I’d like that. No injuries, no accident that’s ruined a family’s night.
“A storm,” I murmur, my imagination twisting the newly swirling snow into a monster. “Ice demons.”
I love the look of surprise on Sam’s face as his brows hit the roof. “Ice demons?”
“I like it better than an accident three days before Christmas.”
He shrugs. “Fair enough. There you go. So they’ve whipped up a weather system right in front of us? Iced the tracks and now we can’t move forward?”
“Something like that.” I hadn’t meant to say ice demons out loud.
But Sam is rolling with it. “Are they angry at the train for some reason, or are we caught in between a battle between foes?”
And because he’s into the story, so am I. “They could be fighting over a woman on the train? Or maybe it’s one ice demon, and his beloved is on here somewhere. She’s the only one who knows why we’ve stopped. And she’s…” I lick my lips, trying to get it just right. What would she be feeling?
“Torn?”
“Terrified,” I correct him. “This is the end of their story, maybe, and it feels like a life-or-death flight on her part, and now he’s stopped her.”
“She’s scared of him?”
I shake my head. “No. But she’s scared of what he makes her feel.”
He smiles. “So…you’re a romantic.”
“Only on the page.”
“Ah. Touché.”
Sorry to disappoint, buddy. I live in the real world. “How about you?”
He rolls his shoulders back, flexing inside his three-thousand-dollar suit jacket. No, he doesn’t like romance. The jacket, the wolfish smile, the practiced way of offering to buy a woman a drink just to pass the time by—this guy is just as jaded about people as I am. He knows what’s what. “I like the idea of it,” he finally says. “In theory. But I think there’s a solid chance the big scary demon is, in fact, the bad guy. I guess I hope that it all works out in an unexpected way in the end. Maybe the romance is—” He cuts himself off.
I’m not sure what we’re talking about anymore. What happened to dirty flirting?
He immediately looks sideways, releasing me. He’s good. Knows just how far to push, then pulls back. He wants to keep this fun, and frankly, I’m grateful for that. We could be here for hours.
His gaze locks on something—nothing, but he’s pretending—out in the darkness. Beyond the sleeting white stuff, past the tree line.
To our imaginary boogeyman. To the territorial hero, stalking the train out of misguided but romantic affection for a heroine.
“What happens next?” he asks, his voice low enough that this is just for us. The other passengers can’t hear it. “On the page. With this ice demon and his beloved, stuck on the train.”
“She knows the ice demon is upset. And she’s worried that he doesn’t know the strength of his own abilities.” I like the way Sam leans in as I start weaving the story. I don’t want to like it too much, but there’s something about the look in his eye that emboldens me. Like he’ll like anything I say here, I can be as wild as I want with this fantasy tale. “Maybe he doesn’t know that a storm can interfere with travel plans, cause car accidents, or down power lines.”
And that’s when the lights in our car flicker and go out.
I don’t gasp. Other people do, further down the train car, and then I hear Sam chuckle.
“That was a neat trick,” he says as he taps his phone, lighting up the space between us weakly. I refocus my eyes on his grin. “What next, storyteller?”
“The ice demon takes a nap and the lights came back on,” I say under my breath, but no such luck. I take a sip of wine. “Our heroine realizes she needs to find a way to communicate with the ice demon.”
“Whoa, hold up, we’ve got a major plot hole.” Sam clears his throat. “With all due respect to the narrator. But how did they fall in love if they can’t talk?”
“Well he’s not always in the form of a giant ice demon conjuring a storm. When he’s not upset, he’s like…seven feet tall and built like a cross between an NFL and an NBA player. And whatever he touches turns a little bit cold. Like he makes you shiver with each stroke, every caress.”
“Sexy,” Sam deadpans. He lifts his glass and takes another big swallow of rye, then wipes his mouth. My eyes have adjusted to the dim light, the entire car dark except for electronic glows here and there. It’s eerie and intimate at the same time.
But more importantly, Sam doesn’t understand the appeal of a sexy ice demon. I re-focus my attention. “You haven’t had enough fun with—”
He reaches across the table and touches my hand. Hidden under his fingers is an ice cube, and the cold press against my skin makes me shiver exactly as I just explained.
“Ice,” I whisper, finishing my thought.
“Tell me more about him,” Sam murmurs, his eyes carefully watching me. “He’s a man?”
“Some of the time.” I suck in a breath as he moves his touch up my hand and onto my wrist.
“More?” His fingers slide onto the inside of my arm and I turn my hand over.
Yes, more.
He continues asking questions like he’s not molesting my skin with a melting ice cube. “And the rest of the time?”
“Uh, he’s a storm. Well, a larger-than-life man-shaped demon surrounded by a storm. He needs to take that shape regularly, although he can be an only slightly larger-than-life man most of the time.”
“What happens in the summer?”
“You and your plot holes.” I swallow hard. “He’s gone in the summer. He has to travel somewhere cold.”
“Brutal.”
The lights flicker, and in a flash, Sam’s touch is gone. By the time the train car is fully lit again, he’s leaning back in his
