Winter Flames and Sassy Sisters

Bitter days had a way of seeping through every layer of skin and muscle until they sunk through ones bones and replaced their marrow with honeycomb frost.

A chill so insidious, sneaking in to steal every minute spark of heat it can find. Causing the bones to ache and creak with each movement, stiffening joints until even sitting was painful after a while.

Winter often felt endless; sometimes, he believed it could remain forever. But an unfailing clock governs the seasons. Spring, summer, autumn.

Winter, like death, arrives uninvited but needed to decay and end all we planted and nourished throughout the year; yet spring always returns.

And the cycle of life begins anew.

We soon replenish the barren land, plant new seeds, and spend the summer bringing them to bloom and then harvest. Only to see it wiped out by ice and snow mere weeks later.

Nothing in life remains stagnant, and things must die for new things to grow. Trying to stand in the way of that was a lesson in futility, as Luke had learned more than once. The parts of himself he’d hidden, the emotions he’d hoarded for the girl next door.

His pride had to die to ensure he reaped the rewards of his efforts tending to them for so long in silence.

He hadn’t expected that his clandestine affection for Emilia could end in anything but a swift, icy death when she spurned him or wouldn’t stay still long enough to hear him.

Or worse, the possibility the reality of her couldn’t compare to the fantasy he had in his head.

How grateful he was to be wrong and learn that it could grow and change into something palpable and meaningful. Something they both yearned for and had rejoiced in.

Something he wanted to protect and look after. No longer a secret he hid to protect himself from possible hurt.

Now his chance of hurt had increased tenfold, as had Emilia’s, and he found it didn’t frighten him as much as he once believed it would. Her laughing, sunshine voice and glistening eyes whenever they were alone together had become easier to capture on paper.

He felt he could do her likeness justice now that he had become intimately attuned to her. Like the earth and its shifting seasons, he was changing, and it was for the better.

The day’s watery sun had long faded, and heavy, low-hanging snow clouds overflowing with frozen tears threatened to unleash their burden upon the world outside the windows, but none of it mattered as thoughts of silver hair and warm hands slithered through his mind.

Luke suppressed a shiver, a draught somewhere in the room finding its way to him. He didn’t want to give away just how cold he was each time he ventured outside to indulge his siblings in their wish to have a snowball fight.

They liked to tease him for growing soft since he moved away, and he had already given them enough ammunition to poke fun at him.

He didn’t mind; he gave it right back, but he didn’t miss the winters in Scotland and doubted he ever would.

Baltic, glacial, insufficient for human life—could all describe a Scottish winter. And often the summer. He sat by the crackling wood fire, soothing heat, and the charred scent of it washing over him.

He stared blindly at the book he was failing to read and couldn’t remember a word of what came before the paragraph he kept zoning out on.

The long journey here a couple of days before, lack of sleep on the plane, and staying up to text Lia once he arrived weighed on him, but it was worth it. His eyelids drooped, muscles tense and sore from being cramped up in an economy plane seat, and there was a queer fuzziness to his mind that ate at him.

Fatigue, like a weighted vest after eating an enormous meal with his family, didn’t help. His attempts to keep up with their many conversations left him seeking sanctuary by the fire.

Two of his brothers, Jordan and Michael, had already returned to their respective homes to prepare for going back to work or college. He'd only spent a short time catching up with them.

The two auburn-haired boys—well, men—had taken great delight in messing with him. He’d arrived to a hail of snowballs tossed out the upstairs window of their parents’ ivy-draped three story, red-bricked home in the countryside. Surrounded by a tremendous forest not unlike the one back at his home in America.

He was a creature of comfort and habit. The woods had been his first sign he’d found the right place for him in a new, vast land. Thanks to Jordan’s constant teasing about Luke’s distraction and a particular bite mark on his neck, Luke nearly drove his brother home himself.

Their parents had left shortly after dinner, paying a visit to friends and relatives they hadn’t seen over the Holidays. His dad, Mark, a stocky, dark eyed and haired, loud man with a tendency to take the piss out of his kids and defend them to his last breath in the same sentence.

And his mum, Heather, was the total opposite of his father with her auburn hair, blue eyes, and quiet, loving temperament, with her ability to calm and uplift her unruly children.

He’d missed them and they him. Both had enveloped him in a bear hug, so crushing Luke’s ribs ached a little as he shifted his weight.

They apologised profusely for leaving so soon after his arrival, but secretly, his chest had loosened and he smothered a relieved sigh when they told him—guiltily glad the house wasn’t full of people anymore.

It left him plenty of time to think of Emilia and wonder about how she’d act once they both returned home and took their new relationship into the world beyond their tiny town.

Their first date, when she’d worn a wee black dress as they cuddled up in a booth in the town bar and spent the night whispering and touching under the table.

That was his favorite part to replay in his head. He had been terrified they only worked because of happenstance and her bad luck. When daylight and reality crept on the day she returned to her apartment. He had fretted that they’d have a rude awakening.

He had made promises to himself and her, which he never shared with her. If they crashed and burned, he’d move, so she didn’t have to.

He decided that the moment she kissed him, he couldn’t handle seeing her if he lost her after knowing how it felt to have her. The heat of her touch and heart had burned away any doubt or fears he had before she knew his name.

Now he was away from her. The worries had come back, and he sighed, slapping the book shut and closing his gritty eyes against the dimly lit sitting room. Conjuring hazed memories of her all sleepy eyed, and her long platinum hair mussed by his hands.

Her dimpled smirk whenever she made him blush. Luke relived all of it to banish the questions his spiteful brain liked to toss at him whenever he was too tired to fight them off. He had texted Lia earlier, and her responses were as enthusiastic as always. He had no reason to believe—

“What’s that on your neck?” A low, familiar voice came from behind. Luke’s stomach dropped as Ariana plopped beside him on the dark grey fabric sofa and gave him a sly smile.

“I’m not playin’ this game, Ariana,” He replied. There was no winning when she got a hint of something she could use to rile him.

“Be careful, Ariana. He’s already thrown Jordan into a pile of snow for asking that.” Layla’s lilting voice came, and Luke scanned the room, noting two exits and one easily broken window as the redhead sat on his other side. He was getting hemmed in.

And to think they once despised each other! In the past, he’d been the referee between the two sisters. They brawled like cats and dogs, shrieking and scratching at each other for years.

Now, they teamed up against him. He wasn’t sure which way was worse.

“I’m just concerned! It looks vicious.” Ariana smirked, poking at her own neck and wincing dramatically.

Luke grumbled internally and wished he’d stayed home. He narrowed his eyes on his little sister, sizing her up. Her jaw grazing raven bob, wide brown eyes, and deadpan expression so familiar and yet different after months away from her.

She was the height of nonsense and fuckery.

“I saw a few more piles of snow outside, Ari… They’re about your size,” he threatened, eyeing both sisters with a mean mug that only made them grin wider.

“Ooh. That means it’s too good not to know!” Layla exclaimed, narrow face morphing into an expression that only spelled trouble for him.

She clapped her hands together as Luke sighed and resisted the urge to cover the mark on his neck or throw them outside.

“He’s getting pink in the face, Layla. I think we have to beat it out of him.” Ariana leaned in, accent coarser than he remembered, as she squinted toward his throat, and he cut her a glare that may as well have been a smile.

“Do you think that means it’s more than a hook-up? Luke’s never been the type for that, though he is still a man, so,” Layla sassed and shrugged, turquoise eyes reflecting the flames in the fireplace as Luke cursed her up a storm in his head.

“You know I can hear you, right?” He grunted, straining to listen for something to distract them.

“Oh! No. Sorry. So, Luke... how did you spend Christmas?” Ariana asked far too innocently, batting her eyelashes.

“With Storm.” And with Emilia, he added silently, mouth twitching to laugh, and Ariana didn’t miss it.

“Ha! You’re a lying liar who lies! Come on, Luke. We just want to know if you’ve finally found someone who can decipher the many frowns you’ve mastered,” Ari said, her face full of barely suppressed glee as Luke groaned and shook his head.

Layla giggled, shameless, as Luke scowled and wished he had two more brothers instead of sisters, as they at least knew when to shut up.

“I’m not lyin’—“

“Another lie! She must be more than a one-night thing. If you don’t tell us, we’ll have to find out another way, and you won’t like that!” Ariana threatened, thumping her fist on the worn arm of the couch.

She was right. It wasn’t just a one-night thing. One night. A few more after that. Hopefully, an uncountable amount to come. It was Layla that surprised him.

He stilled, heart calming its erratic pounding, and relaxed a bit as met her crystal gaze. The sharp shine in hers softened at what she saw in his, and she gave a slight nod of understanding.

“He’ll tell us when he’s ready, Ariana. Leave him be for now. You have that assignment to finish anyway and mam already warned you what would happen if you didn’t have it done by the time she comes back,” Layla said.

Ariana snarled, “That woman doesn’t understand what winter break means! I still have two days.”

But she took the hint, leaving with an exaggerated wink at Luke as if to say, “this conversation isn’t over.” He chuffed, head shaking, and eyes rolling, before he turned to Layla.

“Thanks. I swear I’ll tell you soon. But it’s still too new,” he murmured and caught her smiling out of the corner of his eye.

“No worries, I get it and I’ll try to distract her while you’re here.” She paused, scanning his face and reaching out to squeeze his arm. “Good luck, Luke. I hope we’ll get to meet her one day.”

Layla laid a hand on his shoulder, her version of a hug, as she rose to her feet and left to see if she could help Ariana.

Luke blew out a shuddering breath, resolving to head upstairs and collapse into his narrow childhood bed and sleep until someone dragged him out of it. Three more days of sibling banter and bickering remained.

Ariana would surely return with more insistent questions or theories about who’d bitten him hard enough to leave a mark.

He would tell her if she promised not to inform everyone else. The last thing he wanted was for his parents to catch wind of it and start interrogating him as well.

They meant well, but he wanted to keep everything safe and just his for a little while longer. Before his youngest brother Jamie could appear in a fog of weed smoke and begin telling him the moon was fake and they were all living in a simulation, Luke called it a night.

He wondered how Emilia was fairing with her friends and hoped it was going well…