“Yeah, I’ve got nothing. Let’s see if my dad hides any snacks in here. He’s diabetic; he’s gotta have sugar somewhere in this pit.”
Disappointment bit him hard, but he hid the sting. They cleaned up while they searched and were rewarded with a Costco-sized box of Oreos in wrapped cellophane packages, which had been hidden behind the flooring boxes.
“Come to Papa,” Kyle said, snagging two rolls for himself.
“I’d never have pegged you for a junk food enthusiast,” Ainsley said, giving him the side eye.
“All things in moderation.”
“Aristotle.”
“Is it?”
Ainsley nodded. “I like quotes. Do another one.”
Kyle tilted his head to the side, thinking, watching her eat. Her teeth were turning black from the cookies. “‘I have no special talent. I am only—’”
“‘Passionately curious.’ Albert Einstein. A hard one, please.”
He chuckled, covering his mouth so he didn’t spew cookie crumbs everywhere. “Fine. ‘Whatever you are, be a good one.’”
“Abraham Lincoln. I use that one in my classroom all the time.”
“I’d kill for a glass of milk right now.”
“I don’t know that one.” Ainsley smirked, and, amused, Kyle threw a cookie at her. “Food waster!” she gasped. “We need those calories right now, Durand!”
“Okay, okay.” He thought for a moment. This was a chance to show her something real about himself . . . to go a little deeper. There would be no escape if he was embarrassed, but he couldn’t imagine she’d laugh at him. At least, not like kids used to laugh at him, when he didn’t know they were teasing him. He wolfed down another cookie for courage. “‘But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.’”
Ainsley squinted at him. “Shoot. C. S. Lewis?”
“Nope. Want another clue?”
She nodded.
“‘What is to give light must endure burning.’”
She twisted her lips to the side, hesitating. “Buddha?”
Kyle laughed. “Nope.” She wasn’t going to get it. Maybe he should’ve picked another one. Was it important to let her win? He’d never let his brothers win at anything, but girlfriends were definitely not brothers. He didn’t want her to feel dumb; she wasn’t.
“Dang it!” Ainsley pounded the sack of cement she was sitting on. “Who?”
“One more, then I’ll tell you. ‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’”
Ainsley shook her head. “I have no idea, but I love it. Especially when I’m trapped in a trailer for the night.” So not a bad choice after all.
“His name was Viktor Frankl, he was a Holocaust survivor. Wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. It’s one of my favorites.”
Her expression changed, but he couldn’t read it. “So when he says any given set of circumstances . . .”
“He’d been through the worst of it.” Kyle swallowed. “I tell my patients that when I have to give bad news. Lots of times, an ER visit is the first sign of a bigger problem.”
“Does it help?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes people just want to be angry.”
“I’m sure it’s a process.” She dusted off her hands. “You know the upside of all this?”
“No, but I think you’re going to tell me . . .”
“We’re safe from the zombie apocalypse in here.”
“Yes,” said Kyle, his voice somber. “I think we are.” She remembered my stupid joke. Now he needed to kiss her again, more than food or shelter or anything else. It had just become a matter of survival. He pitched forward a little, testing the waters of closeness, trying to see if she could read his intention . . .
“Oh! I just remembered.” Ainsley scrambled up from her concrete seat and dug around in the back by the bucket of nails. Kyle held back a sigh; they were not on the same page here, but she’d piqued his curiosity now.
“What’re you doing?”
“Ah-ha!” She held a deck of cards and a plastic bag full of white, red, and blue chips above her head, triumphant.
“Why is that here?”
She slid the cards out of the box. “My dad likes to play poker with the guys afterward in the house. They don’t want their wives to know, so they keep their stuff in here.”
Kyle shook his head, smiling. “Your dad’s funny.” Too bad he doesn’t like me. And this mishap is probably not going to win points in my favor.
Ainsley shrugged. “I know, especially because my mom already knows, but she lets him think she doesn’t, because it makes him happy. They’re weird.”
“So. Strip poker?”
Ainsley gasped. “Dr. Durand, how dare you? Besides, you see enough naked bodies as it is. It’s Texas Hold ’Em, of course, the best kind of poker.”
“I’d probably do better at Go Fish.”
“I will abide no such foolishness,” she said in her best Southern belle impression, dealing the cards. In an inexplicable string of luck, he won the first four games, and he could tell Ainsley was suspicious that he hadn’t been honest with her. So he made sure he let her win the next two. She had just dealt the cards for the seventh game when the flashlight flickered. They looked at each other, wide-eyed. Ainsley twisted behind her and grabbed for something; Kyle lunged for the ten-gallon bucket he’d noticed nearby, then they were plunged into complete darkness.
“Well. I guess the game’s over,” she said. “What did you grab for?”
“An empty bucket.”
“You gonna throw up?”
“No . . . but eventually, one of us is going to need a toilet.”
“I’ll hold it.”
“Don’t hurt yourself. I’m a doctor, I’ve seen worse. Also, I can’t see anything right now anyway.”
“I do not abide a transient toilet situation!”
“Suit yourself. What did you grab?”
“Painting drop cloth. It should do something to help me keep warm.”
He moved toward her, feeling his way hesitantly over the plywood floor in the dark.
“Yeah, I wanted to say something earlier, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up . . . We should probably sleep close together for heat.”
“Right,” she said, and he could hear the grin in her voice. “For heat.”
“I’m serious. This thing isn’t insulated, and it’s supposed to get down to forty degrees tonight. I know this looks bad,” he babbled, “since I trapped you in here to kiss you, but . . .”
“Kyle, honey, it’s fine. You didn’t trap me; I was a very willing participant. Don’t worry about it. We’ll be two spoons in a drawer, two peas in a pod. I think there’s more space by the door.” He listened to her moving in the dark toward the entryway, trying to process the nickname bomb she’d just dropped on him. With a few muttered curses, Kyle made his way next to her and lay down behind her, pulling the drop cloth over both of them. She squirmed around on her side, probably trying to get comfortable. Her backside, which he had admired from afar many times, was pressed tight against him . . . and it was having unintended consequences. He tried to tell his hormones to take five, but they were most interested in singing about said backside and its fantastic qualities.