Cabin Fever Read online

  Cabin Fever

  a novel by

  Annabelle Costa

  Cabin Fever

  © 2019 by Annabelle Costa. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents and places are the products of the authors’ imagination, and are not to be construed as real. None of the characters in the book is based on an actual person. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26: Two weeks later

  Epilogue: Six months later

  Chapter 1

  We have been driving for about two hours when I almost tell Chase we’ve made a horrible mistake and we need to go back home.

  Almost.

  The words are on the tip of my tongue. They are interspersed with the lyrics from the Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits Volume III album that Chase turned on when Pandora started cutting in and out half an hour ago. We didn’t start the fire and I don’t want to spend the weekend in a cabin in Vermont. What else do I have to say?

  But I don’t say it. And I know with every passing second, my opportunity to call off this trip is dwindling. At what point is it okay to say forget it, let’s turn around and go home? Two hours into the drive is really pushing the borders of good taste, but three hours is definitely over the line. Once we have invested three hours in this, I’m stuck.

  “I love this song,” Chase says as he turns up the volume on the next track, “And So It Goes.”

  Chase is the only man I’ve ever met who likes Billy Joel. I know there must be some other men out there who like Billy Joel, but Chase is the first I’ve ever met in the flesh. He’s the only guy I’ve ever met who could belt out the lyrics to “Uptown Girl” un-ironically and unabashedly.

  It’s even stranger when he’s belting out Billy Joel while driving ninety miles per hour in his red Porsche. Billy Joel isn’t fast sports car music.

  “Can we listen to something else?” I say.

  “Like what?”

  “Anything besides Billy Joel.”

  Chase gasps. At first I think it’s a sarcastic gasp, but then I’m not so sure. “Natalie, Billy Joel is the greatest singer of all time. So no, we can’t.”

  “Billy Joel is the greatest singer of all time?” I’m pretty sure that’s not true.

  He speeds up a little bit, even though we may already be going at the speed of light, and I’ve been taught nothing is faster than the speed of light. “Certainly there was no more popular artist than Billy Joel during the seventies and eighties.”

  “Uh, Michael Jackson?”

  “Michael Jackson!” he bursts out. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t even know Michael Jackson being the most popular artist of the eighties was a matter of debate.

  “You can’t even compare,” I say. “Michael Jackson is like… a filet mignon with a side of creamy mashed potatoes and sautéed asparagus. And Billy Joel is like… jalapeno poppers.”

  I compare everyone I know to food. It’s a habit I got into during culinary school.

  “Jalapeno poppers!” He looks genuinely horrified. “Natalie, I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

  He shouldn’t be so angry. I love jalapeno poppers. But they’re no filet mignon.

  Anyway, I have a feeling this is an argument I can’t win. Chase is undyingly loyal in his love of Billy Joel, and I admire that. I like a different band every year, but Chase has been a diehard Joel fan since he was in grade school, when he memorized the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” He has been to a whopping twenty-three Billy Joel concerts in his lifetime. The best I can say is I saw Katy Perry perform twice, and one of those times was on TV.

  I yawn as I lean back in my seat and study my boyfriend’s profile. I’ve dated a lot of men in my life, but without a doubt, Chase Hollister is the most handsome of the lot. He has blond hair that looks golden when we’re in natural light, and hazel eyes that are nothing less than captivating. He has perfect, chiseled features, with an Aquiline nose and a chin cleft. Chin clefts are tricky—if the cleft is too big, they can make a guy look like a pompous ass—but Chase has an absolutely perfect chin cleft. And he employs a personal trainer to keep his body well-toned. I am not unattractive by any means, but Chase is on a whole other level. The first time we met and he smiled at me, I was instantly smitten. I couldn’t help myself.

  He’s so handsome, I feel like they need to invent a new word instead of “handsome” to describe him. Handcredible? Handbelievable? I don’t know.

  I’m embarrassed to admit it, but sometimes I’ll just stare at him, mesmerized by his attractiveness. The way I stare at a beautifully-plated dish of food.

  That’s what Chase is. He’s that fifty dollar entrée of lobster or steak from the most expensive restaurant in town. But then when you take a bite, you start to wonder what all the fuss is about and if maybe the food from the diner down the street might have been just as good. Or better.

  To his credit though, Chase doesn’t have eyes for anyone but me. When we go out together, women are constantly flirting with him, but he never takes the bait. He’s in his mid-thirties and he frequently says he’s ready to settle down. Hint, hint, Natalie.

  “Can we pull over at the next rest stop?” I ask.

  Chase shifts gears, but the car doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. I’d be lying if I said I understood how a stick shift works or what benefits one gets from driving with a stick, aside from it looks cool and impresses women. I’ve never driven a stick. I’m lucky I can drive an automatic. I asked him once why he picked a car with manual transmission, and he looked at me like I’d said something unbelievably stupid.

  “Chase?” I say again, in case he didn’t hear me over the crooning of Billy Joel. “Rest stop? Por favor?”

  He doesn’t take his Ray Bans off the road. “Why do you need to stop at a rest stop?”

  “Because I need to use the bathroom.”

  He gives a long, exaggerated sigh. “Why do you need the bathroom so often?”

  If good looks and loyalty are among Chase’s virtues, patience is not. “Because I drink liquids?”

  And that’s the thing. A three-and-a-half hour road trip tends to reveal any cracks in your relationship. There are many things I like about Chase Hollister, but when he hints about marriage and the future, I get a sick feeling in my stomach. I don’t think this is the man I want to spend my life with. I’m fairly sure he isn’t. I mean, the guy won’t even let me go to the bathroom.

  But then we pass a sign for a rest stop with a McDonald’s and a KFC. I nudge Chase hard in the ribs, in case he’s even considering not stopping. He slows down just a hair as he reluctantly gets into the right lane and takes the next exit off the highway. He pulls into the KFC lot and even before I’ve gotten the door to the car entirely open, the tantalizing aroma o
f fried chicken hits me smack in the face.

  “Hey,” I say to Chase. “Do you want to grab some fried chicken for dinner?”

  “From KFC?” My boyfriend wrinkles up his nose like I just suggested we ingest beetle dung for dinner. Or any kind of dung. “I don’t think so, Natalie. Anyway, there’s going to be food at the cabin.”

  I’m not at all surprised. Chase doesn’t do fast food. I don’t see anything wrong with grabbing a Big Mac every once in a while, but he won’t touch it with a ten foot pole. His personal trainer would kill him—that guy’s strict.

  “Come on,” I say. “I haven’t had KFC in like a year. Longer.”

  Chase is still wearing that disgusted expression on his face. “You know there was a lawsuit where KFC had to change its name from Kentucky Fried Chicken because the birds they were using didn’t qualify as chickens. You know that, right?”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a myth.”

  “No, I read it’s true.”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, come on. You really think the chicken at KFC is made from some sort of mutant super-chicken?”

  “Yes. I do think so.”

  Billy Joel is not more popular than Michael Jackson, and KFC is not made from mutant chickens. I’m tempted to whip out my phone and prove Chase wrong, but my bladder is starting to throb, so I race into the KFC while he takes out his own phone to surf the web or look at porn or whatever he does when I’m not around.

  Fortunately, the bathroom at KFC is empty so I don’t have to wait to empty my bladder. And the bored-looking girl at the cash register couldn’t care less that I’m peeing in the bathroom without buying anything. I doubt she cares about anything aside from possibly that infected piercing in her right eyebrow.

  While I’m inside the bathroom, I take the opportunity to call my older brother Drew. A lot of people I know don’t get along with their siblings, but Drew is my best friend. Between the two of us, I’m the boring and responsible one, and he’s the fun one that everyone likes. You might think I’d resent him for that, but I can’t because he’s the fun one that everyone likes. If Drew were a dish, he’d be really good beer-battered cod with wedge-cut French fries. No vegetables.

  In any case, I’ve been told phone reception in the cabin will be spotty, so I need to talk to Drew while I still can.

  “How’s the cabin?” Drew asks me before I even say hello. “Is it acceptable?”

  “We’re not there yet.” I purse my lips in the ladies room mirror. I recently bought a new type of Dolce and Gabbana Monica lipstick that’s supposed to make my lips look “juicier”—moreover, I bought a shade called Pretty Kiss. I’ve invested in a lot of work into making my lips look kissable. I hope Chase appreciates it. “Still at least another hour.”

  “So where are you now?”

  “In the bathroom of a KFC.”

  “KFC!” Drew sounds as excited as I was when I saw the place. Our parents didn’t let us have much fast food growing up. “You’re getting a bucket, right?”

  “No, Chase says KFC is made from mutant chickens so we can’t eat it.”

  Drew bursts out laughing. “Why am I not surprised that Armani doesn’t like KFC?”

  When they first met, Drew took to calling Chase “Armani” because… well, he does wear an awful lot of Armani. Chase, on his part, said that Drew was a drunk and a playboy. For the first several months, the two of them despised each other. But gradually, some of the frostiness melted, and now they sometimes even watch a ballgame together.

  “So are you going to listen to your future husband?” Drew asks.

  Drew insists I’m going to end up marrying Chase. He hasn’t liked any of my boyfriends, but he grudgingly accepts Chase. Oh, and my parents love him. He is apparently the first decent man I have ever dated.

  The thing about Chase Hollister is the two of us look fantastic on paper. Especially Chase, because he always looks fantastic, but on top of that, he’s loaded. His family business… well, I don’t like to drop names, but it would be surprising if you didn’t have one of their products currently in your home. Their company is based in Virginia, which is where Chase grew up, but even up north, they’re a household name.

  But his family isn’t as loaded as mine. Few are.

  That, my mother informed me years ago, makes you a target, Natalie. It’s the eternal question with every boy or man I’ve ever dated—does he like me for me or is he after my money? Usually the verdict is he’s after my money. According to my parents, anyway. It’s highly insulting, but the awful part is that it turns out they’re right a lot of the time.

  But Chase obviously must like me for me because he’s got plenty of his own money. Everyone in my family is convinced he’s going to propose to me soon and they’ve made no secret of what they think my answer should be. The problem is, if Chase pops the question, I’m not sure he’ll be asking because he really loves me. He always makes comments about us being “good together.” Lately, I’ve started to wonder if his own father is pressuring him to marry me for the business connections.

  I don’t want to marry a man because we look good together on paper. I don’t want to marry a man because it’s good for the brand. Call me old fashioned, but I want to marry for love.

  I wish I knew if Chase really loves me.

  “If Chase doesn’t want me to get KFC,” I say, “I won’t get it. No matter how desperately I want it.”

  “You know what I think is hilarious? You are a professional chef, but I can tell from your voice how bad you want to pig out on KFC.”

  “Just because I’m a chef, that doesn’t make me a food snob.”

  I love food. All kinds of food, from the fast variety to fine dining. My parents wanted me to go to business school out of college, but I shocked everyone by going to culinary school instead and subsequently started up what has turned into a very successful catering business. I sometimes can’t believe I make money doing what I love. But the crazy thing is that after all that training, I still have the same palate I did when I was a kid.

  What does that mean? Well, it means I love me some KFC. And even though I make a delicious mac and cheese with three types of cheese and a bread crumb topping, I still count Kraft mac and cheese as one of my favorite comfort meals. Don’t judge.

  It also means that while Chase works out so he can have a perfectly toned body, I work out to ensure I can still fit through doorways. Even though I’m not a natural athlete, the pain of running five miles a day is worth it if it means I can eat what I love.

  “Honestly, Drew,” I say, “I’m not really feeling this trip. I’m kind of thinking I should go home.”

  He laughs. “Why am I not surprised? I knew you wouldn’t make it two minutes in a cabin with no internet.”

  I frown at my reflection. My clear brown eyes stare back at me in the mirror. My mascara is caking a bit—I should fix it before I go back out. My blond hair looks okay, at least—the keratin treatment I did last month is working wonders. “I could do it. I just don’t want to.”

  “Hey, remember your New Years’ Resolution?”

  In one short month, I will be turning thirty. On January first, I made a resolution to do thirty new things I’ve never done before prior to my birthday. By January seventh, I decided ten new things would probably be enough. Now it’s mid-February and I’m scrambling to get even one thing done by my birthday and it looks like this is it. I almost ate a durian fruit two weeks ago, and I was assured by the vendor on the street that it was delicious, but I couldn’t get past the smell of raw sewage.

  So here I am. Trying desperately to do my one new thing before I turn thirty.

  Maybe I should try durian fruit again.

  “Enjoy your romantic weekend with Armani,” Drew says. “I’m sure he’s got something ridiculous planned.”

  He’s probably right. Chase may be a bit of a snob when it comes to cars and fast food, but the boy knows romance. He’s kissed me on top of the Empire State Building. He’s made a trail of ros
e petals through his apartment leading to a candlelit bathtub. He probably has a romantic dinner set up in the cabin that will make me glad I didn’t pig out on KFC’s mutant chickens.

  After we hang up, I touch up my makeup in the KFC bathroom the best I can. Because of Chase’s more superficial attributes, I always feel a need to step it up appearance-wise. The last thing I want is for people to be whispering about what he could possibly see in me when we’re walking down the street together. I fix my mascara, apply a fresh coat of Pretty Kiss to my lips, and run a brush quickly through my blond hair (which, unlike his, has gotten some help from the local salon). I consider pinning it back, but Chase likes it down so I leave it alone.

  My parents have been hinting at me since I was sixteen that I should get plastic surgery, but I haven’t gone in that direction yet. According to my mother, I inherited the “Rochester Chin” and I need to get it fixed. But honestly, I like my chin and I don’t see anything wrong with it. I’ve been looking in the mirror at that same chin ever since I was a little girl, and it would freak me out if I saw something different. It wouldn’t be me anymore. I’m not changing that for Chase or my parents or anyone. And I’m not getting Botox either. I’m not even thirty, for God’s sake!

  The smell of fried chicken has somehow intensified while I was peeing. I can see the golden drumsticks sitting in the fryer and a basket of buttery biscuits is calling out to me. Natalie, please eat me! You know I’m delicious!

  Attempting to walk out of here without food will be futile. I’m hungry now and it’s going to be at least an hour till we hit the cabin.

  I approach the girl working the cash register, trying to avoid looking at that infected eyebrow ring. I contemplate what I can get away with ordering without Chase knowing. “Can I have one biscuit please?”

  “Sure,” she says. “Is that all?”

  “Um, maybe… two biscuits.”

  She rings up the sales and I pay in cash, waving off a receipt that could give away my indiscretion. As she gathers the biscuits, she’s humming a song under her breath. I listen, trying to make out the tune. Meghan Trainor maybe?