“Could we stay here the night?”
He rubbed his face. “We’d be icicles by morning. Believe it or not, the insulation in this is not up to standard. Eddie and I never once lasted the night up here, even in midsummer. And if we did stay, we’d be faced with the same threat in the morning, but they’d have had extra time to prepare.” If he could leave her here, safe in her tower, while he went for help, he would. He dropped her hand and shuffled to a wooden box—his father’s old boarding school trunk. “There are a couple of torches in here.” He opened it, drew one out and clicked it on. The light was weak, but better than nothing.
“Every time I hear the word ‘torch,’ I imagine carrying a fire stick through the forest, wearing green velvet robes and a crown made from sage and rosemary.”
He flicked the other torch on, and it flickered and settled into a low glow. “This one has a little more juice. You have it.” He passed it to her. For a second, the circles of light overlapped, like a Venn diagram. “Let’s turn them off for now though.”
“I don’t suppose there are painkillers in your tree pantry?”
“No. Headache still?”
She rubbed her temples. “Like a drill.”
“Come here, let me.” He shuffled to sit against the rough timber wall, and coaxed her to rest between his legs, her back to him. He put the cushion under her back so she could recline, then pressed his fingers into her temples and massaged. She sighed. The color began to return to her face, even as it leached from the forest around them.
“Thanks,” she said shakily. “I really needed this.” Her face crumpled, and she hurriedly wiped the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry, it’s just…”
He wished he could relieve more than just her headache. He adjusted, lifting her slightly so he could wrap his arms around her. “It’s just that you drank a neurotoxin, saw a dead body, had a car crash, got shot at—twice—and ran for your life, multiple times? Did I miss anything? Not to mention your history. No need to explain.”
“This just comes naturally to you, doesn’t it?” Her voice was watery.
“I’m not sure any of this is regular programming.”
“No, I mean, you go for the hug, you hold hands, you go for the physical contact.”
“I don’t know, do I? My mum’s a hugger, so… She once told me that when she met my father, she had to teach him how to hug. She said his hugs were pathetic, the kind of hugs that people give where they’re not properly touching you and it’s a quick, awkward double pat and that’s it.”
“Oh, a reluctant hug. Worse than no hug at all.”
“He never did become very good at it. I think he felt even more awkward by being made aware of the lack, but when you don’t grow up with hugs… He and I got on well enough—better than he and Eddie ever did—but he certainly didn’t believe in spoiling his children with affection. Centuries of learned behavior, probably.”
“Love languages,” she said, adjusting to get comfortable, like he was a warm bed. And he didn’t mind that at all.
“What’s that?”
“There’s a theory that everyone expresses their love in one of five ways. For some people it’s giving gifts, others it’s acts of service—doing things for the person you love. Others like to say ‘I love you’ a lot. Did you justshudder?”
“I’m thinking that one’s not me.”
“It’s not just that—it can be stuff like leaving cute notes. But if words of affirmation are not your love language, it might not work out if you dated someone who was into that.”
“That explains a lot. So that’s—what?—three? What are the others?”
“Spending quality time with your person. And then there’s physical affection. Not just the obvious, before you go leaping to conclusions. Also hugging, holding hands, massage… You don’t need to have the same language as your partner, but it helps to understand what theirs is.”
“So, what’s yours? Asking for a friend.”
“Physical affection, mostly. Though I didn’t really realize it until after the robbery.”
“How so?”
“Pretty much the second the cops and the forensics team left, Rory launched intodoingthings,fixingthings. He got obsessed with the police investigation and the insurance claim and installing security cameras and alarms. I guess that made him feel safe, less powerless. And, yes, it was helpful in a practical sense. But for me, I just needed a damn hug.”
Tom rested his chin on her shoulder. “And you didn’t get that?”
“He was the one person who should have been able to understand, but he was also the one person I couldn’t talk to. He wanted to ‘move on,’ forget it ever happened. The night it happened, after they left and I discovered he wasn’t hurt, not physically, I thought everything would be okay, that we’d get through it together. But there was no ‘together.’ I felt like I was processing it alone. And that’s when having a partner is most important, right? Shit’s gonna happen sometimes, and you want to know you’ll have a shoulder to lean on, but I discovered I didn’t.”
“Can I ask a potentially idiotic question?”
