Page 19 of Red Rabbit
We stared at each other, the air between us so charged I was surprised there weren’t actual sparks. Finally, the cold won out and she hurried past me to get warm. I tried to look anywhere but at her as I grabbed a hot coal from the fire with some sticks and went back to the smoker.
Fuck. Even her confidence was sexy. A completely unwarranted flash of jealousy rushed through me—her fiance didn’t have any idea how to handle a woman like that. She was a wildfire someone tried to contain in a fireplace—it just didn’t work. I wanted to show her what it felt like when that flame was worshiped the right way and what it could feel like if someone wholly unleashed her.
I sighed as I ran a hand over my face and rubbed at the scruff on my jaw. I might as well come to terms with the fact that we weren’t going to get out of this without fucking and I suddenly had the absolute feral desire to show her how much better things could be with someone other than her selfish fiance. I forced my mind away to focus on the smoker.
Once the smoker was running I stepped back. We would have plenty of dried fish to take with us as long as some act of nature didn’t interfere. I figured we’d stay one more day tomorrow to smoke another round and then leave. That would give us about another week of food if I couldn’t find anything else to eat. I couldn’t believe it was already coming up on a week since the crash.
The shadows were long by the time I made it back to camp with four fish and some blueberries. Kaelin turned from the firewood pile.
“Cover that with a tarp. It’s going to rain tonight.”
“How do you know that?”
“The clouds and it smells like rain.” She dragged the tarp over the wood and then I watched her straighten and sniff the air.
She didn’t look convinced. I set the fish over the fire so they could roast and then put up the other tarp over the entrance to the tent and the fire. She sat down at the tent entrance and I came and sat next to her. She stiffened slightly but her attention was focused intently on the fish. I put the blueberries between us and turned the fish over the flames.
“How did the smoker turn out?”
“Good. We’ll stay one more day to smoke another round tomorrow and then we should have enough for a week of reserves.”
She stared at the fire silently for a few minutes, lost in her own thoughts. I poked at the fire with a stick, sending up sparks.
“I saw your drawing.”
She flashed me a quick look out of the corner of her eye.
“It’s really good. Do you ever sell your art?”
“Did I just hear you ask me a personal question?” Her lips slowly pulled into a smile. I frowned and turned back to the fire. She huffed a laugh. “No, purely a hobby. And one I haven’t had time for in years. In fact, that’s the first time I’ve drawn something in a long time.”
“Well, it looks like you should do it more often.”
She shrugged and her smile was gone.
“T—Life gets in the way.” She obviously didn’t mean for the first part to slip out.
“I swear to god if you were about to say that bullying asshole doesn’t like when you create art I’m going to lose my mind.”
She looked uncomfortable as though she just now was thinking how ridiculous and controlling that sounded. She sighed and shrugged again but this time it seemed like she was trying to get rid of a weight on her shoulders.
“He just thinks things like that are a waste of time. He’s never said I couldn’t actually create.”
“Same thing,” I muttered. I gave the fish another turn over the fire.
“Relationships require sacrifices.” She said it quietly but it sounded like it was something she said to herself often, maybe to convince herself.
“Let me guess, boyfriend of the year also doesn’t like your career.”
“Fiance—and my career intimidated him until he made partner at the law firm. Now it’s fine.”
“Jesus,” I grumbled.
It only seemed to get worse. Of course the guy was a lawyer. How a woman like this could suffer through such an insecure boy like that was beyond me. I couldn’t even call him a man. Ipulled the fish off the fire and handed her a stick of fish. We ate in silence but she looked withdrawn and dejected like she was working through something deep and depressing. If I had a fiance and looked like that when I thought of her, I wouldn’t be getting married. But I stayed silent. It wasn’t my place and again—I didn’t care.
At least that’s what I told myself.
But then why did I feel so shitty when she looked like that?
