Page 9 of Into Ember

Thwack. Thwack.

Up ahead, Gunnar reaches up and shoves a branch out of his way like it weighs nothing.

How much does that man work out?

That’s the other thing.

Gunnar isn’t being Gunnar.

He hasn’t made a single joke in three hours.

I didn’t know that was physically possible.

The man flirted with me over the white stuff last night until I was the color of a tomato, lodged grievances about how I made the pull-out, and now he’s walking like the ground personally insulted him — hands flexing, jaw tight, staring straight ahead like looking anywhere else would kill him.

He hasn’t looked at me once.

Not once.

I am not okay with caring about that.

Brock drifts up beside him. He doesn’t do anything. That’s what’s strange about it — he just walks there, close, matching his stride, and says something too quiet for me to hear.

Gunnar exhales. All the air goes out of him at once, and the line of his shoulders comes down maybe an inch, and they keep walking like nothing happened.

I open my mouth to ask.

I close it.

Not my business. My feet hurt more than my curiosity, which is a sentence I’ve never been able to say before in my entire life. But — huh. Those two are a thing in some way, I just don’t know what it is yet. Brock knew exactly where to stand, and whatever he said to Gunnar did what it was meant to do.

I have more questions, I remember.

“Why are you smiling?” I ask Leif, because he is. It’s small and it’s real and it’s been there for a while, and it’s very strange on the face of a man being called Muffin against his will.

He blinks. “I wasn’t aware I was.”

“Liar.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You absolutely were. You’re doing it right now.”

He goes quiet, and I watch him actually check — I watch a man audit his own face and come back surprised by the findings.

“You’ve been talking for fifteen minutes,” he says.

I stop. My legs stop moving.

Leif slows and turns to face me. The smile is gone before I finish stopping.

“What’s…”

“Please tell me I did not say all of that out loud!” I whisper yell.

His face doesn’t move for a second and the anticipation might actually kill me.

“You mean about hearing that sound from me again? Or maybe you mean Erik not being neighborly? Oh, or maybe that Gunnar isn’t being Gunnar?”