Right. Glass half full. Since I was a mostly glass-half-empty kind of person lately, I was going to have to do some adjusting to get the way that Aiden saw things.
But maybe it would be good for me to do so – to stop seeing the world in a pessimistic light. “I guess you’re right,” I said. I nodded and tried saying it out loud myself. “We’re alive, and that’s pretty special.”
Aiden nudged me with his shoulder. I was starting to enjoy those shoulder nudges of his. They were conspiratorial, like we had a secret to share. “Now you’re getting the hang of it,” he said. “I almost believed you. So, what do you think? We could try to dig our way out?”
“Won’t we just get buried?”
Aiden shrugged. “I have no idea. I think I remember hearing once in a safety briefing when I was snowboarding that avalanche snow hardens like concrete pretty fast. That’s why you have to make a breathing space as quickly as possible. But I don’t know what happens when you try digging into it from below or the side – whether it would start to fall.”
I thought about that for a minute. “Well, if it does, then we’re going to be not only trapped in a cabin, but also trapped in a cabin that is filling with snow and potentially cutting off our access to the airflow we seem to have,” I said, gesturing towards the chimney. “I don’t think we can risk it. Besides, if it’s really like concrete, would we even be able to dig through it?”
Aiden made a humming noise. “I guess it’s not worth the risk,” he said. I got the feeling he was reluctant to agree, like he really wanted to try digging – but I was glad he seemed to be letting it go.
“We need to be more cautious,” I said. “I’m not saying we don’t do anything at all, but we should be careful and proactive about the choices we make. Things that increase our safety, not things that might cause a risk.”
“Like what?” Aiden asked. He was looking at me patiently like he was expecting me to have all the answers.
“Uhh…” I said. I was younger than him, after all, and definitely had no experience with snow situations where he seemed to have at least some. But I glanced around the room and an idea struck me. “We should sort through our food and drinks and make a rationing system.”
“Alright, let’s do that,” Aiden agreed. He got up, his strong and powerful body flexing, and reached down a hand to help me up.
He practically lifted me completely to my feet with none of my own input, and he did it like I was made of damn feathers.
I walked behind him, trying not to let my gaze trail down to his ass again. Was this a nightmare?
Or was being trapped in one room with an extremely attractive football player who was kind and supportive and listened to me actually a dream?
Or maybe a nightmarish version of a dream, given the fact that he was straight?
“Here we go,” Aiden said, breaking open the box that Harvey had left for us and starting to rummage through it. “Let’s put everything in piles first – right?”
“Right,” I nodded, kneeling beside him to start organizing everything we had.
Aiden
“There,” I said, satisfied. “Now it’s fair.”
Cade pouted slightly; the flickering firelight made him even cuter, smoothing out his face into something out of an old fifties movie or a painting. “I still think you should have more food than me.”
“That’s not logical,” I pointed out to him. “I have more muscle, which means I have a lot more for my body to break down for energy. I can probably survive without food for longer than you can. So, if anything, you should have more food.”
“Are you saying I have no muscles?” Cade asked, pretending to be offended. I didn’t know him well yet, but I could still tell he was only pretending.
“Yeah, Red,” I said and poked his upper arm. There was a surprising lack of give under my finger. “Oh, damn…” I poked him again, then squeezed his bicep, wanting to know just how wrong I was. Very wrong, apparently.
“Are you done?” Cade asked, but he didn’t pull his arm away from my hand.
“You surprised me, Little Red,” I said, throwing in the ‘little’ just to tease him even more. “You’re stronger than you look. Alright, fine, I won’t give you half my food. We can keep it as two equal stashes.”
“Good,” Cade said, apparently glossing over my jibe. “That’s how it should be. Just remember we need to make this last for at least a few days. If you’re not too hungry, we should try to make it last longer, just in case.”
“We’ll be rescued within a few days, easy,” I told him.
“Okay, Mr. Confident, but I don’t want to be without food for a week if we’re wrong about that,” Cade said. “Anyway, the real issue is the water. We need to ration it out more carefully. We can survive a while without food, but water is a different issue.”
I nodded, taking this part seriously. “Got it,” I said. “We’ll try to make the water last longer. And we’ll be diligent about collecting it from the chimney. Hey, once we start drinking it from the bottles, we’ll even be able to refill the empties with the snow melt.”
Cade sighed a little, sitting back and away from the food. “Well, I’m glad that’s done.”
