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“Inventory?”
“Yeah.” Renzo systematically unpacked his pockets and bag, making neat, straight rows of all the contents. His watch, which he fiddled with for several moments before continuing. Pocket knife. Water bottles. Sunscreen. Two sandwiches. Chips. Orange. Flashlight. His phone. Two plastic wrapped space blankets. Several protein bars and some trail mix. Waterproof matches. First aid kit that he’d used earlier to produce the bandages for Canaan’s foot. Fuck. His stupid boot. Seemed so silly now, especially since the delay had almost gotten them killed.
“Stop beating yourself up,” Renzo ordered. “I can feel your guilt, man, and it’s not going to solve anything.”
Renzo’s rows of items looked awfully meager when considering it was all that stood between them and the elements. But on the other hand, it was more than Canaan had been carrying.
“You came prepared.”
“Hardly.” Renzo snorted. “My kingdom for my usual SEAL gear and our emergency kit. This is just a standard hiking first aid kit I picked up at the outdoors store. However...” He dug around in it before coming up with two small items. “Signal mirror and whistle. These may help.”
“We kind of need sun for that. And people searching for us.” Doom weighed down on him, pressed hard on his chest, made each breath a struggle until he forced himself to calm again.
“There will be. These are experienced guides. There will be people looking for us if they don’t check back in on time. They may have had SOS devices with them. But that also means it may be tomorrow before we’re rescued. I’m flipping off my phone—you do the same. It’s tomorrow when people may be able to use our signals to find us. Gotta have battery power for that.”
“Yeah.” Canaan didn’t like thinking about what if they couldn’t. They hadn’t had anything resembling a signal when he’d stopped to take the pictures. He fished his phone out of his pocket, powered it down.
“And we need to ration our water and food, make it last as long as possible.”
“I may never eat again.” Canaan’s stomach kept roiling, worse every time he dwelled on their predicament.
“Hey now. None of that.” Renzo gave him a stern look. “We’re going to get out of this. I’ve been in worse jams.”
“Yeah? Like what?” Canaan sat back. If all they had was time, he’d take story time with Renzo.
“I can’t tell you the country or mission, but we parachuted into a target area. Only problem was wind kicked us away from the drop zone. We had a hike to go find the coordinates where our gear was waiting for us, but on the way we walked into a firefight. We were down supplies and weapons and had to think fast. One of our guys got wounded, and we had a long wait for extraction. That was a hard night. But seeing as how neither of us are bloody, let’s count it as a win.” Renzo fingered the chain around his neck.
“Hey, what is that necklace? I keep meaning to ask.” He’d noticed it back at the hotel and in some of Renzo’s shirtless videos—one of those gold medallions on a simple chain.
“Saint Michael.” Renzo pulled it out so Canaan could get a better look at it. “A gift from my grandmother when I enlisted. She had it blessed for me. Kind of a good luck charm, I guess.”
“Cool. But...uh...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know what the church says about me being bisexual. But Nonna thinks it keeps me safe, and since the navy lets us wear religious medals, it’s easy to indulge her.”
Not for the first time, Canaan wondered what Renzo’s big, close-knit family would think of him. First, of course, they needed to get off this rock. And then Renzo needed to want to keep this going more than just a weekend. Zero guarantee of either thing. But still, he found himself curious about the family Renzo was so close to. Sure they were okay with Renzo being bisexual in theory, but how would they react if he brought home a guy?
But that would probably mean Renzo was serious about the other person, and Canaan knew perfectly well he wasn’t the kind of guy people planned futures with. Not right now when he was still a broke college student. And most of the time, he was fine with his freewheeling existence, but something about Renzo made him want the sort of romance he hadn’t thought about in years.
“How about you? Any good luck charms?” Renzo tucked the necklace away.
“Yeah.” Digging out his wallet, Canaan riffled through until he found two items. He handed the faded and creased photo to Renzo.
“Oh, hey! It’s little Canaan.” Renzo smiled then sobered. “I recognize your grandpa too. And that’s your grandma and your mom?”
“Yeah. That was one of her visits. We went to the zoo. It was a good day.” Canaan’s throat went thick. Damn it. He didn’t want to think about Grandpa, about how his heart might take it if he had to be told that Canaan was missing. To distract himself, he passed over the other item. “This is a ticket stub from our first real concert.”
