Read Online Cold Comfort by Kathleen Gerard - Free Book Online Page A

your big career boom. By the time I realized that my best friend not only wore a bra, but she was also my soul mate, it seemed like it was too late…”
    As his words spilled out in one long breath, my stomach jumped. I suddenly grasped that we were no longer talking about his daughter and his divorce. He was referring to us.
    Jack’s eyes met mine. The irises were a watery brown; the whites pink with a sense of remorse. I couldn’t look away.
    “…I’m really sorry I fouled everything up for us.” His voice wavered. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
    A cold shiver rushed the length of my spine, prickling beneath my hairline. The world around us seemed to hold its breath.
    I searched Jack’s face, the crow’s feet around his solemn eyes, his dark, blue ski cap all dusted with snowflakes. For the first time since our paths had crossed, a vulnerability emerged in Jack—a vulnerability derived from something deeper, something with a resonance and a quiet intensity that had been seasoned by time and the disappointments that come from living.
    My heart hammered beneath my ribs and a solid lump swelled in my throat. If I’d had my camera with me, I would’ve taken a picture just then and captured this moment—the sight of me and Jack amid the bluish-white glow of twilight in the aftermath of the storm. The two of us—a little older, hopefully a little wiser—finally together again after all the years.
    “Yeah, I’m sorry, too,” I told him.
    * * *
    The flambéed turkey sat on the table bright and ablaze. Aunt Minnie snapped a few Smartphone pictures of Jack as she had invited him to carve the bird.
    When we were all stuffed to the gills, Jack stoked the fire. The two of us, Jack and I, insisted that Aunt Minnie settle on the warm couch. With big band music serenading her from the transistor radio, Jack and I did the clean-up and the dishes. Amid the darkened windows and the flickers of light from the candles set around the kitchen, Jack washed, and I dried. Traces of that brassy, big band music trickled in from the parlor. Like the days of old, a comfortable, uninhibited quiet filled the void between Jack and me, and I could feel things slowly evolving, the disappointment and bitterness I’d harbored during all those years suddenly coalescing into something softer, more sympathetic. In one afternoon, “the guy who broke my heart in college” had become my best friend all over again. I couldn’t deny that I had ever stopped loving him. And while it was clear we had both attempted to get on with our lives, our shared past—the difficult parts that had lingered, at least in my own life for all those years—suddenly dissipated and somehow got lost in the shadows of the twilight.
    The snow soon stopped and in the wake of the storm, the world outside loomed even more dark and quiet.
    When everything was put away and the leftovers wrapped up and put in a cooler we stashed in the vestibule, Jack and I set up Aunt Minnie’s old-fashioned, dented stovetop percolator. As the coffee brewed, we wandered back to the living room. The floor beneath our feet creaked as we found Aunt Minnie zonked out on the sofa. I bundled her in a crocheted afghan, as Jack added another log to the fire. The two of us settled on the floor, atop some throw pillows. Our knees were almost touching.
    “I really enjoyed spending time with you again,” he cooed. “I’ve missed you…”
    He held out his hand. This time, I took it. And as he gently wrapped his fingers more tightly around mine, the warmth of his touch shuddered through my body until I wasn’t quite sure where his pulse ended and mine began.
    For a while, we just sat there—his fingers squeezing mine as we stared into the sizzling fire, mesmerized by the sharp, hot angles of the flames. The sight before us hissed and sputtered as if we were watching a living, breathing thing until one of the logs broke free and burst into a dazzling new flame.
    Jack’s voice crept beneath the