Chapter 6 #2
“Okay, first of all, the best-before date is really squishy, especially for dried food. I mean, liability says they have to put one on there, but it’s not like next Tuesday they’re suddenly terrible.
And also, if we’re here a month… We’re not going to be here a month.
” She’d ski off and leave him here before she spent a month in this cabin eating nothing but oatmeal and s’mores with a werewolf.
She picked up the coconut that apparently had been in her bag long enough to approach its expiration date. “This one isn’t a surprise. I hate this flavor.”
“Well, why did you buy it?”
“‘Because I didn’t know I hated it when I bought it.”
“And yet you’re still eating it?” he asked.
“I’m not going to throw away a bunch of food because I didn’t like it.”
“Oh.”
“Would you?”
“I like most food,” he said defensively.
“You would! Food waster.”
“It would be a waste to eat it.”
She blinked. “I’m going to translate that from, like, rich people’s language. You don’t eat packaged foods. You don’t batch cook for a week. Every meal you have is fresh.”
“It’s not a rich person thing. Food is objectively better when it is fresh.”
“Yeah, but…” How was she supposed to explain to this man that most people did not have the luxury of cooking three meals from scratch or tossing an entire box of energy bars if they hated them?
She looked down at the bar. Who was she kidding?
He wasn’t cooking anything ever. He had a private freaking chef cooking fresh meals three times a day.
“Aces high, one marshmallow ante,” she said abruptly as she picked up the cards.
“We don’t have to eat all the marshmallows, right?”
She snickered. “Had enough of s’mores?”
“It was good!”
She dealt five cards to each of them. “What, they’re not sold at your fancy five-star New York restaurants?”
“Three stars,” he said as he picked up his cards.
She watched him carefully, not taking her eyes off of him even to look at her own cards until he put two down and said, “I will raise you one marshmallow. Though I’m unfamiliar with the currency, and therefore I don’t know how big a bet it is.”
“Oh, it will break the bank.”
She wanted to peer just a little bit into the future.
She could probably use the window behind him, but she also didn’t want to see that bizarre white explosion or the haunted, freezing faces of kids, so she would have to trust that his laugh lines had deepened for half a second.
He had the beginnings of something, but he was going to have to get lucky for it to pan out.
The cards in his hands were currently worthless
Finally, she looked at her own and kept her face still.
She had a one and a two of hearts, an ace, and random others.
She had no idea of her odds of getting a straight flush, but she knew they weren’t good.
She bit her lip. She could probably ask him.
“Why do you only eat at three-star restaurants?”
“Common misconception. The Michelin guide for the best restaurants in the world only has three stars. So the best restaurants in New York have three stars. No restaurant has five.”
“Two marshmallows,” she said, and he nodded and added one more after her. “Cards?”
“Two.”
She slid them over and watched him again. While he tried to hide it, he did not get the ones he needed, which meant his hand was probably worthless.
She discarded everything but the one and two. She should have kept the ace. If he truly had nothing, that would take the pot, but, hey, the odds of the best poker hand were long, not impossible.
Miraculously, she got the three of hearts, but not the four or five she needed. Still, she took an aborted breath like it was something good and threw another marshmallow in the pot.
“Another,” she said.
“Fold,” he said immediately, and she grinned and took the pot. He had more control over his face than many she’d played with, or maybe he just wasn’t very expressive in general, but he did play it straight. He bet when he thought he had a chance, and he folded when he knew he didn’t.
“What are your cards?” he asked.
“I don’t have to show you. You folded.”
“Wait—” he looked offended. “You had nothing?”
She turned over the one, two, three slowly, and saw his eyes go wide, and then flipped the six of spades, and he laughed.
“I forgot how fast this game goes,” he said as she held out the deck.
“It’s your turn.”
He examined the deck like it were a foreign object. “You can just keep dealing. I trust you.”
She paused. Why did that hit so hard?
“What is your favorite food, if coconut is the least?” he asked like the answer really mattered.
“Chocolate, duh. Yours? No, what’s your least favorite?”
“The wolf is not a fan of marshmallows, it turns out.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t count. That’s the wolf, not you.”
He tugged on his ear, chagrined. “It’s an open question how different we are, or how much he’s an actual wolf or—”
“Or?”
“Nothing.”
He examined his next hand closely. He already had something, and judging from the way he matched them together, it was at least a pair.
“How much are you a real human being?” she asked, then winced, aware of how awful that sounded.
He only shrugged. She studied her own cards extremely closely. Just a few days ago, she would have asked the same question, and the answer would not have been positive.
“I don’t love sparkling water,” he said after far too long.
“Wow,” she said as he put two marshmallows in the pot. He was definitely a straight player. She had nothing but tossed in her own marshmallows.
“You have to try a fresh coconut,” he said as he held up three fingers for new cards.
“Where the hell am I going to get a fresh coconut?” she asked as she gave them to him and dealt herself three cards for something to do.
“Your grocery stores don’t have coconuts?” he asked.
“My grocery stores don’t have radishes for six months of the year because they wilt before they can get up here.”
“Holy shit.”
“That’s your deal breaker? You can’t stay because there aren’t radishes?”
“Oh, I was never staying,” he said easily, and why did that hurt? “Raise?”
“Fold,” she said firmly, and he collected the pot.
He handed her his cards. “I can’t imagine the supply lines in this country are so feeble that we fail to supply the entire country with bitter vegetables that no one likes.”
“Okay, so radishes should go on the list? Sparkling water and radishes.”
“Okay, fine. There are other foods I don’t enjoy, but I will eat a salad with a bunch of radishes that, in their bitterness, become a delightful note.”
“Your food is songs?” she asked, charmed.
“I guess so. You’ve got a bunch of different instruments with different notes coming together to make a harmonious whole. You need radishes in those circumstances.”
“Got it,” she said.
“What don’t you like? Besides coconut?”
“Sweet pickles? Cooked carrots. Olives. Not a fan.”
He squinted at her. “Those share no characteristics.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Only that I cannot extrapolate from that data.”
“Sorry to be complicated.”
“You are complex,” he said, and absently ate a marshmallow before frowning.
“There’s a difference?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“One is annoying. One is fascinating.”
“Are you comparing me to a computer code right now?”
He turned bright red and stuffed his mouth again, then immediately grimaced and tried to swallow. It was the strongest reaction she’d managed to get out of him aside from the moment she met him.
She didn’t know why she felt such an urge to provoke him, or to get to know him. They were never going to see each other again.
They played more hands, winning marshmallows back and forth. She didn’t notice at first that he was getting better and she was losing more until she got the most promising hand she’d had yet and went all in.
“You don’t have it,” he said.
She froze. “What are you talking about?”
“Given my cards and the ones we’ve played, you’re looking for a full house, or two pair. But they’re already gone.”
“Wait, are you counting cards?” she asked.
“How the hell else do you play this game?”
“That’s cheating!”
He snorted. “No one can outlaw the ability to do math.” He examined their spread of marshmallows. “You went way further than you should.”
“‘Cause I’m bluffing. I’m not playing the cards. I’m playing you. And you, sir, are an open book.”
“My pack freaks out because they don’t know what the hell I’m thinking. They say I have a great poker face.”
“Maybe they don’t know you like I do,” she said as a throwaway line, and they both froze.
“You really can read my face?” he asked.
“Well, that, and you play it straight. The only way to win this game, aside from the blast of luck that you might get once when the stars align, is to win the hands you shouldn’t.”
“Or you calculate the likelihood of that gigantic stroke of luck so you’re ready for it,” he said and lay down a straight.
“Why didn’t you go all in?” she asked, staring at the perfect little row of numbers.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Because you make no sense. You risk when you should hold, and you bluff when you have nothing.”
“That is the definition of a bluff.”
“But not when I know you have nothing!”
“Because you’re not supposed to be counting cards!” She laughed, and after a second, he did too.
“I should probably get to work,” he said slowly.
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but we don’t have the internet. Or a computer.”
He grinned. “Since I can’t call a helicopter, I need some way to get out of here that isn’t your snowshoes.”
“We’re close to the road now. They’re going to plow eventually.”
“And how do we get to the road?”
She sagged. “Slog through the snow? What are you going to do?”
“Make snowshoes.”
She laughed.
“Why is that funny?”
“I don’t know, I thought you were joking.”
“How would that be a joke?” he asked as he got up and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. She felt a fresh spurt of fear and rolled her eyes at herself. He literally came with four knives on all of his paws if he wanted to hurt her.
He sat on the ground near the door and began to carve through the branches. As he carved, the scent of pine filled the air, making the room smell like a spice cabinet in a pine forest. She couldn’t imagine what he could smell with his superior nose.
She looked around and thought of the dried stores.
“I could get started on lunch.” It would take that long for unsoaked beans to cook. She turned toward the kitchen.
As she measured out beans and grains, she couldn’t help marveling at how deceptively domestic it felt, with him whittling away in one corner and her cooking in the other.
It wasn’t that she wanted to spend her life like this; if they relied on him to survive, they’d be eating bark. But it was nice, for a day.
Just for a day.