Chapter 6
There’s a blizzard outside. Theo doesn’t want to imagine being stuck in the cave now that the weather’s kicking up a tantrum.
Wind seeps through the log wall seams, tickling his fingertips when he presses a hand there, howling louder than those wolves back at the crash site. He can barely see a foot past the window before it all turns white.
They have enough firewood and food to last a few days. They’re in a better place now, even with the snow, than they have been since this whole thing started. He should be more focused on all of that instead of the hard-on he got in the cave while Nora was pushed up against him.
That never happens, unless he counts that one time at Oliver’s friend’s house when a cute girl took a liking to him.
He wasn’t even supposed to be there but his brother dragged him along, barely twenty-one and full of hormones, and then she smiled at him, and that flicker of kindness was enough to pull him in.
She fucked him twice because the first time lasted all of a minute.
The second time wasn’t much better. He only found out later that she sold the story of their night together to the tabloids when his brother sent him the article, laughing up a storm, while scolding him for not vetting his partners more effectively.
Theo didn’t touch anyone for years after.
He dated sparsely and superficially. Only enough to please his father, who expected his sons to put in effort at maintaining their bloodline.
At least not until the fiancée he supposedly cheated on flew into his life.
Letting anyone in hadn’t been worth the risk when the odds of being fodder for another tabloid or trash social media account are far too high, and yet he apparently never learns his lesson.
Oliver never cared about any of that. He thrives on the chaos and attention.
Theo takes everything far too personally to risk another reminder of how it feels to be betrayed. He won’t be fooled a third time.
Being alone isn’t difficult, though. It’s not lost on him that the benefits of being born into this family are what allow him to escape to the solitude of the woods and farm peaches.
It’s hard to be tempted by a pretty face or a kind smile when there’s no one around.
He’s even grown to like his solitude, preferring it over the company of others, but he’s beginning to wonder if that fondness for silence was all just a coping mechanism because he likes being around Nora.
Likes hearing her voice even when she’s snarking at him, and he may even miss her when this is all over and they part ways.
Plus, his dick decided to perk up for her after being mostly dormant for anything other than his own hand for a long time. That shocks the hell out of him. It hadn’t been only a morning thing, either. He spent most of the night trying to keep it down.
It’s a her thing. A Nora thing.
He’s attracted to her, much as he tries to deny it, and now she’s all he can think about.
How she might feel against his fingertips.
If she’d be sweet in bed, or rough. If she’d taste as good as she looks.
He’s caught in a blizzard of x-rated thoughts that give the weather a run for its money, and that’s why he’s been quiet as fuck since they settled in.
If he takes a moment too long and really looks at her, she’ll just know every single X-rated image floating through his head.
He should admit to himself that she’s just like all the rest who believe the media instead of the truth, but he got a glimpse of her before she remembered that false story about him, and put up a wall to keep him out.
She was gentle and kind, even patient with someone like him who’s a walking disaster on a good day.
He wants to see that version of her again.
Hopes he might get a chance to coax her back out somehow.
And that’s when his stress-induced migraines decide to make another appearance. He winces, stuffing his reaction down, hoping she didn’t notice, while he silently wishes for that coveted bottle of pain meds lost in the plane crash.
“Are you sure everything’s okay?” she asks, putting a can of peas on the counter and searching for an opener. “This one doesn’t have a pop top. Can’t find the—”
“Yeah. Yup. Everything’s fine. Why? What do you mean? Do I look…not fine?”
Well, that was suspicious.
She offers him a confused stare. “I don’t know. You’ve been quiet today. I thought maybe we could forget what happened in the cave, because everything seemed fine when we got here, but now I feel like I need to say something. And now you’re doing a weird squinting type of thing.”
Shit. He should have known she’d ferret out the truth. She’s far too perceptive for her own good.
“The squinting is because of a migraine. That’s all. It’ll pass.”
“Does it happen a lot?”
“Only when I’m stressed.”
“Can’t imagine what could be stressing you.”
There’s a hint of a good-natured tease in her voice that prompts his forced smile. “Right, it’s a vacation out here.”
“Do you take anything for them?”
“Yep, and it’s lost wherever my luggage ended up.”
“I’d offer you some of the breathing exercises my therapist gave me, but those work about as well as hopes and dreams and unicorn tears.”
“I wouldn’t turn down some unicorn tears right about now. Or some Oxy.”
She whistles. “Me too. On both counts”
He opens his mouth to ask about that, but she clicks her tongue with a shake of her head. “Anyway, I’m sorry I tried to break your ribs in the cave.”
“That’s not how it was. You were having a panic attack. Mildly hypothermic. Can’t control that stuff.”
She sighs, slamming a drawer in frustration when it doesn’t hold what she’s looking for. “I know I’m difficult. Hard to handle. You wouldn’t be the first to say that and probably won’t be the last, so just let me apologize, okay? It might be the only one you get out of me.”
He forgets for a moment that he was about to offer his own apology about that unintentional cave boner and tries to focus on what she’s actually saying. “Which guy told you that? That you’re difficult?”
“Both, for different reasons, I guess. The first one made me this way, and the second one got upset that he couldn’t fix it. I made him feel inadequate. Finn would never admit to that, though, and shit, I’m doing it again. Talking about them.”
“I asked. What else do we have to do besides talk? Unless you’re sick of my voice already.”
“Not yet, but the day is still young.” She leans her hip against the counter. “Is this your way of saying you want to trade stories now?”
That’s not what he meant. Not how his brain works.
He says what he means or keeps quiet, all that in-between hinting bullshit is useless far as he’s concerned, but maybe she knows full well that isn’t what he was getting at and just wants to explain herself anyway, even though he’s tried to make it clear she doesn’t have to.
“Sure. Only if you want to,” he agrees, taking her lead.
“You pick this time? You know enough bits and pieces about me by now to have questions.”
“Tell me about the first husband.”
“Going right for the jugular, huh?”
“We don’t have to.”
“No. No, I said you could ask and I won’t go back on that.” She straightens up, steeling herself for a conversation she brought on. “It’s not a happy story, though.”
“Figured that much already.”
“What you said about your father being hard to love. That was Jack, too. I met him just out of high school. He was charming. Made me feel special. Then we got married and he developed an addiction to anything he could snort, which he forced me to share with him until I was the one begging for a hit, but that wasn’t even the worst of it.
No, the worst was how violent he became when he was high.
That led to a season pass to the ER until they started asking questions about my endless injuries.
You can learn fun things like how to set fractured bones and relocate dislocations, all with a simple internet search, and that avoided most suspicion. ”
She pauses, looking everywhere but at him, fingers tracing the label on the can she can’t open.
“Then I had Iris. It was a mistake. Bringing a baby into that was so unfair to her, and it only got worse. I didn’t do a damn thing about it until he started looking at her like he’d look at me right before he would get mad…
I divorced him after that. Forced myself not to go back.
I almost did so many times. So many. I was still so afraid that if I didn’t, it would only be worse when he found me. ”
He knew it was bad but didn’t expect it to be this awful, yet she tells the story monotone and flat, as if letting in the smallest amount of emotion would simply open the floodgates.
She’s as closed off about that part of her life as he’s been about some of the worst years of his.
He can talk about it now, too, but he isn’t about to feel it.
“It was brave of you to leave,” he tells her, softly.
“I wouldn’t have if I didn’t think he might hurt Iris one day.
That’s what it took. But it was pointless anyway because he had a fancy lawyer and got custody just to spite me, while I got sent to rehab for the addiction he started.
And then there are days when I wonder if she would still be alive if I had stayed.
If that would have been the trade-off, or if we all might have died together that night, and that’s a rabbit hole that leads to nowhere useful. ”
“The carbon monoxide?”
“Yeah. There was a leak. They went to sleep and never woke up.”
What does he even say to that? Theo regrets asking despite the fact that she practically led him there. It’s only wound her up tighter than a drum, her whole body tense and words clipped, and they aren’t close enough that he can be that guy who gathers her up and lets her cry into his shoulder.