The reminder of our conversation back at the quarry leaves me chuckling. A trout would indeed overcome the current and make it to the other side with a few flicks of its tail.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a tail, only two very tired, very stiff, very cold legs.
I kick my feet and plunge my arms into the water even as my body grows heavier and heavier. A sinking stone.
“Put your legs down.” His voice is nearly lost to the pounding of my heart in my ears and the splash of my flailing limbs.
If I put my legs down, I’ll never be able to lift them again. Maddox appears next to me, not even having the decency to look winded.
“You can touch. You did it.” His smile is all sharp teeth and unbridled charm. The first one I’ve seen since our argument that shouldn’t have been an argument at all but a discussion.
I could’ve calmly asked him to explain himself the moment I realized he wasn’t telling the truth. Asked why he would bother making up a person who doesn’t exist.
As if he can hear the direction of my thoughts, his expression falters, his smile fading. “We need a fire.” Giving me his back,he stalks the rest of the way to the bank. He tosses our clothes far enough from the water to keep them dry and then starts scouring the shore for small, dried sticks and bits of driftwood to burn.
The only thing colder than the water is the despair spreading through my chest.
I take off in the opposite direction, water sluicing down my stiff limbs as I search for kindling in my underthings. If Maddox notices my absence, he says nothing.
I might as well not even be here for all the attention he pays me.
Not that I expect him to play the doting suitor when we’re trying to survive, but I miss his simple teasing. His unending questions about how to find love.
I pick up a gnarled piece of driftwood that doesn’t seem too damp.
I reject your friendship.
His proclamation shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, I was the one to reject him first.
How can Maddox turn off his feelings so easily?
According to Kerris, the man has been on a mission to win me over ever since we met on Beltane. Now he wants nothing to do with me.
That seems to be the theme of late.
First Nolan . . .
I don’t miss him as much as I probably should. What I yearn for is the life I once dreamed of sharing with him. One where we raised a whole brood of curly-haired little ones running around his cottage’s quaint back garden.
Nolan hasn’t been that person for quite some time.
I’ve been holding onto someone who wasn’t there.
I pick my way back to where Maddox kneels, water rolling down his shoulders and spine as he strikes blade against flint.The man is far more capable than anyone I know. There’s something undeniably attractive about it all.
Even if I had survived the fall on my own, I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this. Without Maddox, I’d be dead within a day. “Will you teach me how to make a fire?”
He gathers the bits of moss and then strikes the blade once more. “Did they not teach you in your Seelie school?”
We learned reading, writing, arithmetic, and how to run a home—a Seelie home, anyway. From what little I’ve gathered about the Unseelie way of life, I’d be as useful there as my stolen blue ribbon. “No, but I can embroider and bake an excellent pie.”
The sound of his quiet chuckle warms me all the way to my toes. “The most important skills, then.”
“Exactly.”
Sitting back on his heels, he holds out the dagger and flint as an offering. “Always start small and dry. Otherwise, you will smother the flames before they have a chance to catch.”
That feels like a metaphor for our relationship. Small gestures leading to more.
