Frost Bite

Chapter 10

Jack

Ryan is getting antsy.

He paces around the house when he thinks that Josie and I won't notice. He spends hours in the training room, long after Josie and I have stopped for the day. Josie's noticed too. She watches him as he moves back and forth, wearing down my hardwood floors and spreading dust. It makes my skin itch, to see him so restless.

The nervous energy that rolls off of him in waves makes my stomach pitch and roll in my torso.

I worry that he's planning something. I worry that Josie knows. I worry that they're desperate to get back to their lives. To leave and go far, far away. Not that there's anywhere I couldn't follow, but I'm firmly rooted in the ice and tundra. The closer I am to the equator, the less real I feel.

There's something shockingly distressing about the idea of not ever seeing Josie again.

"What do you think is on his mind?" Josie asks, looking up from the book she took off one of my shelves. Watership Down. I try to remember what it's about and all that comes to mind is that it's about rabbits. Maybe I'll pick it up when she's done with it.

I shrug, putting down my book. "Ryan is incomprehensible. You're better off learning ancient Sumerian. It will give you less of a headache."

Josie rolls her eyes. "Hilarious, Jack. As always." The sarcasm in her voice is so thick I could cut it with a knife.

I smile. She's entertaining when she's sassy. "You say that like you're surprised. I think by know you should know just how funny I am."

"Oh, I know just how funny you are," she says with a cocked brow. It's her way of saying I'm not funny at all. Which I just find so damn amusing.

"Are you sure?" I ask and I inch closer, and I don't know why, but I do. Something about her pulls me in doesn't let me go.

"I'm very sure, Jack. I'm hardly ever wrong."

"Hardly ever? So you admit there's a chance you could be wrong?" I give her a wry smile.

"As much of a chance as you ever being right about anything," she says with mock sweetness.

A grin tugs at the corners of my mouth.

Maybe it's a thousand years of separation from humanity but I don't remember humans being this entertaining. I don't remember smiling or laughing this much. I don't remember ever feeling the need so spend so much time with another human being.

What does she do to me?

My chest is tight, looking at the way her hair falls along her collarbone and the way she's so obviously trying not to smile.

I don't think I've ever met anyone as beautiful as her. My stomach rolls around in my abdomen and I realize with shocking clarity that I want her. I don't know when it happened that I started to think she was beautiful or clever or funny, I don't know when it happened that I didn't want her to go.

She's crept up on me and I don't know what to do about it.

"But I'm always right."

She laughs in a way that says, "Oh, that's so cute."

Where did all the air in the room go?

"Only in your dreams," she informs me tauntingly, and she's leaned forward and I'm leaning towards her and I realize that I want to kiss her.

My mouth goes dry and I stare at her lips without meaning to.

And the worst part is I don't know if she feels it, too.