Apophis (24 page)

Rather than averting her gaze in embarrassment or offering up some explanation for why she’d been watching me while I slept, her grin widened. “Good morning,” she greeted.
  She stayed in the same position, lying propped up on her side with her head resting in her hand.

I cleared my throat and ran my hand over my face.
 “Morning.”  My voice sounded raw.

“Sleep well?”

“Uh huh,” I confirmed.  “A little too well.”  I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress, intending to get out of bed.  I wasn’t sure what to say or do now that it was the morning after.  She’d said she didn’t want things to change between us, so I assumed that meant I shouldn’t cuddle with her, breathing in the scent of her shampoo.  Not that I wanted to do that.

The top comforter slipped off my body as I sat up. I’d nearly forgotten I’d fallen asleep naked.
 With a fire blazing in the nearby woodstove and Nora’s body heat to compliment my own, I hadn’t bothered to put on any clothes after we’d exhausted ourselves.  Now though, the fire should have long extinguished itself. I should be feeling the bite of the early morning cold, but instead I was still warm.   I twisted just my waist to look back at Nora.

“Did you make a fire this morning?”

Her grin was so wide and her dimples so deep I was worried the rest of her face was going to fall into those dimples.  I imagined an avalanche where her nose and eyebrows and lips would just slip into those twin craters.

“When I woke up earlier, the fire had gone out,” she explained. “You’d left all the fire-starter things out, so I thought I’d try.
 I figured worse case scenario, I’d burn down the house. But at least we’d be warm.”

“You did it, Nora,” I breathed reverently.
 I momentarily forgot my nakedness and turned around to fully face her. “And you even remembered to open the flue so the room didn’t fill with smoke.” I didn’t know how many times even my dad had problems with that.

She pursed her lips, which made her look a little like a duck, and shrugged her thin shoulders. “I paid attention.  I noticed all the little things you did to make the perfect fire last night.” Her eyes dipped a few inches and her top teeth bit into her full, bottom lip. “I've also noticed that you’re missing your shirt.”

My eyes dropped down to my chest area as well. Yep. No shirt. They were okay breasts, I suppose as far as those things went. I usually had them bound tight beneath a sports bra though and with the temperature drop I didn’t anticipate being in a bikini all that often.

I was a tomboy growing up. I played Little League instead of softball, Peewee Football instead of gymnastics or ballet.
 I’m sure my dad loved it when I even took an interest in helping fix up his old Cadillac.  To say that he’d been disappointed I was born a girl would have been unfair to him. I knew he loved me. But I also knew he had always wanted a son.  So when I hit puberty and all the boys on my sports teams could run a little faster and hit a little harder, and I grew out of my training bra, I stopped playing “boy” sports.  Since then, my breasts had just been a reminder that I wasn’t exactly who my father wanted me to be.  Being gay had never been part of the equation either.

I didn’t know if I liked the way she was looking at me. It was different last night because it had been dark with only the fire in the woodstove and the moonlight lighting our way. Now, under the unforgiving light of morning, I felt vulnerable beneath her scrutinizing gaze.

I turned away from her and started to look for the clothes I knew were somewhere on the floor. “We should probably get going.” 

Daylight was limited, making early starts necessary. We still had many miles to travel before we made it to Eden.  We needed to find a sports or a camping store and find a new tent since we’d been separated from our old ones at Hot Springs.  Luck had found us this cabin last night, and I wasn’t going to continue to roll the dice.  If we didn’t find dependable shelter, we’d never survive.

“What if we stayed?”

“Huh?”

“You can’t deny it feels pretty fantastic waking up in an actual bed.”

It had been nice.  And having Nora sleep next to me had made it even nicer.  I wasn’t about to voice that though.

“I think we could be happy here, Sam,” she said haltingly.  “It’s cozy.  It’s comfortable.  Maybe we don’t need to risk our lives trying to find Eden.  Maybe we’ve got everything we need here.  You could hunt, and I could…well, I could find
some
way to be useful.”  She licked her lips.  “I know I’m at least good at making you feel good.”

I cleared my throat and looked away.  That wasn’t an exaggeration.  My limbs still ached in the most delicious way.  Even though we hadn’t left the cabin, my muscles felt like I’d been tromping through high snowdrifts all day long, and I didn’t even care.

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” I prefaced, “but if there’s a chance that my dad could still be alive, I have to go to Eden.  I have to know, Nora. I’d never be able to live with myself not knowing.”

Her shoulders drooped, but she sighed and nodded.  “I know.  I get it.  I guess I’d feel the same way about my own dad.”

I worried my lower lip.  I hated to see her so let down and know that I was the reason for it.  “Let’s stay one more night,” I offered. “Then in the morning we’ll get back on the road and back on our way to Eden.”

When she squealed and clapped her hands in happiness I knew I was in trouble.

“I’m gonna check out the surrounding area – see what hunting I can do.”

“I’ll check out the inside and see if there’s anything left to eat or some tools that might be useful,” Nora said, smiling.

It was the first genuinely happy look I’d seen on her face since we’d escaped from Hot Springs.  It seemed to make her face come alive.  I wanted to kiss her.  I wanted to reach for her and hold her and tell her that maybe things were going to be okay from now on.  But I was unsure what last night meant, if anything, and I wasn’t willing to put myself out there if she didn’t feel the same.  Instead, I clasped her hand in mine and squeezed.

+++++

In the light of day I felt braver exploring and digging around the cottage for anything that might help us along the way.  I wanted to catch something like a caveman would, showing off for his mate, but I knew there was little chance I’d have a successful hunt before Nora came looking for me.  The best I could do was set a few traps and hope that I’d catch something before dinner.

I hadn’t felt so nervous around a girl since Andrea.
 And once I'd admitted my attraction to her there was little I could do to stop it or even keep it out of my thoughts.  I tried to push it off as the desire to distract myself from our dire circumstances, but that couldn’t account for how I’d only really started appreciating her when we were at Hot Springs and I’d begun to believe that we may actually outlast the Frost.

When I came back inside after setting a few animal traps in close proximity to the cottage, I found Nora reclined on the first floor couch.  In her hands was a large book that looked like a photo album.

“You're the nosiest person alive,” I remarked, pulling off my boots.

She didn’t look up. “I’m just curious about who used to live here.”

I flopped down next to her on the worn couch. “Was it the Unabomber?” I guessed. “Inbred cannibal hillbillies?”

She turned the page of the photo album and it made a plastic crinkling noise. “Nope. Just a regular family. Mom, Dad, and two kids. A boy and a girl.  I think this was their family cabin or something.”

I straightened from my relaxed position so I could see what she was looking at.  The smiling faces of a family of four grinned up at us from the scrapbook. 

“Where do you think they are now?” Nora said in a voice no louder than a whisper. “Do you think they’re still alive?”

I closed the album and took it from her hands.  When she leaned her head against my shoulder and released the saddest sigh in the history of sighs, I rubbed my palm in small circles against her back. She seemed to be leaning all her weight against me, but I didn’t mind. I could be strong for her.

She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked into my eyes. Her own were a vibrant blue, but a little red around the edges. Her palm skated along the definition of my jaw line and she regarded me seriously.  She rhythmically stroked my cheek.

“So last night was, um...”

Nora dropped her hand from my face.  I seemed to have a singular talent for opening my mouth at the wrong time.  She stared expectantly at me, but I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Fun? Earth-moving? Transformative? The best orgasm of your life?” she supplied for me.

“I was going to say ‘unexpected,’ but yeah, those all work, too.” My cheeks were burning and I looked away.

“How was it unexpected?” Nora pressed. “It's just the two of us, holed up in this isolated cabin.
 It was snowing outside and there was a fire in the woodstove.  It doesn’t get more romantic than that.”

I couldn’t disagree with her about that. “Yeah, but aren’t you...you know...” Again, the words wouldn’t come.

“A Leo?”

I made a face. “No. Straight.”

“Is that why you were weird this morning? Well, weirder than usual,” she unnecessarily added. “Did you think you’d somehow corrupted or taken advantage of the straight girl?”

I wrung my hands in front of me.  I hadn’t thought I was being
that
obvious when we’d woken up. “I’m not worried I corrupted you.”

Something flickered across Nora's face. Her lips curled up at the edges. “Oh, I get it now. You’re wondering if I’m straight because you’re wondering if we’ll ever get to do that again.”

“No, that’s not it either.” By now I was sure my typically pale skin was bright pink. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“And what page would that be?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. That's why I’m asking you.”

“Look, Sam. We don’t have to make a big deal out of this, okay? I had fun last night and if the sounds you were making were any indication, you had fun, too. We don’t need labels. And we don’t need to over-analyze it.”

I stood up and wiped my palms on the tops of my thighs. “I’m gonna look around upstairs and see if there’s anything useful we can take on the road with us.” I tried to keep my tone neutral so she wouldn’t think I was upset. 

She nodded.  “I’ll keep looking downstairs.”

Her answer to my question hadn’t been satisfactory, but it was the best I could hope for.

I opened a closet in the loft and let out a yelp of surprise when its contents tumbled out on top of me.

Nora’s feet pounded up the loft staircase. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I nudged at a cluster of empty shoeboxes with the toe of my boots. With half of the closet’s contents now scattered on the floor, I could see other items that had been stored in the back. I pulled out a cylinder-shaped canvas bag tied at the top. “Oh, please let this be what I think it is,” I mumbled.

I unfastened the yellow tie on one end and tipped the bag upside down. There was another jarring noise as fiberglass collapsible sticks fell from the bag. The other items were stuck and I tugged them free. It was a tent.

I crouched down to give it a closer inspection.  Nora peered over my shoulder while I checked the tent for rips.
 “Is that a tent?”

“So far so good.”

“Oh.  great.”

“You don't sound excited,” I observed.

“No. It’s...it’s really great, Sam. No more caves or carnival.” She looked around and seemed to sigh. “Or cozy cottages.”

I stood up and brushed at my knees. The floor of the closet had been covered in dust. “We can still find better places to spend the night,” I reassured her. “But at least now we don’t have to worry about finding shelter every night.”

“Yeah. You’re right,” she finally conceded. It sounded like it pained her though to admit that I might be right.  I worried that she might still be trying to convince me to stay here rather than go to Eden.

We spent the remainder of the day resting our bodies and staying warm.  Nora had put herself in charge of keeping the fire stoked and I let her.  Now, she sat on the bed upstairs, inspecting her bare feet.

“Is it shallow of me that I'm really craving a pedicure?”

“Yes.” I was inspecting one of the road maps for the umpteenth time that day.  I wanted to be ready to go in the morning and make good time.

She flexed her toes and made a face. “You're not supposed to agree with me.”

“I'm not?”

“No.” She swung her legs over the edge of the narrow mattress and flipped her feet back and forth. “You're supposed to reassure me that I’m not a horrible person and that snowpants don’t make my ass look big.”

“I am?”

Nora rolled her eyes. “You really didn’t have a lot of girl friends did you?”

I knew she meant girls who were friends, but the phrase still made me uncomfortable. All I’d ever wanted in high school was a girlfriend.
 But it had been North Dakota and I was a coward.  I didn’t know anyone who was gay, and it had made me feel so alone. I had ached to be just like everyone else.  Now, stealing glances at Nora and admiring the healthy glow of her skin made me realize that I was still a coward.  When words failed me, I shrugged.