Chapter Four
Three years.
Three years.
I try to imagine not speaking to my family for three years. When I'm at home, I don't go a day without speaking to Thomas (unsurprising, when I'm living in the same house and essentially coparenting the same children) and not a week goes by without Auntie Thelma dropping in for a gossip and a spot of unsolicited advice.
"Don't listen to Tom," was her latest gem the week before I flew out here. "You need this, and he needs to learn how to get by without you."
If I don't get off this mountain soon, he'll be finding out in a way neither of us wanted: by assuming I'm dead and never coming back.
I shiver and Oskar reaches down past me to take hold of the door and open it. "It's cold," he says with more of that clipped authority. "Inside."
While I'm not usually someone who responds well to authority, there's something about the way he gives me instructions—the unthinking way he expects me to obey, or maybe just the strength of his conviction—that prompts me into action. Without thinking, I do as he commands, and he supports me with a hand on my waist as he shuts the door behind us both, locking in what little heat remains.
"Why are you here if they don't know you're here?" I ask, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery once and for all. "Are you living here?"
"No." He kneels by the fire and starts building it back up again. I sink to the floor to spare my ankles.
"I don't understand."
"I'm not trying to make you understand."
"When you said they didn't take you leaving the army well . . ." I'm finally putting the pieces together. "They stopped speaking to you?"
His shoulders hunch. "We argued. My dad's in the army and my brother works for the military search and rescue. They wanted me to carry on with the family legacy, I guess you could call it, and they didn't want me to pursue the thing I intended to pursue."
"Which was?"
"Music."
The word is so unexpected, I rock back and land hard on my butt. His back is still tense. "Are you in a band?"
He sighs, dragging a hand through his long hair as he turns to face me. "Not a band. Classical music. I play the piano and cello."
I search his face for signs that he's joking with me, but there's nothing but tired resignation on his face. This is serious. My gaze falls to his hands and the long, elegant fingers I admired before. Pianist's hands. "How far can you get?" I ask, nodding to his fingers. "Octave and two?"
His brow furrows. "Do you play?"
"Not beyond Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," I say, and grin. "Seriously, how far?" For context, I can just about reach an octave, maybe an octave and one if I use my other hand to prise my fingers apart.
"An octave and four," he says, and I know that he admitted to being in the army and all, but that is probably the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me.
"I bet you can play Rachmaninov," I say dreamily.
"Yes."
"And Liszt."
The corner of his mouth turns in, the dimple shadowed in his cheek. "Do you need a moment?"
"I don't have a musical bone in my body. Not one. It's the biggest disappointment of my life so far, and so I'm forced to live vicariously through other people." I shuffle forward so I'm sitting directly in front of him, and I rest my elbows on my thighs, leaning in expectantly. "Tell me about your musical career."
"I can't tell if you're being serious," he murmurs.
"I am. Deadly serious. I want to hear all about it. Have you performed in a concert hall? In a jazz hall? Have you accompanied posh people as they sit and eat posh dinners?"
"No."
"Gone on tour? You said you're not in a band, but are you in an orchestra?" Maybe I could write a book about murder in a touring orchestra. That would be dramatic and fun and maybe even get me out of this slump. "Seriously, I mean it, I want to know everything."
He gives a put-upon sigh and closes the stove door again. The delicate little flames lick across the wood, and although they're not giving out much heat yet, I know they will soon. "I left the army to study music," he says. "At university. In Oslo."
"Oh."
"My parents thought it didn't make sense as a career path. I imagine if I'd chosen to leave and, I don't know, become a personal trainer, they'd have been less disappointed."
I do the maths based on what he told me. He hasn't spoken to them for three years, which is presumably when he decided he wanted study music, but a degree is three years in length, which means . . .
"It's March," I say slowly. "And you're here."
"Yes."
"And they don't know."
"Correct."
"Are you still studying music?"
He holds my gaze for a long time, and when he finally looks away, I have to remind myself to breathe. "No," he says. "I dropped out when I came here."
Dropped out. I mouth the words to myself. "What? Why?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes. You were so close to finishing!" I slap my palm against the floor. "Are you seriously letting your family's preconceptions win?"
His expression shuts down, blank. "It wasn't about them."
"Then what was it about?"
"I already knew I wasn't going to succeed. It's not a career. Just studying for the sake of studying." He turns angrily away. "I'm not the kind of person who can make something from it."
I get it, the disillusionment. The dawning, sinking sensation that this isn't what you signed up for. But . . . "Is quitting at this stage really the answer?"
"No point throwing good money after bad."
"Okay," I say, mimicking the way he's said that to me a dozen times over. "So you couldn't afford it?"
He shifts where he is, his gaze landing on my mouth then away. "No," he admits reluctantly. "That's not it."
"This is your third year, right?"
"Lucy," he says after a long pause. "Are you trying to give me career advice?"
"Me?" I laugh, an edge of hysteria to it. "Career advice? Let me remind you that my career led me to climbing a dangerous mountain in March and almost dying. My career is a dead horse and I'm flogging it. So no, I'm not giving you advice. I just think it's a shame you quit just before the end. Like, you were so close."
"Do you have a job lined up for me?"
I gesture at him. "Do you? Because right now, it looks like you're hiding."
His mouth flattens, and I think for a moment I said the wrong thing. But then he sighs, and his shoulders fall. "You're right."
"If you can afford it, what's the harm in getting the qualification and connections even if you don't think you're going to use it?" I shrug. "All I can do is call things as I see them, and I think coming here for an escape is . . ." The coward's way out. Shortsighted in the extreme. "Unnecessarily abortive."
"I see."
"And if I had to give advice, which I stress again I'm not because what do I know, I'd say that maybe once you finish your degree and get the qualification you've been working so hard towards, then you can have your little hermit breakdown."
The smile makes a full appearance now. "I'm not having a breakdown."
"Well, I don't know what I'd call living on this mountain with no electricity or running water, but it's not my idea of a good time."
"Have you never been camping?"
I draw myself up, ignoring the way my knee presses against his. I don't remove it and neither does he. "As it happens, no. I have not been camping. Why would I want to spend my time sleeping on the floor and eating canned food when I could be staying somewhere with a bed and a kitchen and a shower?"
"Most campsites have showers," he points out, his smile devastating on his face now. It takes me a few moments to process, the beauty of it, the way it totally and utterly changes his face. If he asked me to go camping with him, I'd swallow my distaste and agree, because the only thing that would be worse than camping would be seeing his smile fade.
We're close enough that all the details of his face are visible, from the unfair length of his eyelashes to a tiny scar on his upper lip. There are freckles dusting the bridge of his nose and under his eyes, so faint they're only discernible close to. For some reason, they have me captivated.
"Lucy," he says as I lean in, wondering if he'd mind if I traced them with my finger. They're so soft, the pigment on his skin faded like the sun has blurred them into nothing the way it fades colours on fabric.
"Oskar," I say. This man can play Rachmaninov. He can play the cello.
"What are you doing?" His voice is low.
"Did you know you have freckles?" I reach up to brush the pads of my fingers across his cheekbones. "Here."
His face is even closer now. Maybe even too close. His centre of mass is too large; his gravity is dragging me in. Going in for a kiss would be a mistake, given our situation, but I'm irrationally tempted. Compelled. His mouth presses into a line and releases. Breath rushes across my lips as he exhales.
"Lucy," he says, but this time there's a warning in his voice. His hand comes up to capture my wrist, and for a second, we stay where we are, a few inches closer than is socially acceptable. His eyes are dark and I get that whiff of orange and cinnamon. It makes me want to bury my head in his neck.
But even though he's holding my wrist, fingers gentle, I get the sense he doesn't want me to lean away. That, if I were to lean in, he wouldn't stop me. Maybe he'd even kiss me back, and the thought makes heady warmth erupt in the base of my stomach. The force of my desire is shocking, like biting into a chilli and wondering at its heat.
What are we doing?
This isn't the real world. In the real world, we would never have met. I wouldn't be coming onto him, and he wouldn't be entertaining me. We're too different, and although this place is like stepping outside of time, I shouldn't forget that reality still exists.
Dating for me, especially now I'm in charge of the girls, is a strict process that involves a lot of scoping and background checks. You best believe I'm investigating potential partners, including criminal records. I don't even get as far as meeting up if I think there's any way we aren't compatible.
The little I know about Oskar tells me we don't have much in common, except potentially a career crisis. There are about a dozen reasons why getting involved, if that's even something he wants, would be a bad idea. I fall too easily and too fast. It's an instant recipe for getting hurt.
Then again, my rigid vetting process hasn't exactly done me any favours. The past two years have been one long dry spell. I might as well have a giant neon sign above my head saying ‘DO NOT TOUCH'.
And Oskar is the type of man to go out into a storm and rescue a stranger woman. He's taken care of me since.
I probably shouldn't repay him by overstepping.
Hitting on him now would be a definite overstep.
He's still holding my wrist. I can feel my heartbeat in every single part of me—including extremities that I'm positive have never experienced a heartbeat before.
All the reasons I have for not leaning forward and kissing him are vanishing the more I try to talk myself out of this. Even the power imbalance—the fact I'm injured and relying on him for survival—means nothing.
Abruptly, he drops my wrist and leans back, putting distance between us. My head is swimming, and I brace my hand against the floor so I don't topple over.
He drags a hand down his face. "How's your leg?" he asks, sounding almost pained. "Does it still hurt?"
The last time he asked was approximately . . . ten minutes ago. I clear my throat. "Yes."
He nods, but there's an edge to his movements now, as though the confirmation means something he doesn't want it to. Probably that we're stuck here together when clearly he feels uncomfortable about the almost that just happened between us.
I should say something, reassure him that I didn't mean it, or that he misread my intentions entirely (even though he probably didn't).
Or, more temptingly, maybe we should never talk about it ever again and pretend it never happened.
Apparently that's his chosen option too because he pushes himself to his feet and heads for the kitchenette. "Breakfast," he says, with a firmness that brooks no argument, and no subject change. "Would you like a coffee?"