Lane napped all afternoon. When dinner was almost ready, Remy carried two glasses of wine to the main room and set them on the coffee table. He spent several minutes getting a fire going in the fireplace; he had brought in a small stack of wood, now sitting between the fireplace and the Christmas tree, and the cardboard ornament boxes ignited quickly, but the logs themselves took longer to catch. Soon a small, orange flame licked the wood, and Remy fed more cardboard into the fireplace to keep the fire going.
When he was sure it wasn’t going to go out on its own, he pulled the mesh iron curtain across the fireplace, then set the metal grate into place. He sat on the coffee table and sipped his wine as he watched the flames dance. They gave off a heady warmth, and were mesmerizing to see.
