs behind Phil’s office and brought down a large black sketchbook. It was frayed at the edges and held together by a big rubber band with pages slipping out of all sides.

“I can’t believe you want to see this stuff,” he mumbled. “Please promise me you’ll stop me before I bore you to tears.”

“Promise,” I said.

We settled down on the rug, and he opened up the worn cover. The drawings were breathtaking. They were of snow-covered mountains — but not like, here are some trees, here’s some snow. Each branch, each pine needle was so delicate and exact. I could smell the cold air, the wet bark. Then there was one of Fozzie as he lay on his beanbag bed, every hair placed just so. A series of sunsets behind a line of trees and even though they were all in charcoal, I could see the colors — the orange melting into pink into lilac into nothing. He turned the page.

“Ah, you don’t have to see that one.”

“What?” I said, tugging at his sleeve.

“Nothing,” he said, pulling back more pages. I tugged again.

“Come on.”

He stopped, took a breath.

“Okay, but just … yeah, whatever.” I saw little splotches of color in his cheeks, right next to his ears. Why was he blushing?

He opened the pad again. The page was full of all different shades of light and dark. It was hard to adjust my eyes at first, but then I saw the lines come together, the faces find their space, the shadows take shape, inhabiting the page. And when I did, I saw …

“That’s … that’s …” He had drawn all of us singing that night at karaoke. When he was sitting in the back, watching. There was Liz in the front, Heidi and Dina behind her, and me in the back. It was so detailed, so intricate. The light was exactly like it had felt up there in front of the microphone. I could see Liz’s hips swaying, her blond locks shaking, her cheeks full and bright. There was the fire blazing and the two lamps and the moose head over the mantel. Heidi and Dina had their mouths open and their hands on their hips. He had even drawn the windows to the left, and the dark of the night beyond. Everything was there. I felt like I could hear the music thumping, feel the beat pulsing, touch the energy of the room. He had completely captured the moment.

And there was me — my face tipped up to the ceiling, my eyes closed, my lips in a circle as if I was singing “ooooh.” I stared at the picture.

“The perspective’s a little off,” he said quietly. “It was dark.”

And now I felt myself flushing, too. “Did I really look like that?” I whispered. It looked like there was light bouncing off my skin. My hair shimmered down my shoulders and through the cracks of my eyes there was the faintest glimmer. I looked … beautiful.

“Yeah,” he said. “You did to me.”

“Wow,” I said. “I mean, thanks.” And then we sat there, looking at that night. It was only a few days ago, but things were so different now. I had thought he was such a weirdo and a creep sitting back there with the flickering candle in the dark. And he must’ve thought — Wow. What had he thought? I wanted to ask him. Actually, I wanted to ask him what he was thinking right now, too.

“Sam?” he whispered.

“Yeah?” I croaked.

“I just wondered if you still thought I was kind of a nosy jerk,” he said, facing the fire.

I almost laughed. It was so much the opposite of what I was thinking. But I didn’t want him to think that I was laughing at him.

“Not at all,” I said. “And do you still think I’m a rude girl who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut?”

I stayed looking at the fire too, but I could see Eric smile out of the corner of my eye.

“I never did,” he said.

A blast of cold air came through the front door.

“Whew! What a day!”

“Oh, there’s still a fire, good!”

“Please, someone give me something — anything — to eat besides a French fry!”

The guests started spilling into the lobby, shedding their coats and standing in front of the fire. They seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that we were sitting there. I saw Fozzie look up wearily and then trot off to find some other, more secluded spot for sleeping.

“Hey, kiddo! Thought we’d never see you again. How’s my girl?” Dad pulled me up and took my face in his hands.

“Good. Great.”

“You feeling better?” asked Kathy.

“Yeah, much.” This time, I really didn’t mean to be rude, but I wanted to see if Eric was still in the chair next to me, getting gobbled up by everybody crowding in and talking about the storm. He must’ve gone into the kitchen to help Martha and Luis with dinner, though.