Page 29 of Jack Frost
Jack doesn't reappear until one o'clock precisely, when he strides into the office wearing jeans and a red sweater, looking less frosty and distinctly more human. Alice can see him, because she clears her throat, flushing, and rises from her desk with a flutter of her lashes and a throaty "Can I help you?"
"I'm here to pick Emery up for lunch." Jack gives me a scintillating grin.
"Oh." Alice casts me a look that's part admiration and part envy. Great. The last thing I need is another reason for her to dislike me. "Just one hour, Emery. We have a lot to get done this afternoon."
"Sure." With my foot, I shove the box of folded auction lists toward her desk. "These are done. Maybe next time we can find an app to use, instead of wasting the paper."
"It'srecycledpaper," she says crisply. "And we'll have recycling bins available for proper disposal. Don't worry, I'm not new to this.Ihave experience with these events."
Jack drags me out of the office before I can respond, which is probably a good thing. When I got this job, I didn't expect to be entering a popularity contest, or experiencing high-school-esque drama. I thought, for some naive reason, that we'd all be friends—a big happy team working together to protect the environment. So far, working at the conservancy is nothing like I expected. Mark that down as another disappointment on the long obituary of Emery's idealistic dreams.
I'm still seething when I realize that Jack is pulling me toward the end of the hall. There's nothing down here except a supply closet. "Jack, what are you doing?"
"Taking you to lunch."
"In the closet?"
"Yes, Emery, in the closet. It's bigger on the inside, and there's a lovely cafe with twinkle lights—of course not in the closet. I just need privacy, so I can whisk you off somewhere else."
"I have one hour for lunch, Jack. One hour."
"So I heard." He opens the closet door and hustles me inside. I stumble over a mop handle and curse, while he slips in after me and shuts the door.
"This is dumb," I hiss. "They're going to think we're—you know—"
"What?" His cool breath wafts across my cheek, and I flinch away from his presence even as my heartbeat accelerates.
"If anyone sees us they'll think we weredoing itin here."
"Doing. What?" There's a smile in his voice. He's just trying to make me say it. I'm not a prude; I can say it. Ican. But I don't want to, not with the chill of him whispering over my skin, and that fragrance of pine and sea air suffusing the cramped space.
Jack slides his hands along my waist, his palms cool through my thin blouse. "What will they think we're doing, Emery?"
"Having sex," I murmur.
"And that's something we'd never do."
"No."
"Why not?"
"For many reasons, the first of which is that I'm not the type of girl to bang her boyfriend at work—"
His voice drifts across my ear. "But I'm not your boyfriend."
"I never said you were. Look, are we getting food, or—"
"Hang on tight." Wind kicks up in the closet, and I have barely enough time to cinch my arms around his body before we swirl into nothing, into particles of mind and matter and magic, whirling across the world to some distant point. I can feel us approaching the destination, coalescing again—and then we land on solid ground, under a brilliant sun.
No, it's not ground—it's ice. A glorious sweep of ice, a shelf of it, rearing out of the ocean. I can feel the cold, as I might sense it through layers of coats, but I'm not actually cold. I'm awestruck, speechless before the mighty bulk of the iceberg, chiseled into gleaming splendor by the vagaries of the blue water in which it drifts. I've only seen such blue in one place.
Antarctica.
"Did you take me back to Antarctica?" I whisper, edging out of Jack's arms.
"I did." He points to a lumpy black heap on the ice. It's two sets of scuba diving gear. "I thought we could go for a swim. Have you used one of these before?"
"Twice, for a cinematography course. We practiced shooting underwater. But I've never—are you serious about this?"
