Andi just nods, checks that the truck is in gear—something she’s done every single time even though, to my knowledge, she’s never taken it out of gear—and hits it. Both the rear wheels find purchase on the flat part of the road, the truck steadily if slowly moving backward. For a moment I let myself feel relieved that we managed to get this out without making it worse, getting frostbite, or having to tell the Forest Service what happened, and—
The wheels must hit an ice patch or something because suddenly it’s sliding right toward me and Andi is shouting, the front bumper gleaming with light reflected off the snow.
“Brakes!” I shout, getting the fuck out of the way, only my foot snags on something and next thing I know I’m spitting out snow, swearing, and trying to shove myself back to standing so I don’t get run over.
The moment I try to move my left ankle, pain shoots through it all the way to my knee.
I gasp, eyes shut, freezing hands clenched in the dirty snow. Shit. Shit. In the periphery, a truck door slams.
“Gideon!” Andi shouts, and she sounds terrified again, the second time in two days I’ve freaked her out like this. “Shit, are you okay?”
“Fine,” I tell her, both hands still in the snow, my left leg at an angle I can only describe as incorrect. When I finally manage to look down at my foot, the toe of my boot is still under the root I tripped over. Great.
And now Andi’s here, her knees hitting the snow, her hands up and floating six inches from my right side, like I’m a dangerous but fluffy animal she wants to touch and can’t.
“What happened?” she asks, breathless.
“I tripped,” I say. I still haven’t moved, pain still spiking up my leg. There was a definite snap when I went down, but I’m ninety percent sure it was a twig, not bone. “You’re supposed to steer into a skid.”
“Shut up,” she says, and now she does put her hands on me, one on my shoulder and one in the middle of my back. They’re warm even through my coat, somehow, and I close my eyes for a moment because despite everything, this feels good. “Is it your leg? Can you stand?”
“In a minute,” I tell her, and she sighs like she’s annoyed, but she doesn’t say anything or move her hands. In a few deep breaths, I manage to flip myself over so at least I’m not on my hands and knees anymore, legs straight out in front of me. That hurts too, but wiggling my toes isn’t too bad.
“That looked awful,” she says. “Are your hands okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Can you move your toes?”
“Andi, I’m—”
“If you say fine again, I swear to God I’ll run you over for real this time,” she says lightly, and then smiles at me. It’s a strangely sweet smile for the death threat she just issued and the combination makes a fuse blow in some deeply buried, unimportant part of my brain, but I’m in no state to think about it right now. “Murder charges be damned.”
“I just turned it,” I say, which I’m pretty sure is a lie. “I’ll be fine to drive in a minute. Don’t worry, we’re not sleeping in the truck.”
She’s quiet long enough that I look over at her. Andi’s closer than I realized, one knee in the snow and one against her chest, half her strawberry-blond hair tied behind her head and the other half escaping from below her technicolor beanie, waving around her face in the breeze, and she’s got that look again, the one I’m not sure I like.
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” she says, and she sounds a little strange again, like she’s explaining something important to an alligator that might attack at any moment. “I can also drive, obviously, if your ankle is broken or something—”
“It’s not broken,” I say, mostly sure I’m right. I’ve broken bones, and they usually hurt worse than this, the pain already fading a little as long as I don’t move it. “It’s my left ankle. I can drive.”
“It’s a stick,” she says.
“Oh, is it?” I snap, and she presses her lips together like she’s stopping herself from saying something. I clear my throat. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
The silence that settles over us is familiar: it’s awkward, and we’re not talking about it. After a while I shift, getting my right leg under myself, and Andi stands and offers me her hand.
I must look at it a little too long, because after a beat she says, “Gideon, for fuck’s sake,” so I take it, and after a moment of standing, manage to hobble to the truck without too much swearing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ANDI
By the time we get back to the cabin, Gideon’s jaw is clenched so hard I’m afraid he’ll crack a molar. When we got into the truck he managed to convince me that he wasn’t that hurt and also that he knew the road and how to drive on it in these conditions, and I figured that hitting—or gently bumping, Gideon’s words—another tree would be worse than letting him operate the clutch, so I gave in.
“Let’s get you inside,” I say, but he closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the seat. His jaw flexes. His throat works as he swallows, and his coat is open enough that I can see the tendons moving under the beard stubble, his skin winter-pale all the way down to the hollow of his throat. It looks warm and soft, and for a moment I’m stuck there, watching the subtle, delicate flex of his neck as he breathes.
“In a minute,” he finally says. He doesn’t open his eyes, though his hand on the gearshift moves. He’s not wearing gloves. I’m starting to think he doesn’t like them, and now I’m looking at his hand: short nails with mud underneath them and thick, calloused fingers, a single freckle on the thumb he’s got hooked over the top of the shifter knob. There’s something I like about it, but that’s a weird thing to think about anyone and definitely a weird thing to think about Gideon, so I shove it out of my brain, open the door, and walk around the truck to the driver’s side.
“I don’t need help,” he says when I open the door.
“Great,” I say. “Hold onto my shoulder and hop down onto your right leg anyway.”
There’s some grumbling and hissing as he turns in his seat, and it’s not like this late model Forest Service truck is particularly high off the ground—we’re not talking hydraulics here—but it’s still a truck, and he hesitates long enough for me to get annoyed.
“Gideon,” I say, and grab his hand, planting it on my right shoulder. “For fuck’s sake.”
He grumbles and lands on his right foot, only wobbling a little, and lets my shoulder go immediately because God forbid I provide Gideon with any help, apparently. He walks to the cabin under his own power, obviously favoring the bad ankle and just as obviously trying to hide it.
Inside, he gets his coat and hat off, glances down at his feet, and hobbles over to the couch, boots still on, left leg straight out in front of him, heel resting on the floor as he leans an elbow on the arm of the couch and runs his hand through his sweaty hair.
To my credit, I don’t immediately ask if he’s okay. He might stab me with a fire poker if I do, so I settle for taking off my own outer layers, shoving my hair into a tangled bun that I’m going to regret later, and sitting on the wood floor in front of him.