Chapter Three

As it happens, I'm not just fine. ‘Just fine' and I have really let our friendship slide. The floor is hard and cold and draughty. Oskar lent me a pillow, but unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the fact that I'm lying on solid ground. I think my hips are bruised.

As unpleasant as that is, though, what keeps me awake is the temperature.

Outside, I am certain, it is well below freezing. A stupid amount below freezing. Ten below. Fifteen? More? The only thing I know for sure is that the fire, as valiantly as it's trying, is not doing a great job of keeping out the chill. There are multiple places where it sneaks in, and the howling wind is only making things worse.

Would the table be warmer? At this point, I'm practically willing to try climbing into the stove.

Oskar, obviously, irritatingly, doesn't seem to be facing the same struggles. He's lying with his arms out over the covers, so deep in sleep I don't think he notices my rustling as I try and fail to get comfortable. Any other time, his deep breathing would be reassuring, but as I lie shivering on the floor, it makes me want to scratch out his eyeballs. Maybe then he'd be as miserable as me.

It's possible, given the fact he doesn't seem to be shivering hard enough to wake the dead, that the temperature situation isn't quite as dire as it feels. There's a chance that being outside for so long sent a chill into my bones, which is where it's stubbornly stayed. If someone cut me open, I wouldn't be surprised if they discovered that what were once bones are now icicles, containing all the warmth and structural integrity of frozen water.

Oskar stirs in the darkness, turning over. I hold my breath so he won't hear my shivering, but the next thing I hear is a rough, low voice say, "Lucy?"

Considering the only—only—thing he says is my name, there's absolutely no reason for my cheeks to fire like someone lit a fuse. "Yes?"

"Are you cold?"

I have only one recourse here: lie. "No."

Yawn. "I can hear you shivering."

My body chooses this moment to, once again, violently betray me. "No you c-can't."

"Come here."

"I'm f-fine." God, I am the world's worst liar. "The floor is cosy."

"Lucy," he says, sounding more awake now and a lot more authoritative. I'd love to say that I resisted and defied him, but the truth is, I'm cold and worn down and still recovering from the fact I almost died, so when he says, "Get over here," I don't argue. I don't even complain.

I crawl across the floor to him, so wrapped up in blankets it takes me three attempts to stand. My hands are numb. But when I finally reach him, he doesn't hesitate, not even for a minute, reaching out and pulling me onto the bed. Under the duvet.

Warm. I think I groan out loud. This entire space he's created for me is so impossibly warm I want to cry. There's no more maidenly blushing or inhibitions as he positions us so I'm half lying on his chest—the only way we both fit on the tiny mattress. Our legs are tangled together, one arm is around my waist to stop me from falling off the bed, and I'm clasping my hands under my chin like a chipmunk. His fleece is soft against my cheek.

This is alarmingly intimate. And I don't care.

"You're so warm," I breathe.

His chest rumbles underneath me. "You're frozen. How long have you been awake from the cold?"

"Um." I wrinkle my nose. "I don't think I've been to sleep yet."

He curses in Norwegian and tucks me tighter against him. "Why are you so stubborn? I tried to give you the bed. Why did you refuse?"

"I felt bad."

"What for?"

Admittedly, this isn't any better. I'm putting him out just as much now. But I can't bring myself to tell him to leave. Not when he's so close and he smells so good, spiced oranges and woodsmoke. Not when his arm is around my waist, and we're sharing each other's space like we're not strangers. "I didn't want to inconvenience you," I mutter, and he sighs hard enough to ruffle the hair on top of my head.

"Next time you're cold, tell me."

Another shiver racks through me and I snap my jaw together so I don't bite my tongue. He rubs a hand up and down my back, the gesture surprisingly soothing. "You're good at this," I tell him, practically incoherent. I can practically feel my bones melting. "And warm."

"There's probably a mutant gene in there somewhere," he says, quoting me from earlier. His voice is heavier again, sleepier, like snuggling with strange women in single beds is a regular occurrence and not an outlier.

"Oskar?"

"Mm?"

"Why did you leave the army?"

He really must be tired, because instead of avoiding the question like I expected, he says, "I decided I wanted something different."

"How did your family take that?"

He huffs against my hair again, and I feel his chin settle on my head, moving as he speaks. "Not well."

"My mum died when I was twelve," I say, the cold having unplugged something in my brain. Over-sharers unite. "Never knew my dad, either, so I'm not exactly an expert on the whole family thing."

He makes another sleepy noise, but his arm makes another journey up my back, the trail of my fingers slow and calming. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It happened a long time ago—I don't really remember her that well, to be honest."

"Is that why you're looking after your brother's kids?"

"Well, I mean, partly, I guess." I purse my lips, listening to the slow thud of Oskar's heart. "They were so young when they lost their mum. Not that anything bad happened to me. My Auntie Thelma took us in, my brother and me. She's a character." I smile into the dark. "You know, in October she got invited to the wedding of a person she met once in a queue. That's how much of an impression she makes." The silence, the darkness, makes it easier to admit to things I'd never say in the harsh light of day. "I want to be more like her."

Another sound rumbles through Oskar's chest, though this one is closer to a laugh. "I think it's safe to say you make an impression, Lucy."

"I already told you. My first impressions are usually way better."

His cheek curves against my head, but he doesn't reply until his warmth has lulled me into a trance-like doze.

"Impossible."

* * *

I awaken pleasantly warm. There's a pressure in a band around my waist and something simultaneously soft and hard under my head. When I stir, the band around my waist tightens, and I rub my cheek like a cat against the soft hard I'm lying on.

Oskar and I realise what's going on at the same time. We're magically lying in the same position we went to sleep in, only this time, daylight is filtering through the windows, and when I look up at him, I can see every detail of his face. The sleepy blue of his eyes, the sharp angle of his jaw, lightly covered in stubble. The straggling blonde of his hair around his face.

There's no denying it: I just slept with a Viking.

It shouldn't be possible for him to be more visually appealing than he was yesterday when he was rescuing me, but there's something about the inherent vulnerability of the moment that adds an unnameable something to his face. A sense of familiarity, perhaps. There's a freckle under his right eye, tiny lines across his forehead, a reddish tint to the stubble.

But more than that is the fact I now know what he looks like when he first wakes up, the sleep still relaxing his face. This is the kind of information strangers lack. Even back when I was in the habit of one-night stands, one person inevitably left before this moment.

The corner of his mouth twitches into what I recognise is his version of a smile. "Warm enough?"

Actually, in these many layers and this close to him, I'm a little too warm.

Then again, I can't be certain it's purely due to my layers.

"Yes, thank you," I say primly. "You're very hot."

Well, if I could just dive into the centre of a volcano, that would be wonderful. Or maybe the ground could open up and swallow me whole. I'd honestly take freezing to death in the worst shelter mankind has ever seen.

I squeeze my eyes shut so I don't have to face my embarrassment.

"Thanks," he says, and it sounds like he's smiling wider than before. Curiosity has me opening my eyes so I can see the flash of his white teeth, the creases at the corners of his eyes. There's something oddly compelling about the sight.

Someone should lock my thoughts behind a paywall until I've had my first tea of the day.

"How's your ankle?" he asks.

Hmm. Good question. I roll it tentatively and pain pulses up my leg. "Not at its best."

He nods, stubble grazing my hair. "Okay. I'm going to let you go. Be careful."

The moment his arm loosens, the need for the warning becomes clear. Without him holding me in place, I slide towards the floor and have to twist, catching myself on my good leg and sitting up.

I'm not sure what time it is, but the sun has only just risen, and the light is soft.

There's no wind noise.

There's no scattergun snow against the sides of the cabin.

We're saved.

In my excitement, I forget that my ankle is still sprained, and I power to my feet. Oskar leans across the bed to catch my arm as I invariably stagger, and I tumble backwards, half on top of him. For an instant, I lie still. His hands are still clasped around my upper arms; my back is to his chest.

"The storm," I say lamely.

"I know. It's blown itself out." He pushes me back up into a sitting position. "Are you okay?"

My ankle is throbbing a bit more than it was before and my dignity is bruised, but other than that, I think I'm okay. There's something homey about the cabin in the natural light, and when Oskar gets up and crosses the room to the stove, I watch him unashamedly. Just minutes ago, those arms were around me.

In terms of usual types, Oskar isn't mine. At least, I don't go for blondes. But his biceps are definitely my type, and to distract myself from our situation, I watch the way they flex when he picks up the gas bottle. He frowns as he puts it down.

"I don't like the look of that face," I say.

"It's fine."

"That face didn't say fine. It said, ‘oh no, there's a problem I'm not going to tell Lucy'."

He sends me a quick, half-amused, half-irritated glance. "It actually says, ‘there's less gas in here than I thought'."

"Is it going to run out?"

"Depends how long we're here."

"And when it runs out, we can't use the stove? So no food?"

"No hot food," he corrects. "And no coffee. But you're panicking over nothing. We won't be here long enough for that. It just means—" He grimaces, glancing at me again. "It doesn't matter."

There's something here he doesn't want to talk about, and knowing that makes me desperate for more, like I can peel back every layer of him, every barrier he's put up, to learn something new about him.

Now, however, doesn't seem like the moment.

"Let's have a look at the damage," I say, hopping awkwardly across the room to the door. The mechanism seems to have frozen shut, but Oskar knocks me away and turns it with ease. The door opens and I get my first sight of the world post-storm.

Yesterday, the last few hours of daylight were compromised by the blizzarding snow and descending clouds, and before that I was too busy regretting the size and weight of my bag to really appreciate the view.

Now, my vision is compromised by the sheer quantity of snow. A foot or two must have fallen since Oskar went out to get my bag, because the path from the front door—and I distinctly remember there being a path—is wholly obscured.

There's absolutely no way I'm walking over that to get back to civilisation.

Even so, sunlight glitters off tiny diamonds on the surface, and just like Oskar, it's almost devastatingly beautiful. Stunning and deadly in equal measure. All around, peaks jut into the perfectly blue sky like jagged spears, and there's something raw about it, like nature has been stripped back to its essence out here. There's no mankind to compromise this, nothing but winter's grip on the land.

My chest constricts, and I don't understand why the sight makes me feel something, but it does. No wonder Oskar came here for some time and space away from the world.

Peace. The word comes to me and fits around us just right. The real world feels distant and the only things that exist are the ones we can see.

"I think I get it," I say quietly.

"Hmm?" He comes up behind me, joining me in the doorway.

"Why you came here." There's no past or future. And it's so freeing to only have the present.

Beside me, he gives a curt nod. "It's complicated, but I like it here."

"I knew I was right when I called you a hermit."

He glances at me. "You called me a hermit?"

"In here." I tap my forehead. "When you brought me back to your murder shack and I thought this was your home."

"I brought you back to what you call a murder shack, and your first thought was that I must be a hermit?"

"You saved me from dying, so I wasn't too worried about that. I was more worried when you said you had guns."

He rolls his eyes. "They're not even mine. And they're locked in that case. My parents have the key."

"Excuses, excuses. You could've gone there and got the key before you even came up here."

His shoulders tighten, and I know immediately that I said the wrong thing. "For that," he says, each word sharp, like shattered glass, "they would have to know I was here."

I take a second to let the words sink in. The wind is sharp against my cheek, searing my skin, and my eyes are watering. "You didn't tell them?"

"It's cold," he says. "We should go in."

"Wait." I turn, finding myself pressed up against him. When we were standing side by side, I hadn't realised how close we were. His hand comes to rest on my shoulder, but he doesn't push me away. "Why didn't you tell them you're here?"

There's nothing soft about his eyes now. They glint like light off steel, and the sight makes me ache a little, like some part of me knows there's pain there.

"Why would I tell them?" he says, that bite of anger in his voice, "when we haven't spoken in almost three years?"