Chapter 6 #2
That only happens if they’re about to die in a freezing cold cave. If this was supposed to be cathartic in some way, then it’s nothing but a failure, just like his response that fades in his throat.
“Anyway.” She turns back toward the drawers, pulling open the next one. “He’s why I am the way that I am. We can blame him for your almost cracked ribs. I panic pretty easily sometimes when I wake up confused. The cold didn’t help, but it didn’t start it either.”
“I don’t want you feeling bad about that, okay? I’m not worried about what happened. It’s over. No harm done. If someone grabbed me like I grabbed you, they’d catch a broken nose. I get it.”
She turns his way, brows knit together as she graces him with soft confusion. “It’s obnoxious when you’re nice to me. Feels weird. Quick, do something annoying so it’ll pass.”
He inhales as if to speak, and she holds up a hand as if his breathing is reason enough. “There we go. That’s enough. I’m fully irritated again, thank you.”
He puffs out a half-laugh. “Just wait. I’m gonna grow on you eventually. It’s inevitable.”
“Odds are slim.”
He raises his brows. “So you’re saying they’re not zero?”
“Rapidly approaching zero as we speak.”
There’s less sting to her words today. He lets his next reply go soft and serious, holding her gaze for a moment so she knows he’s not bullshitting her. “You’re worth being nice to.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew me better.” She goes silent, fishing out a folded paper from the back of a drawer before opening it with a flourish. “Still no can opener, but I just found a map.”
* * *
His finger follows a path between the only landmarks on the worn paper. “It looks like Barrow is only sixty miles away.” He says it like sixty miles is six yards, but at this point, some hope is better than none.
They have the map spread out on the coffee table detailing a path to safety, and it wasn’t that long ago that he assumed they’d be stuck out here in one way or another for far longer.
“When the blizzard clears, we’ll pack up and get going,” he continues. “It’s a clear shot, gonna take us a while on foot depending on the weather, but we can do it.”
Her full, white toothed smile that replaces the usual tight-lipped version is even more beautiful, and he struggles to keep from staring.
This is stupid. They just met. So he got hard thinking about her one time. It happens. Doesn’t mean anything. They survived a plane crash together, of course he’s going to feel attached to her in some way.
He’s simply not used to being this close to anyone, for this much time, and he’s short-circuiting because of it. Making the best of a bad situation has got his brain firing on brand new cylinders with no idea what the hell to do about it.
Ignore it. That’s what he needs to do. That’s what’s best for both of them when there’s no possible chance this attraction is mutual.
People bond in traumatic situations, that’s all there is to it.
He needs to keep reminding himself of that before he does something idiotic like showing his cards when he can’t take them back.
They plan out a route toward the village on the map before finally folding it up and reaching for that box of crackers again.
Settling into their corners of the sofa like the night before, and this isn’t the first time he wishes they were closer.
No. Nope. He does not wish that. He enjoys his space and she’s just fine over there where she belongs.
Would be fine across the damn house in a whole new room for all he cares.
It’s only now that he realizes his migraine is gone before it ever fully started. Talking with her relaxed him enough that his body stopped betraying itself, at least for now.
“We’ll be telling Oliver and Gwen all about this soon. I can’t believe it’s almost over,” she says wistfully.
“Me either. We got lucky. Real lucky.”
That’s when a flicker of something new flashes in her blue eyes. “So what do you wanna do on our last night here?”
“You might be vastly overestimating how fast we can clear sixty miles,” he teases.
“Shhh. Embrace the positive thinking.” Her voice drops an octave and thins out into a sultry half whisper while her eyes dart down to his lips and then further south to his crotch. He swallows hard. She can’t mean what he thinks she means. “We could…you know…if you want to.”
Fuck. That’s exactly what she means.
His heart beats fast, and his limbs go numb. She’s screwing with him. Has to be.
Unless she’s not. He’s never that lucky, though.
Except maybe this time…
“Not funny.” He winces at the unexpected high-pitched crack in his voice.
“Wasn’t trying to be.”
“You can barely tolerate me, and now you want to get naked together?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, I tolerate you just fine.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Can’t form a sentence when he’s this thrown for a loop, but then a clear flash of rejection scrunches her nose, and she shakes her head.
“Forget it. I don’t know why I said that. I think maybe I’m trying to protect myself.”
“By sleeping with me?”
She snorts. “It doesn’t make sense when you say it out loud.”
She looks so lost right now and even though he’s got emotional whiplash at the moment, he tries to find a reply that won’t make it all worse. “You don’t have to protect yourself from me. I know you think that I cheated on—”
“Don’t. I don’t want to talk about that right now. It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. Hell, it’s not like I’m in the best position to judge anyone.”
“But you don’t believe me, do you? When I say it didn’t happen that way?”
She tilts her head. “Not really. Does that bother you?”
“Little bit.”
He wants to spill the whole terrible story of his failed engagement, but she just keeps talking, and she specifically said she didn’t want to hear anything about that part of his life right now, so he shuts the hell up before he says something stupid.
“I’ve talked to you more in the last week than I’ve talked to anyone…
pretty much ever. More than my therapist. More than my second husband and he begged me to open up to him.
When I said I was an over-sharer, that wasn’t entirely true.
I used to be. I’m not anymore. This isn’t something I planned on and it’s kinda throwing me to be honest.”
“We can stop. Don’t have to trade stories anymore.”
“That’s just it, I don’t actually want to stop, and that’s a little scary, too, ‘cause I usually can’t even start. Unless you don’t want to anymore, then I get it. I’m not trying to force you to talk to me, too. This’ll all be over soon anyway.”
“I’m still in. I’ve got another one ready if you want it?”
She nods, curling her legs up on the sofa while he plays with a cracker between his fingers, much like she fiddled with that can of food in the kitchen.
“This right here is why my life is in shambles. A beautiful woman wants to sleep with me and I automatically think it’s a joke.
I’m socially fucked, I don’t trust easily, and I’ve got a grand total of two notches in my bedpost. Even that first one wasn’t real.
I mean, she was real, it wasn’t an imaginary lay.
What I mean is…” he pauses, a brief flicker of horror crossing his face when he realizes what the fuck he’s actually confessing to.
“You know what? Gonna stop now. I’ve said enough. ”
The tender way she watches him is a surprise after he admitted to being such a loser. She should be scoffing in disgust and ready to get away from him now, but those parted pink lips only hold a gentle, cautious smile. “I’m still stuck on that first part where you called me beautiful.”
He ducks his head. “Of course you are.”
The thickness in the air between them starts to break, and their laughter shyly mingles together as they trade tentative glances.
“Wow. We’re both disasters,” she says.
“Not wrong about that.”
“I think you’re beautiful, too.”
He rolls his eyes. “I think you mean devastatingly handsome.”
“Ah, there we go, I was waiting for something to come out of your mouth that would break this temporary spell of slight affection.”
“Slight affection? Well damn, call me whatever you want, sweetheart, because that’s a win in my book.”
She fixes him with a stare that feels equal parts hopeful and searching, like she’s trying to see past the false confidence he’s trying desperately to master. “Sorry, I threw myself at you. Not my finest moment. Just want to say that again, for the record.”
“No worries. Happens all the time. I’m used to it.”
“Oh, really? Okay. Good to know.” Her smile only gets wider at his joke before she veers their conversation into something more practical. “How are your fingers? Still hurting?”
He holds them up, chapped and sore but intact, wiggling them as proof. “They still work. Not as bad as it could be. They’re healing now that it’s warm. Yours?”
“The same. I keep thinking about how easily we could have lost some digits. Maybe we would have if we were still out there now. I have all these little blisters across my knuckles just like you.”
She holds out her hand for him to inspect, and he reaches for it without considering how that could be read, slipping his palm under hers. Could fit a sheet of paper between them but her skin still brushes against his like a whisper. “We’ll both have these marks for a while.”
“Fair trade.”
They’ve gone low and quiet, talking like they’re sharing secrets, close enough that he catches her looking down at his lips before her eyes flicker up to a safe zone again. That’s when he clears his throat, dragging his hand away and back into his own lap.
For a moment, she seems disappointed, but then reaches for a pack of cards they found in a bedroom earlier, shuffling impressively, her words sassy as ever. “Feel up to playing cards for a while? Strip poker?”
“Twisted my arm.”
She’s enjoying teasing him, and he lets her do it because he likes to see her happy. The fluttering in his stomach it prompts isn’t half bad either.
They play several rounds of non-strip poker and he spends every second replaying her words in his head when he’s not staring at the cards.
That offer was a mistake. She didn’t mean it.
Only trying to protect herself, whatever that means.
It probably has little to do with him, just like he thought all along.
He’s the only one who’s starting to feel differently and that means he needs to close that shit up tight before she gets wind of it.
The last thing he wants is to make it weird now that she’s beginning to warm up to him again.
They only have another couple of days left together.
He can control himself. Hell, he’s controlled himself most of his life, this ain’t no big thing.
Soon enough, they’ll find help, and this entire mess can be put behind them. If he’s lucky, he’ll have gotten a friend out of the deal and isn’t willing to risk that. He has so few of those already.
Then, she loses a round and the slight pout on her lips makes him shiver with overexcited butterflies.
Shit. Just a few more days. A week at most, then he can put some distance between them and work on forgetting he was ever attracted to her in the first place.