“Thank you,” I say. I raise the new shirt, waving it slightly. “I’m just going to…uhh, change, so if you could…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nikhil says. He backs away quickly. “Sure.”
He exits the bathroom and closes the door behind him, but with the absence of his headlamp, the room is sent into sudden darkness.
“Nikhil,” I call. The door opens up a crack. “Could you leave the light? Or actually, do you have another flashlight?”
He lets out a puff of breath, something between an exhale and a laugh. “Why? Don’t you want to wear the headlamp?”
“Umm, not particularly.”
He huffs again, though a second later he’s handing a slim flashlight to me.
“Thanks.” I flick it on and change quickly. Obviously, I misread the moment. Maybe it was just muscle memory or the remnants of the attraction that used to be there, but I doubt Nikhil actually wanted to kiss me. He’s probably still furious with me about the guest bedroom. To his credit, he hasn’t done that much I-told-you-so-ing, but he absolutely could have.
Shame prickles the back of my neck. I owe him an apology. Maybe I can offer to make it up to him. There has to be a way I can repay him for getting me out of there. Maybe I could cover the cost of repairing the guest room?
I go out to present my offer to Nikhil but stop when I see him wrestling with some kind of blanket in his arms. The material’s shiny. Reflective. Which I can see clearly because he’s still got on that headlamp.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Nikhil fumbles a second, then lets out a sound of relief. He yanks on something and a zipper comes undone.
“The thing was stuck,” he says. “For a second I thought we might only have one sleeping bag.”
Right. The closet. The sleeping bags. The plan Nikhil had all along. “But we don’t, right? You have another one?”
“Yeah, mine’s already set up in there.” He nods in the direction of the closet. “I knew I had an extra, but it took me a minute to find it. And then I couldn’t get it open. But it’s fine now.”
He opens the closet, bending down and placing the sleeping bag on the floor.
The closet space is just as tight as I remember it. Though it’slarger than the coat closet downstairs. That thing wouldn’t fit one sleeping bag, let alone two. But these sleeping bags take up allthe floor space. There’s not going to be a whole lot of wiggle room.
And with the two bags next to each other and the lantern-radio on the floor in between, this setup is…cozy. Like some intimate couple’s camping trip. The back of my arm itches. The stress must be breaking me out into hives.
I scratch absently, then hiss.
Nikhil turns around, his eyes wide. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Ignore me. I forgot about the…” I gesture toward my arm, waving at the tiny scrapes there.
He frowns. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s nothing.” I clear my throat. “Actually, I wanted to tell you that I’m—”
A loudcracksounds, and I almost jump out of my skin. I cast a wary glance toward the bedroom window, which I’m thankful to see is still boarded up.
“Probably just a branch,” Nikhil says calmly, but his forehead is creased. He’s worried. “Still, we should both get inside.”
I step into the closet and don’t say anything when Nikhil closes the door behind us. I don’t point out that the noise outside sounded a lot more like an entire tree toppling than a branch snapping. I don’t continue my apology from before. I don’t even breathe.
Unlike the sharp beam of light protruding from Nikhil’s forehead, the lantern on the floor is soft, emitting a warm, almost golden glow. But that’s not what gives me pause. It’s the fact that my back is pressed against something hard and firm. Nikhil’s chest. I can feel it rise and fall as he lets out a breath. Somehow both hot and cool as it settles on my skin, moving through my hair. I hold back a shiver.
His hands come to the tops of my shoulders. “Meena,” he says, and the shiver I’ve been suppressing climbs up my spine.
He presses lightly, using the pressure to maneuver me a step forward. “You’re blocking the way,” he says curtly. He takes a tiny step around me before dropping to the floor and sliding into his sleeping bag.
I mirror his movements, mechanically, getting into my bag and zipping it around me. I’m frazzled and out of sorts, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Nikhil. I haven’t gotten much sleep. I’m stuck in this house I’d never thought I would visit again. And there’s a literal hurricane going on outside right now. I’m allowed to be frazzled. It’s understandable under the circumstances. Any rational person going through this would be.
