10. Indy #4
I don’t even notice when my breathing evens out, just that it does.
And Nick doesn’t snap or tell me to get over it.
He’s just… here.
He seems to run out of things to talk about eventually, because making me hold things and loudly cataloging all the food stored in this fridge can only kill so much time. All the while, he keeps sending me cautious looks every few seconds.
“I’m fine now,” I say once he pauses for long enough for me to get a word in. “I’m not going to freak out again.” I consider that for a second before I add, “At least, not right this second.”
“Good,” he says. “My turn, then.”
I take a seat and lean against the shelf. He comes and sits down right next to me. And I’m grateful. Grateful he doesn’t put distance between the two of us. He leans his head back and looks at the ceiling.
“I didn’t even know you could freak out,” I say. “You don’t exactly give that impression.”
He turns his head and looks at me. “No?”
I shake my head. “You could. You know, to be nice.”
“When have I ever been nice?”
“Rarely. You’re twitchy now, though.”
He sends me a droll look.
“Erratic,” I say. “I’m not dying right this second.”
I roll the inhaler in my palm for a moment and take a third puff. Just in case.
Nick eyes me the whole time. I feel my face get warm.
I clear my throat. “Umm… intense anxiety can trigger asthma. Or at least mimic the symptoms. It’s difficult to say sometimes. You know, in the heat of the moment and all.”
He plucks the inhaler out of my hand and squints as he reads the label before wordlessly handing it back.
“Panic causes asthma?” he asks.
I shrug. “Or at least it pretends to be asthma. It’s difficult to distinguish between the two.
I’m not, like, afraid of the dark or anything.
It’s more that situations where it feels like there might be a lack of oxygen involved make me cautious, and I didn’t really have any time to prepare myself. ”
He nods slowly. “I shouldn’t have pushed you in here.” He closes his eyes. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I…”
I glance at the door then back at him. “Probably would have died if you hadn’t? Unless that’s what you’re sorry about.”
He lets out a weak laugh and, unbelievably, I find myself smiling at him.
He raises his hand, and when his fingers touch my neck, I jerk in surprise.
“Your pulse is going haywire,” he says.
It crashes down on me in this exact moment that we had sex, and if my pulse was fast before it’s really going crazy now.
“It’s the medication,” I manage to say. “Heart palpitations are a common side effect. Harmless. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
I nod and then shrug before I look down at my hands because it’s easier than looking at him. “It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these. It’s… I’m… Thank you.”
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t acknowledge the gratitude, but doesn’t dismiss it either.
I don’t get him.
Then again, that’s not new.
I’d like to.
That’s not new either.
Nick turns off the flashlight to save the battery, and then we’re sitting side by side in darkness.
Silence stretches between us, and the tension gets heavier and heavier until my shoulders start to ache from the pressure.
“When I was about eight or nine,” Nick says. “We were living in this apartment building. It was a pretty shitty part of town, but there was this strip of woods behind our place, and there were a lot of squirrels living there. And they were used to people, so they’d come into the yards.”
I’ve stopped breathing again, but this time it’s not from overwhelming anxiety. This is anticipation. This is the first time he’s ever told me anything about his life before.
“Mom liked to watch them when she was drinking her morning coffee. She’d do this thing where she narrated what the squirrels were doing like it was one of those nature documentaries.
She gave all the squirrels names, and she had backstories for them.
Paul was in a love triangle with Eva and James. It was a whole thing for a while.”
I smile. “She recognized the squirrels? I mean, she knew which was which by name?”
“No,” he says, and his body moves against my side as he adjusts himself.
“Not even close. She’d just be like ‘Oh, there’s Paul again.
What’s he up to today?’ And it didn’t even look close to the one she’d called Paul the previous day.
It’s not like I could really tell them apart, but some of them were still pretty obviously not the same squirrel. ”
He’s quiet for a bit, and I wait because I don’t want him to be done yet.
“I decided I’d make one of those squirrel feeders.
You know, to help them through the winter.
I wanted it to be a surprise, so I spent ages saving up my allowance to buy wood and paint and everything because it was going to be the best squirrel feeder ever.
I cleared out a secret spot in the backyard to work on it.
Didn’t have any tools though, so I… Uh, I broke into our neighbor’s shed to… borrow some stuff.”
He sounds adorably bashful when he says it.
“And then I got caught trying to sneak a hammer and saw out.” He chuckles. “Man, I thought old man Jenkins was going to skin me alive. All the neighborhood kids were terrified of him.”
“Wasn’t there anyone else to borrow from?” I ask.
“It’s like you’ve never stolen stuff before. If I had picked someone new I would’ve had to waste a lot of time casing the joint and making preparations. With Jenkins I already knew where he kept the key and when he took his naps.”
I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but it feels like he’s leaning into me more.
“Then how come you got caught?”
“The Eagles were playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and I failed to factor that into the usual nap time. He saw me from the living room window.”
I laugh out loud. “Not a promising start to a life of crime.”
“It did take the wind out of my sails a bit.”
I turn my head toward him, even though I can’t see anything in this darkness.
“What happened then?”
“Then…” he says slowly. “I got a good earful. A few threats about scalping and how he had been in Korea.”
“And?”
“I was eight, so I started crying at full volume and gave an extremely snotty explanation about why I was in his shed. And then… he helped me build the feeder. Showed me how to use all the tools. Gave me nails and screws. Showed me how to paint. Mom cried when I presented it to her. We did a lot of squirrel watching that winter.”
I wait, but there’s nothing more.
“Do you still keep in touch with him?” I ask. “Jenkins.”
“We moved away when I was ten.”
I’ll take that as a no.
There’s a faint dripping sound from somewhere. Wouldn’t it be just the cherry on top of this shittastic day if this place suddenly started filling up with water, and we drowned in this metal box?
My whole body tenses again, even if I logically know there’s very little chance that drowning will be the cause of death in our case.
You have plenty of things to worry about. No reason to imagine implausible scenarios.
Of course, getting buried under a building in a fridge also sounds implausible, yet here we are.
I snort out a weak, desperate laugh.
“What?” Nick sounds alarmed at once.
I rub my palms over my face and shake my head.
“Blue,” he says sternly. A shiver runs down my spine.
Wow.
I mean, fucking wow.
What a thing to get turned on by right now. Excellent timing.
I laugh again helplessly and immediately suck in a breath.
I’m officially losing it. Trapped in a fridge. Thinking about sex.
His fingers find the pulse point in my neck again, and my eyes slam shut. I lick my dry lips.
“Still harmless?” he asks.
No.
No, I’m pretty sure we passed harmless a while ago.
“What do we do?” I ask. “Maybe we can try the door again. Together?”
I start to get up, but he grabs my wrist and holds me in place. “There is very little chance we’re somehow breaking out of here on our own.”
I clench my teeth. “Then what do you suggest we do?”
“Wait. Try the phone again. Somebody’s going to come. It’ll just take some time.”
I look around the darkness.
“But—”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
I swallow again.
“What if we run out of air?” I ask in a voice so low it’s more like a whisper. I don’t want to say it out loud. It feels like jinxing it.
“We won’t.”
“But—”
“It’s not airtight. I promise.”
“What about those stories of when kids climb into fridges and then suffocate?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“But—”
“Stop, Blue. I promise, you don’t have to worry about air.”
I blow out a breath. “Okay.”
I yawn. It’s like this whole day is catching up to me all at once, and in a flash, I can barely keep my eyes open.
I lean my back against the shelf.
And breathe.