“It’s not,” I tell her, and she sighs.
“For fuck’s—” she starts, and then she’s squirming her hand into my pocket, but before I can contemplatethat, she’s pulled my phone out and is frowning at it.
“Forest Service Dispatch,” she says, holding it up. “Do they usually call you just to chat?”
I grunt, take the phone, and I’m still pressing her against the wall when I answer simply because I don’t want to stop.
“Bell,” I answer, my forehead against the wall over Andi’s shoulder. I’ve still got my hand splayed over her ribcage, rising and falling beneath my palm, and I move it until the bump of her nipple is under my fingertips. I can’t move away. I can’t stop touching her, because if I stop this might end and we might start talking about burritos again, and I can’t risk it.
“There you are. I was starting to worry,” Dale says, friendly and folksy as ever, voice crackling down the line. Through the air. Whatever. “Listen, I wanted to update you on the situation.”
It takes me several seconds to process that, because Andi’s hand just sneaked under my shirt, cool fingers on skin, and her nipple hardened under my fingers. Fuck. What?
“What situation?” I ask.
“Well, it’s not looking like anyone’s going to be fixing the road up to y’all in the next couple days,” Dale says. “Truth be told I’m not sure I can put a timeline on that fix at all.”
I draw a circle around Andi’s nipple with one fingertip and wait for Dale’s words to filter through.
“Okay,” I finally manage.
“You’ve got food, water, firewood?”
Andi makes a small noise in her throat, head tilted back against the wall, eyes closed. I pull the phone away from my mouth and turn to face her, lips almost against her ear.
“Shh,” I whisper, and she swallows without opening her eyes. God, did she like that? “Plenty of everything,” I tell Dale.
“All right, then, you’ve got some options,” he goes on. “You folks know about the weather we’ve got coming?”
“What weather’s that?”
“The cold snap,” Dale says, as if he’s surprised I don’t know. Which is fair. Ishouldknow. “Supposed to get down into the single-digits tonight and then dump another six inches of snow starting late tomorrow.”
“Moresnow?” I ask, because that actually got my attention.
Dale sighs on the other end.
“Meaning,” he says, resigned, “that your best bet for hiking back to civilization before the weekend is to start early tomorrow. I can send someone to pick you up at Hogswallow Picnic Area by the trailhead, the Parkway’s clear enough for that.”
I pull back enough to make eye contact with Andi, and I don’t move my hand, but I still it. We’re both breathing a little harder than we should be, her lips deep pink and her cheeks flushed, eyes watching my face.
“Give me a sec to talk to—Andrea,” I tell Dale, stumbling over her full name because I don’t know ifAndiis too familiar and I’d be giving something away; I don’t know what exactly I’d be giving away or whether she’d mind and it seems best to leave that all be for right now.
“You heard?” I ask her, muting the phone.
“Yeah,” she says.
There’s a small, short silence that feels like a slingshot being pulled back.
“Is your ankle—”
“It would be dangerous—”
We both stop again, our faces still a few inches apart, Dale waiting patiently on the other end. I nod at Andi.
“Your ankle might be not be up to it yet,” she says, voice low and quiet. “It’s a lot of tricky downhill, right?”
“Yeah,” I agree, my heart beating so hard I can feel it in my neck, in my fingertips where they’re gripping the phone a little too hard. “We’d have to make really good time or risk getting caught in the snow.”
