Free Snack by Emme Burton Page B

me he’s taken off his shoes. I don’t move a muscle. This is really happening. He’s getting in the bed! A gush of cold air blows over me when he raises the sheet and duvet to slip in. I shudder.
    “You’re cold. Come here.” With a quick move of his powerful arm, he pulls my back tight against his chest. “Let’s spoon. You’ll be warmer.”
    I can’t or don’t argue.
    Wookiee readjusts so he’s even closer to me, his head propped on my neck. He has to be staring right at Snack.
    My suspicion is confirmed when Snack says, “Hello, Buddy!” I hear him kiss Wookiee on the head and am momentarily jealous until I feel his breath in my hair.
    Everything in me tells me to scoot back a little into his embrace. I want to be close to him, I’ve always wanted to be close to him my whole life, but I’m pretty sure he’s just looking for comfort from an old friend, not a hookup. Instead, I position myself into my usual sleep position. I lift my lower leg up toward my chest.
    Snack laughs in my ear. “You were always terrible at this.”
    I peek back at him. “What? Spooning? I’m excellent at spooning.”
    “No, you’re not. You sleep like a can opener. It’s like trying to spoon in the cooking utensil drawer.”
    He’s actually right and I chuckle. I’ve never been too good at this. Reaching behind me, I smack him on the butt or hip or something, I can’t really tell, I just know it was firm. Snack pulls me in closer.
    Then I hear him sniffle and something drips on my ear. Is he crying? Yes, he is. His emotions must be all over the place. I can feel his chest vibrating, heaving against my back. He squeezes me tighter. What should I do? What should I say? Without warning, my own tears come softly at first and then in gushing waves. We hold each other and cry for what seems like hours. I don’t really know precisely what we’re crying about, but the emotion in the room alone is palpable. The source of this shared sadness could be, oh-so-many things: the death of his wife, Megan, our always off-track love, his now motherless children, my overwhelming loneliness and pathetic “relationship” with Henry, seeing each other after such a long time, or even, in my case, at least, guilt over being attracted to a newly widowed man.
    I can’t take this much longer. I slam the floodgates shut and turn my head toward him to meet his eyes. I sniffle back as much emotion as I can. “That blubbering is truly unsexy. You may never get laid again if you do that in front of girls.”
    Snack’s face breaks into a huge grin, and for the first time all night I hear his carefree laugh that I missed for so long.
    “Minnie, I’ve really missed you. You have no idea.”
    I finally admit aloud to him and myself that I felt the same. “I’ve missed you, too, Snack.”
    Snack blows out a cleansing sigh and pulls me back against him, wrapping me tighter in his arms. “OK, Can opener, we’ll talk about it tomorrow. Now, go to sleep.”

Chapter 9: 1999 – So Very Happy, So Very Sad
    I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Like ever, ever.
    Snack brought me home after the homecoming dance last night and kissed me at the door like a real date. Getting my brain to shut off and go to sleep was a real challenge. I eventually succumbed sometime after one thirty in the morning. That was the last time I looked at the clock.
    Snack showed up at my house at seven thirty this morning. I was just coming out of an amazing dream about him when it’s cut short by Sid’s cracking adolescent screech. “Minnie, Snack’s here! I’m sending him up to your room!”
    “No!” I yell through my bedroom door. Suddenly, I don’t want Snack to see me with bedhead and morning breath.
    I jump up from my bed and scramble to find my favorite gray Stormtrooper sweatshirt. It’s somewhere on the floor in the pile of clothes that aren’t quite dirty enough to put down the laundry chute. After digging halfway through the pile, I find it. After pulling it