He shrugs. “No trouble.” He stands, brushes the ash off his jeans, and turns to leave. But he hesitates at the door, one hand on the knob.
“If you get cold,” he says, not quite facing me, “there’s extra blankets in one of the trunks. Use them.”
I look at him—really look, for the first time since he arrived. He is a force, but not a violent one, more like the pressure behind a dam, or the weight of ice on a roof. There is something in his posture that suggests he is used to enduring, and equally used to being ignored.
It breaks my heart a little bit.
“I will,” I say, and mean it.
He gives me a short nod and slips out, the latch clicking shut behind him.
I kneel before the fireplace, add a piece of wood, and watch the embers try to catch on. They don’t. I add a smaller piece, then use the poker to adjust them. It barely works.
My hands smell of sap and smoke. The cold prickles my cheeks, and for a moment I think I might cry, but I do not. I let the fire—what little there is of it—warm me, and try not to imagine what the night will bring.
Outside, the storm rages on, but here, at least, there is light. And the hope of more.
I’m not sure how long I crouch by the hearth after Lane departs, half-hypnotized by the flames, the tips of my fingers stinging from their brush with the cold. I am rearranging the logs, pointlessly, when the door creaks again.
This time, Lane stands there minus his outer coat, a different bundle under his arm—a kindling basket, bristling with twigs and strips of birch bark. He says nothing as he steps inside, the door clicking with a care that is almost gentle.
He moves toward the fire, eyes fixed on the smoldering cradle, and then—without asking—kneels next to me on the faded hearth rug. The weight of him warps the floorboards. We are close enough that his elbow nudges my arm. I flinch, then stay very still, not wanting him to think I didn’t like it.
“You built it wrong,” he says quietly. “Won’t last an hour, this way.”
I bristle, but he is already dismantling my work, laying the logs to one side and sweeping out the ash with some sort of fireplace broom I didn’t even know was there. He gestures at the basket, then at me. “Here. You do it.”
I stare at the kindling, then at him. His eyes dare me to refuse.
I reach into the basket, fingers numb, and select a few pieces of birch. The bark is papery and curls at the edges. I arrange them as I’ve seen in videos online—tepee style, tidy and symmetrical.
Lane shakes his head, a faint huff of amusement under his breath. “Not like that. Too neat. Fire wants to breathe.”
He takes my hands, which surprises me so much I nearly drop the kindling. His grip is enormous—calloused, cracked, warm despite the raw cold in the room. He turns my palms up, like a fortune-teller, then presses a bundle of twigs into them. The touch is meant to be instructional, but something in the way his thumb grazes the heel of my hand sends a ripple up my arm.
He guides my hands to the hearth, arranging the kindling in a loose pyramid, correcting my placement with the smallest brush of his own fingers. “Like this,” he murmurs, his voice low and full of gravel. “Messier the better. Fire won’t hold if you make it too perfect. Nothing in this house does,” he adds, almost to himself.
I do as he says. Our hands overlap, his fingers brushing my knuckles, rough and alive. The space between us is charged, as if the static in the storm outside has invaded the room and coiled itself around our bodies.
He strikes a match—a real, old-fashioned wooden one—and hands it to me. I hold it over the nest of birch, letting theflame catch the curl. Lane watches, close enough that I can see the lines at the corners of his eyes, the way the firelight makes his skin glow copper and gold.
I light the fire, then sit back on my heels, uncertain what to do with my hands.
He stays beside me, arms folded across his knees, gaze fixed on the flames. In the hush that follows, the only sounds are the crackle of the birch and the faint, arrhythmic beat of the storm against the glass.
“You ever build a real fire before?” Lane asks, still staring at the hearth.
“I grew up in an apartment,” I say. “The only fire I ever saw was the kind that set off the smoke alarm.”
He grunts, a sound that might mean anything. “We used to have one in every room. When I was a kid, the winters were worse. The wind would make snowdrifts up to the second floor some years. You either kept the fire alive or you froze. Simple as that.”
I glance at him, then away, embarrassed by the intimacy of the confession. “Sounds like you hated it.”
He considers, then shakes his head. “Not at first. There’s something about it—sitting up all night, feeding the fire, waiting for the dawn. Makes you feel like you’re the last person alive.”
I look at the flames, watch them lick the new logs. “You don’t seem like the sentimental type.”
He shrugs. “It’s not sentiment. It’s survival.”
