Tapped (M)
It’s not quite silent in the sugar shack, but any noise sounds like music to Harry’s aching ears: the call of a bird, the crackle of the fire, the low rumble of the boiling sap.
And then:
The crunch of footsteps in the snow.
Harry frowns and rises from his chair near the fire. The door slides open and he can see a figure through the billowing clouds of water vapor. He approaches with a lowered gaze as if eye contact will spook one of them back into the mist. It’s the man from last week, the one who stopped by the farm to buy a gallon of the dark amber stuff, who doted on his son by buying him maple sugars. The man who Harry instantly recognized as the boy he once ached for. His face was longer and sharper, but his eyes were just as grey.
The grey of the clouds that rolled through the shack.
They stand there, facing each other, just far enough away to miss the inhale of a breath or the sound of a heartbeat. It stretches long, the silence between them. Harry’s mouth opens to speak but his tongue tastes the sweet air as his gaze sweeps over him. Any words are swallowed back into his fluttering stomach.
The silence snaps as they meet each other in the fog, replaced by ragged moans and the rustle of clothes as they create enough heat between them to boil their bad blood into sweet syrup. Enough heat that the shack is impossibly warm and they stumble together into the cold of the winter sun.
The knot inside Harry loosens with a final flick of a wrist and he spills onto the snow, the come cooling like syrup into maple taffy. They pick up their pieces and re-enter the shack, the silence between them returning once more.