Hello from the frozen tundra of Michigan! I know, you’re probably confused because I’m posting on a Monday. Have no fear, it’s just a new thing the blogger girls are doing. I was supposed to start it last month but yeah… It didn’t happen. Anyway, so the first Monday of the month we’ll be posting a little writing piece inspired by a photo.
Here’s this month’s picture…
To be honest, I didn’t have a freaking clue what to write. But as I was outside shoveling snow I got a few ideas. :). This belongs to the world of Catie and Nick who were the main characters in one of my favorite fanfics that I’ve written from forever ago. The fic was called Shades of Gray. Yeah… it was my title first, damn it! LOL without further ado, here’s what I was able to come up with. 🙂
The Cottage
“It’ll be so romantic,” Nick muttered to himself as he pulled his sweater cap over his already frozen ears. “She’ll love it…” He rolled his eyes and got back to the task at hand, shoveling a path through two feet of snow with a shovel fit for a midget. Okay, maybe midget wasn’t the PC word. Tiny person? Vertically challenged? Whatever. It was a damn small shovel and he was six foot two. The shovel was the only one available in the little cottage though so it was what he used.
With each scoop of the tiny shovel Nick became even more frustrated. The whole stupid week had been one disaster after another. Originally the plan had sounded great. Nick and his wife Catie would spend the week of his thirty-fifth birthday in a rustic cottage together. All alone and away from the stress of the last year, they’d spend most of the week in bed, and the rest of it hanging out in front of a fire. It was more for Cate than it was for his birthday. He didn’t care where they were as long as they were together. But all of her friends said the cottage would be a great idea and she would just love it.
Well she did love it, for the first few days. It was a romantic getaway straight from a cheesy novel and she loved it. They made love like they were newlyweds again and spent time getting just being together. No tours, no businesses to run, no press hoarding them, just the two of them in the cottage.
Then it started to snow, which she also loved. They lived in Florida so snow was a big deal. But it didn’t stop snowing. The weather channel called it the biggest snow storm to hit the area in ten years. They’d thought about heading out early, but had decided to be brave, or maybe stupid, and stay. That was a day before the main road had become impassible and even the plows weren’t attempting to get through.
Nick looked at the little progress he’d made and he wanted to chuck the little shovel into the woods. It was like trying to shovel with a teaspoon. The wind didn’t help either. He’d start making a dent and then the wind would blow everything back. Fucking snow.
They had plenty of firewood, and food. It wasn’t like they were in any danger. It was just annoying. The satellite tv they’d come to rely on for news from the outside world was out. Their cell phones had no service, and the land line only seemed to work between three and four a.m. if the wind was blowing in the right direction.
“It’s like we’re in a snow globe…” is what Cate had said on the first day of the storm with a great big excited smile. Three days later the only reason he was even bothering with the shoveling was because she was freaking the fuck out. “What if it just keeps snowing? What it we can’t get out or we run out of food? That lady who owns the cottage looked like she was pushing ninety, what if she dies and never told anyone we were up here so no one comes to check?”
He had to admit, her freaking out was pretty damn funny. She’d been perfectly okay with the whole situation until she’d noticed that the front door of the cottage had a waist high snow drift up against it. That’s when the doom rolled in and all she could think about was all of the awful ways they would die in their little romantic setting.
“We’re not going to die, babe…” he’d told her and laughed. Then she’d cried because she thought he was laughing at her.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. We’re here together and we’re safe. As soon as the snow stops they’ll clear the road and we’ll get the hell out of here. We’ll be back home with the pups and the sunshine.” To that she reminded him that he was a pretty boy pop star from Florida and he had the survival skills of a princess.
After what felt like three hours, but was probably more like forty minutes, when he couldn’t feel his toes and he was pretty sure he’d never play the drums again because his fingers were all going to break off, he gave up on shoveling and made his way back inside. The sweet smell of something baking hit him as soon as the heat began to revive his frozen skin. He stripped of his snow covered layers and left them in a heap near the door. The fire he’d built earlier was still roaring and was practically calling his name.
“Cate?” he called out and held his fingers toward the fire. “Honey?” Once he actually began to feel his fingers again he turned his ass toward the fire. How or why people actually chose to live in snowy areas was beyond him. Visiting, sure, but to deal with the shit day in and day out was not something he ever wanted to do. Ever.
He was about to call out for Catie again when she came out of the bedroom, “Hey, Froggie…” She threw him a smile and a wave as she stepped into the small kitchen area to check on whatever she was baking.
If she was calling him by his nickname, she definitely wasn’t freaking out anymore. He didn’t totally trust her improved mood though. “Whatcha’ baking?”
“Cookies,” she replied just as the timer went off. He watched her move around the kitchen taking the cookie sheet from the oven. She looked happy. Sounded happy. Plus she was baking, she had to be okay for the moment. Right?
“So, um… You feeling better? I cleared a decent path so you can get out to the car if you need to.”
“I’m good. I was just freaking out.”
He chucked, “Little bit.”
She smiled that smile that he’d fallen for the first day they’d met all of those years ago. The one that made everything better, no matter what. She left the cookies to cool and made her way to where he stood by the fire. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her body to his. “I love you, Nicky. This trip was super sweet of you and I’m sorry I lost my shit.”
He smiled and kissed the top of her head, “It’s okay. Although calling me a princess was a bit much.”
She laughed and looked up at him, “Not my best moment… Sorry, again.”
He failed to hide his grin from her. Even when she was freaking out and calling him names, he loved every little thing about her. “I love you, you know?” She nodded as he bent to kiss the tip of her nose. “I’m glad you’re not freaking out anymore.”
“When you were out there I watched you and thought that we can’t possibly die here. You’re too freaking adorable with your ridiculously small shovel clearing away snow just so I’d calm down. If you love me enough to do that, there’s no way we’re going to get stranded here.”
“Exactly.”
“Plus, when you were outside my phone worked for like five minutes. I got a voicemail from four days ago.”
“Bobby, Skylar, one of the twins, or AJ?”
She shook her head, “Doctor Heller.”
Concern clouded his face but he tried to stay calm-ish. Calls from the good doc hadn’t always been full of good news in the past year. “Yeah?”
She smiled that smile again and tears welled up in her pretty brown eyes, “We did it.”
“Wait. What? You mean?”
She nodded again and giggled while tears slid down her cheeks, “We’re going to have a baby!”
Visions of the past year flooded his mind. They’d been together for ten years and had a pretty much Fairytale romance but the one thing they didn’t have was kids. The last year had been full of tests, shots and tears. One of big reasons he’d wanted to get her away from life for a week was so that they could just stop worrying. Maybe if they got caught up in each other they would forget about the heartache that came each month with another failed attempt at getting pregnant at least for a little while. It had worked, just not the way he’d expected it to.
He wasn’t one to get all choked up, but when he saw the love of his life telling him that they were finally going to have a baby, he lost it. He dropped to his knees, began kissing his wife’s belly and all he could say was, “Baby, baby, baby…”
She giggled and joined him on the floor. She took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply before pressing her forehead to his, “I love you.”
“I love you too, so much.”
“Just. Can you make me one promise?”
“Absolutely anything.”
“Please don’t ever bring me to a secluded cottage ever again, okay?”
They both began laughing and he pulled her into his arms, “I promise.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Now let’s see what everyone else came up with!
Jessica Jarman | Kayleigh Jones | Bronwyn Green | Kris Norris
Coffee & Prozac 