Snowed in for Christmas

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Jett

A SHRIEK JERKS ME out of a pleasant dream about those two sorority girls who live at the other end of the dorm.

“No,” Benjamin moans. “No, no, no, no, no.”

I groan and roll over, holding a pillow over my head to try to block out his complaining. I must doze because the next time I wake up, sunlight turns the navy curtains covering the windows a pale shade of sea blue. Silence hangs in the air, a heavy, complete silence. This isn’t just the quiet of an empty house. It’s a bigger silence, a silence that drapes itself over the whole world like a hand muffling it.

Some instinct drags me out of the lower bunk and to the window. I peel the curtains back with a single finger, squinting at the light that reflects into my eyes.

“Shit.”

Everything is white. Perfectly, brilliantly, eye-scorchingly white. It isn’t that the sun is shining all that brightly. It’s more that every drop of light is bouncing off a blanket of white so thick and complete it covers every single surface. I can barely discern my car from Ben’s in the driveway. Snow sits heavy on every roof and covers the street from end to end. There was a bigger road at the end of the block, if I remember right, but I can’t even see it through the snow. Everything is one uniform sheet. It’s gotta be multiple feet deep. And there isn’t a plow in sight.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

Benny the nerd was right. I remember him complaining about a storm or something in the week before we were all supposed to drive out here. Mom and Paul said it was nothing to worry about, but Ben kept insisting.

I really wish he was less smart.

No footsteps break up the flat, uniform landscape. No cars attempt the roads, not even a truck. The town of Stone Valley has completely shut down.

“Well, that explains why they wouldn’t deliver last night,” I say.

I close the curtains and pull on my warmest sweatpants, the ones with the fuzzy lining. I pile on a T-shirt and sweater as well before sitting on the edge of the bed and wondering what the hell I’m going to do. If the sun’s out, the snow will melt, right? So maybe I just have to survive a boring morning stuck in this house with Ben before I can get out of here. Surely, Mom couldn’t be mad at me for driving home when conditions are this bad. It’s the smart thing to do. What if more snow arrived? We wouldn’t want to be here if it got worse. Then we might really get stuck, and I think I’d go insane being trapped here with Ben for more than an afternoon. He’s fun to mess with and all, but I have my real life to get back to, a life that includes the girls down the hall, a bottle of whiskey and kicking Ryan out of the room for the night.

In fact, I should get started on that right away.

I scroll through social media, liking photos and videos, sending the right DMs to the right people, planting the seeds of my future adventures. I’ve heard that freshman on the tennis team is a total closet case, and those types are always fun to mess with. They’re always so desperate and needy, so eager to please. I can picture the freshman dropping to his knees in my dorm room, begging me to let him suck my cock, plucking off his glasses so he can—

Wait. No. He doesn’t have glasses. Where the hell did I get glasses from?

A pair of amber eyes flashes in my memory, amber eyes obscured by glasses.

Oh, hell no. Look, I might be in dire straits with this whole boring-resort-town thing, but I will never be so desperate that I start fantasizing about Ben of all people. I don’t even know if he’s a closet case or just … asexual or something. I’ve never known him to show interest in anyone or anything but his textbooks. Is he gay? Straight? Ace? He’s never shown even a flicker of desire for another human being. Maybe he’s one of those people who’s only attracted to inanimate objects. Maybe he jerks off into his textbooks, and that’s why he always keeps them with him.

I want to laugh, but before I can, an image barrels into my brain of Ben touching himself, tilting his head back in pleasure, moaning as he spills over his hand. Blood rushes toward my cock before I can stop it. I groan, flopping back in the bed and reaching for myself, but I refuse to think about Ben. Absolutely no way. I focus on the girls from my dream. The closeted freshman. Yeah, that’s the stuff. I stroke myself to the sight of their eager, pretty faces, and push glasses and amber eyes liquid with rage as far out of my brain as I can.

It’s an uninspiring wank, in all honesty, but it gets the job done. I slink to the bathroom, clean myself up, brush my teeth. By the time I scurry back to the bedroom, I feel more like myself. No more weird thoughts about my insufferable not-step-brother.

I try to go back to scrolling my phone, but eventually the boredom of seeing the same sponsored posts over and over leaves me restless. I drag myself to my feet and slouch out of my stupid, small bedroom. I can hear Benjamin talking to someone as I descend the stairs, but don’t bother eavesdropping. It’s not like that guy could be talking to someone fun or interesting. He probably called the National Weather Service to talk about snowfall numbers or some nerd shit like that. Is that a thing you can do? It doesn’t matter. Ben would do it either way.

The smell of fresh coffee lures me into the kitchen. A pot sits in a coffee maker, steam hissing as the hot water drips through the coffee filter. I breathe deeply, letting the warm, fresh scent dispel the haze of sleep and fantasy clinging to my brain like cobwebs. When the coffee finishes, I pour it into the cup sitting beside the machine, not pausing to question why someone who hates me would brew coffee for me and leave a mug out for my use. Maybe he’s feeling brotherly today. How sweet.

I search the fridge for coffee creamer but find only milk. Of course. It’ll have to be good enough. I dump in a healthy pour, then stir in some sugar as well. When I sit at the kitchen island with my mug, Benjamin is still at the sliding glass doors in the living room, tugging at his short hair as he talks on the phone. I sit with my back to the kitchen, watching him as his frustration mounts.

“But Dad—” he says before his father apparently cuts him off. After a few moments of silence, he heaves a sigh. “Yeah, I know. I know. I’m just saying—”

As far as entertainment goes, this is pretty weak stuff, but it’s the best I’ve got given the circumstances. I’d turn on the TV and find something to watch, but Benjamin stands so stiffly I think he’d actually chuck his phone at me for that. Instead, I sip on the coffee and watch him pace back and forth in front of the door.

“I said this could happen,” Benjamin says. “I warned you. I wish you’d just listened. Now we’re—”

Benjamin clamps his mouth shut as his father retorts loudly enough that I can hear a faint murmur from where I sit. Benjamin is facing me, but his eyes look right through me. He’s staring into an abyss, his mouth so tight and taut it’s little more than a thin white slash.

“Fine,” he says, teeth gritted.

“Yes,” he adds after a moment. “Yes, it’s fine. I went to the store yesterday.” Another pause. “I’m not sure, but there must be something around. I’ll search the house today.” Pause. “Okay, fine. Yes. Fine. I understand. I love you too. Bye.”

He lets out a long, aggrieved sigh as he hangs up. For a moment, Ben stands there at the glass door, gazing out at the snow piled up against it and sweeping out as far as he can see. The rebounding sunlight limns him in ethereal white, casting him in an almost heavenly glow. He’s like an angel descended to Earth, glowing white as he surveys all of humanity — and apparently finds us lacking.

When he tears his eyes away from the snow, he’s scowling. The ethereal effect fades when his eyes settle on me, hard and cold. I try not to think about his glasses and the way they popped onto that freshman’s imagined face before, but my throat feels tight when Ben stalks over to the kitchen island and sits across from me on a stool. Without a word, he takes the coffee cup from me and downs a swig, then places the mug between us.

My stomach drops into my feet. He isn’t talking. He isn’t yelling at me for stealing his coffee. He isn’t telling me to fuck off. He’s just … just sitting there, staring down at the faux granite countertop, his arms folded and head hanging. Normally, I’d revel in his pain, but this is downright creepy.

“Hey, man,” I say softly, “you okay?”

He drags his eyes up, glowering at me like he forgot I was here. “No, are you?”

Cool. That’s not ominous at all. I try to lighten the mood.

“It’s not so bad,” I lie. “I’ve got my cozy sweatpants, a fresh cup of coffee and my favorite future step-brother all right here.”

He winces, his scowl settling deeper into his face. “We aren’t…”

But he doesn’t even make it all the way through his usual complaint. Instead, he cuts himself off with a sigh and reaches for the coffee, taking a deeper drink this time.

“You put too much sugar in it,” he grouses.

Weirdly, I don’t have the heart to fight with him about it. The quips die on my tongue before I can voice them. This seriously does not feel right.

“Are you … okay?” I say.

Ben is still for a moment before he looks up at me, glaring from under dark eyebrows. “No,” he says. “I am not.” He waves an irritated hand at the back windows. “I told them this would happen, but no one listened to me, and now we’re stuck here for the next week, and I don’t know where the flashlights are or if this house even has flashlights, to say nothing of our food supplies.”

“Wait, back up. We’re stuck here ?”

“Yes,” Benjamin says flatly.

“But … what about our parents? What about Christmas?”

Ben shakes his head. “The pass is completely shut down. There’s no way through. No one is entering or leaving Stone Valley until the snow melts, and at this time of year, with this kind of accumulation, that isn’t happening for several days at best.”

I blink and blink as his words settle in. Stuck here. For days. No way in, no way out. Just me and Ben in this God damn cabin in the middle of nowhere.

“Dad says he’ll head over as soon as he can, but we should act like we have to survive the next week with nothing but what’s in this house already,” Ben says.

He starts droning about logistics, but all I hear is static. It’s a few feet of snow. How can we be trapped here? How can this be happening? I was supposed to be here for a couple days before escaping back to my friends, my life.

The screaming that woke me this morning suddenly makes perfect sense.