Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Gary

M y hands wouldn’t stop shaking as I reached up to wipe at the stinging above my eye.

“You’re hurt?” Shiloh’s voice trembled. “Oh my God, are you bleeding?”

A small amount of blood covered the tips of my fingers where I’d wiped at my forehead.

“I’m okay. I think I bumped my head when…” I looked out the window into the eternal white of the snow and forest in front of us. “Shit, did we…” With my heart in my throat, I scanned every inch of my best friend’s face. His cheeks were damp with tears, his pupils eclipsing the warm, brown color of his eyes.

He was okay.

No blood.

No broken bones that I could see.

“Shit, Shi, are you okay, are you hurt?” I attempted to move across the console to double check my assessment forgetting about my seat belt entirely. It dug into my shoulder with an uncomfortable pinch, and I winced.

“I’m fine, but you?—”

“I’m okay, just a little sore.”

“Your eyebrow, Gary… it’s bleeding.” He opened the glove box and pulled out a wad of napkins, shoving them into my hand. “Are you dizzy? Nauseous? How many fingers am I holding up.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from my chest. Shi was disheveled, his hair falling from his usual half-assed, thrown-together bun, his eyes wide and filled with something akin to terror, and yet still soft. He held up three fingers, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth. Fuck, he was cute. He was always so damn cute and… Nope. Nope. Nope. I must have hit my head harder than I thought because I’d told myself I couldn’t, wouldn’t go there.

“Two fingers,” I lied, and his eyes got even wider. I tried not to laugh again but failed. “Holy shit, Shi… I’m kidding.” I held up the napkins to my right eyebrow. The scratchy paper smelled a little like greasy fries and Shi’s woodsy scent. My smile stretched even farther across my lips. “I’m fine. I promise. Just bumped my head on the steering wheel I think.”

He reached over and pulled my hand away from my face, his gaze narrowing as he chewed his bottom lip. I held my breath as he leaned in, his thumb grazing along the line of my brow. The touch stung a little, but I refused to move. He was so close. Too close.

“It’s not bad,” he said. “I don’t even think you’ll need stitches or anything.”

“Will it leave a scar?” I whispered, unwilling to breathe too deeply. Too afraid of his scent and the heat of his breath.

“I don’t think so.”

He leaned back and I finally allowed myself to exhale. “Damn… Scars are sexy.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Leave it to you to make jokes while we teeter on the brink of death in the wilderness.”

“Your ability to call upon the magic of drama ceases to amaze me.” I stared at the speckles of blood on the napkin, then through the windshield. We had driven off the road and down an embankment, and nearly missed a tree. Maybe Shi’s flare for the dramatics was actually on point this time. I looked at him again, scanning his features one more time. “You swear you’re okay?”

“I’m good. Physically, that is. Emotionally…” His laugh was quiet as his voice cracked. He rubbed at his chest. “Fucking deer. I thought we were going to die.”

Shiloh blinked, a rogue tear spilling down his cheek. I wanted to reach out and wipe it away. Wanted to hug him and tell him I was here, and I would never let anything happen to him. But I sat still, my fingertips aching to touch him. I let that thought percolate, build as I watched him pull himself together. He huffed out another laugh, like his tears were somehow ridiculous as he wiped at his cheeks.

“Stop staring at me,” he said with a smile. “I know what you’re thinking.”

He didn’t, though.

He had no idea how much I cared about him. How over the last two years I’d fallen for my best friend and figured out that blank space I’d had in my life for so long. He had no idea how he’d helped me discover things about myself that thrilled and frightened me. He was clueless to the fact how every moment I’d spent with him made it harder for me to deny my feelings. I was in love with him. A man. And it made more sense than it should have. All the little tells of my life. The guys I admired when I was younger. The celebrity crushes my brothers would tease me about. I tried so hard to shove that part of myself away. But Shi. Without knowing it, he allowed me to be me, allowed me a safe place to understand myself even if I wasn’t ready to face what it all meant.

“Oh? What am I thinking?”

“You think I’m a headcase,” he said. “Always over the top.”

“Headcase? No. Over the top…”

He shoved me and we both laughed. “Jesus, what the hell are we supposed to do now?”

“We could make out until help arrives,” I teased, and he flipped me off.

“Ha-ha. ”

“I’m serious, what if we die, what if we are the last people alive in this arctic dystopia and we have to make butt babies so the human race survives.”

“Butt babies?” He bit back a grin.

“Yeah… it’s in those wolf books you read.”

“And you know that how?”

“Uh…” Heat filled my chest and cheeks. “I may have had a slow day at work and stole the book out of your bag.”

“And… what? Now you’re an expert on Omegas and mates and suddenly gay enough to want to make butt babies on the side of the road?”

“I mean, a man can evolve.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he snorted as he unbuckled and opened the car door, letting in a blast of wintery wind.

“Shi… what’re you doing? Shut the door.”

“We need to assess the situation. See if we can get back on the road.”

I leaned back and grabbed both of our jackets from the back seat before I unbuckled and stepped out of the car into the frozen tundra. “At least take your jacket,” I shouted through the roaring wind and pushed the puffy coat into his arms as he approached me.

“T-thanks,” he muttered as his teeth chattered. “I c-can’t s-see anything.”

The snow continued to fall in thick walls of white, making visibility difficult. “I don’t think we can make it up that hill. For one, the snow is too deep. Look.” He pointed at the tire marks our car had carved into the hillside of snow. “That’s at least a foot… and it’s up to our calves down here. It’s going to get worse.” His voice pitched, his anxiety getting the better of him. “This is bad… this is really fucking bad.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, pacing two steps forward and then back again, holding his cell toward the sky. “Still no goddamn signal.”

“Hey...” he ignored me. “Shi…” He kept pacing, his chest rising and falling faster with every second that passed. “Shi… look at me. ”

He shook his head, his hair sticking to his cheeks, his nose a deep red.

I tugged the sleeve of his jacket, pulling him into a hug. “We’re going to be okay.” He tucked his frozen nose against my neck as I ran my hand up and down his back. “Hey, I got you, okay. I’ve got you.”

We stood there in a freaking blizzard, tangled up in a hug that seemed to be more than just a hug as Shi’s cold lips grazed my jaw as he spoke. “I want to believe it,” he whispered, gripping the side of my jacket. “But it always feels impossible.”

I leaned back, trying to get a better look at his eyes. “Always?”

He shook his head, his lips trembling and slightly blue. “It’s too cold. We need to get b-back in the car.”

Inside the car, we shed our wet jackets, banishing them to the back seat and turned up the heater. We sat in an awkward silence, holding our hands in front of the air vents. Always. What the hell did that mean? He obviously wasn’t talking about being stranded. Right?

“Shi—”

“Gary—”

We laughed and I nodded. “You go first.”

“It wasn’t important.”

His smile was almost bashful, which threw me. He hadn’t looked at me like that since the day we’d met at the bookstore. He had been much quieter back then, his nose usually hidden away in one of his fantasy novels. He hadn’t talked to me much those first few months, but sometimes I’d catch him staring at me. I’d been shocked when he’d finally attempted to talk to me. I’d happened to mention I was a Dungeon Master for a local D&D group, and he’d opened right up. We’d started our own campaign after that, playing D&D whenever we could, inviting others, but loving just being with each other on those quick breaks we’d find at the store. We’d found this perfect little world for ourselves, and it was easy to lose time with him. If I was honest with myself, it was always easy being with him. More so than anyone I had ever dated.

“Everything you say is important.” He rolled his eyes, mistaking my honesty for a joke. “’I’m serious.” I stole another touch and reached over to squeeze his knee. His eyes fell to the spot, and he swallowed.

“I think you must be concussed.” A nervous laugh rumbled in his chest. “Or hungry. You always get touchy-feely when you’re hungry. I told you to eat something at that gas station… and now we’re stranded in a fucking blizzard with a half a tank of gas and a bag of chips.”

Chuckling, I squeezed his knee again. I didn’t think holding in my feelings mattered at this point. For all I knew, we’d be frozen popsicles by the morning. Discovered by a hungry bear, or even worse, a lineman crew sent to restore power to the village that was only a half a mile away, and they would say, “If only they had made it into town, they’d still be alive….”

“What are you thinking about right now?” he asked with a curious and cute as hell smirk on his face. “You’ve got the whole DM hazy-eyed thing going on.”

“I’m not concussed,” I said, and he tilted his head, a deep crease forming between his brows. “When I said, everything you say is important , I meant it. Shi, you’re important to me.”

He blinked once and then again, his breath quickened, matching the fast beat of my heart. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“What do you want me to say?” The pink color of his cheeks intensified to rose. “You’re important to me too.”

“I am?”

He bit the side of cheek, something unsaid dangling in the overheated air between us.

“Of course…” he finally said. “You’re my best friend, you fucking moron.”

Best friend…

I lifted my hand from his knee, his eyes tracking the movement as I set it on the steering wheel.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

I had this whole idea in my head. Where if I hinted, he would understand and I wouldn’t have to say the thing that scared me, the thing I’d held onto for so long. I hoped maybe I wouldn’t have to let go of the rope that had kept me safe and tied to the ledge, that he might have cut it for me and caught me when I fell.

“No, Shi… It’s just…” My mouth was too dry. “I think I… I think I’ve?—”

“I’m scared too,” he interrupted. “But we’re going to be okay, right? You said so yourself. How long can we keep the car running? I mean, we have at least a few hours. If we keep the headlights on someone has to see us down here.”

He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand. Disappointment clenched my stomach, and it was the reality check I needed. What the hell was I thinking? This was life and death shit, and here I was worried about my fucking sexuality. Worried about how my best friend would react when I told him I’d fallen in love with him when I should have been devising a plan to get us out of this mess.

“Let’s give it an hour,” I said, leaving all the sappy shit locked up for now. We had more important tasks at hand. “If no one stops then maybe we can try and walk to the next town.”

“Walk? In this? No way.”

“We have to do something. I’ll go and you can stay here.”

“Absolutely not. I can’t lose you. If you go, I go.” He stared through me, his brown eyes bright and sure. “Are we clear?”

“Yeah, Shi… if you go, I go.”

He reached out and traced the line of my injured brow again as he took a few deep breaths. “Finally, something we agree on.”