Theo snorts. “Filter everything I say through the lens of siblings who don’t get along much. He’ll be good to your friend.If he loves her, and it sounds like he does, then he’ll treat her right. That’s what matters.”
“Yeah. That is what matters. Anyway, don’t be so quick to place blame on him for this idea. Gwen was already talking about moving here permanently for work before she ever got engaged, so she might have been the one to drag him up north.”
“What the hell does she do for work out here?”
“She does research on the melting ice. Something about bacteria and whatnot. You know, science things.”
“Oh. Alright, we blame them both.”
“So long as we stay with the plane, we’ll be fine,” she replies, leading them toward more pressing matters. “Going out there and trying to hike for a town is how people end up dead in every movie I’ve ever seen about being stranded and lost. Sort of like running up the stairs instead of out the front door in horror movies.”
“We’ll stay with the plane. It’s even less safe out there than it is in here.” He slips off the gloves he pilfered from someone’s bag, blowing on his fingers with a wince near little blisters forming at the cracks in his knuckles.
“Theo! Why didn’t you say something? Let me see.”
She reaches for him without thinking, horrified that he’s been nursing nearly frost-bitten fingers alone without saying a word. Doesn’t have a clue what she plans to do about it, but the chance to find out is snatched away when he nearly topples the blankets out of place to get away from her, pushing his back up against the seat as far as he can go, as if she might grab the parts that hurt and twist them to make it worse.
It’s a split-second reaction that has him looking guilty a moment later, but it’s enough to remind her that she’s in a small space with a man she doesn’t know. Someone who could so easily hurt her if he wanted to. He may be afraid of her rightnow, but the fear that hadn’t made a blip on her radar since she met him is suddenly loud and clear for her, too.
She let herself get too comfortable. He tended to her wounds, they shared a couple of stories from their pasts, and he has a sweet, bashful smile, but that doesn’t mean theyknow each other.
It absolutely doesn’t mean that they trust each other.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, trying and failing to move away a little more to give her some space.
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have reached for you like that. I wasn’t thinking. We should make a fire to warm up better. I don’t know much about living in these conditions, but that doesn’t look good.”
“It won’t stay lit out there with the wind blowing like that. I’ll be fine. It looks worse than it is. Not frostbitten yet. How’s yours?”
“I’m okay.”
“Toes too?”
She nods.
He puffs long exhales onto his fingers, before tucking them in against his chest. “Are you sure? Don’t be like me and not say something.”
“I’m sure.” She lets their small enclosure go quiet for a while. It gives her racing heart time to calm itself with nothing but the sound of their rustling and the sight of frozen breath to occupy them, until the awkwardness gets to her and she tries to lighten the mood. “Are you up for another round of crossword puzzles where I win?”
“I won last time.”
“You did not.”
“You’re such a sore loser. I win one round, and you can’t accept it.” He’s got a tentative, amused grin on his face whiledigging around for the crossword book, handing it to her in a challenge. “I’ll win this one, too.”
“We’ll see about that. And for the record, I’d have to lose to be a sore loser.”
She’s not sly about what she’s doing, but maybe he’d been just as desperate for a way to move past what happened as she was, because he doesn’t seem to care that her attempt at humor is obvious and slightly exaggerated.
It’s easier to focus on this than how fucking cold it is. How worried she is that no one will find them, or that the wolves will get here before a rescue team does.
For now, they pretend they aren’t stranded and avoid their problems with stupid questions in a book for the second day in a row.
This time, he wins. She offers a careful high five meant to be an olive branch and smiles when he takes it.
* * *
Later, when the sun drops below the horizon and the chill seeps so far into her bones that she can’t resist scooting just a little closer, they hear the telltale sounds of howling.
