Page 57 of Hand Picked
“I’m s-sorry,” Luke said softly. “G-good G-god. It’s r-ridiculous. My body won’t st-stop.” He shuddered out a laugh. “I’ll be f-fine in a minute.”
I wasn’t sure that was true, though. And I knew that the best way to help him was precisely what Mark had said—sharing body heat.
I didn’t want to… specifically because I wanted toso fucking badly,and that felt incredibly dangerous. But then my mind helpfully replayed the footage of Luke plunging into the water, and I didn’t care anymore about what was the safest for me.
I pulled off my sweater and undershirt and threw them on the table.
“W-what are you doing?” Luke demanded.
I contemplated my jeans. I really should leave them on, but the cuffs were soaked through and the knees weren’t much better, and the last thing I wanted was to make Luke colder, so I stripped those off, too.
“What are you doing?” Luke repeated, shocked and panicked.
I pulled back the blankets. “Hush. I’m just warming you up.” I climbed in beside him, gathered him in my arms, and drew the blankets back into place.
Luke held himself stiffly for a moment. “You sh-shouldn’t…” he protested. “You… Oh my Godddddd.” His whole body relaxed against me, and he melted into a puddle of Luke-scented goo, nestling his nose into my neck. “You are the warmest human in the universe.”
I grunted in response. His nose was fucking freezing against my neck, his feet were blocks of ice against my calves, and his hands, which were trapped between us, were snow-cold.
Still, within minutes of his skin touching mine, I felt like I was being roasted alive from the inside out, and my brain short-circuited.
I began rubbing his back—my palm coasting up and down the long, smooth length of it—because I simply couldn’t help myself. It felt like we were in a cocoon together in that tiny trailer. A step out of time. One secure minute in an incredibly unsafe world.
“T-talk to me,” Luke said softly.
“Talk?” I repeated warily. “About what?”
“I don’t c-care. Tell me a story. Or tell me what you ate for breakfast. Your voice is so deep and rumbly. It warms me up,” he said blearily.
My heart, which hadn’t recovered from the sight of him falling, lurched again at that. It reminded me of that night at the Bugle, when Luke had looked so happy to see me, even though we hadn’t been friends yet… and all the times since then when he’d shown me the same expression, even when I hadn’t deserved it.
In my life, a lot of people needed things from me, but very few of them simply wantedme—my presence, my voice. Things that cost me nothing but meant something to them.
“Okay,” I said gruffly. “Uh… How much do you know about heirloom apple varietals?”
“N-nothing? I know there are red ones and green ones, though?”
“Jesus. That’s a freakin’ tragedy, Williams. We’re gonna have to fix that.”
His cold fingers twitched against my pecs, and I took one of his hands in mine, threading our fingers together. His breath hitched, but I pretended not to notice.
Luke laughed shakily. “Okay.”
“There used to be thousands of apple varieties around here,” I said into the quiet. “See, when the first European settlers brought apples over, those apples didn’t thrive because they weren’t used to this climate—”
“I feel their pain.”
I snorted. “But the apple seeds that stuck it out and grew anyway, they cross-pollinated with the other apples that had stuck it out. They adapted,” I said pointedly. “And what they became was something really amazing. There were tons of different flavors and textures and appearances. Every landholder had a different type of apple in their backyard.”
“So what happened?” Luke asked softly.
“Economics. Food became more commercial, distributors cared most about whether the fruit was pretty and durable so they could make a profit. So apple growers focused on the apples that would sell. Nothing too different. Nothing too… soft.”
“O-oh.” His throat clacked as he swallowed.
“Which was a shame,” I whispered, my mouth up against his ear so that my breath made him shiver. “Because sometimes the soft things are the sweetest…”
The air between us became tense.Expectant.
