teeth chattered in earnest now. Maybe the cold was going to her head.
He chuckled softly. “It’s something my brothers and I used to call anyone who wouldn’t share. As in, ‘don’t be a hog-em-all.’ I have no idea where it came from.” He opened the blanket wide like a set of wings. “Come here before you freeze to death.”
She crawled onto his lap and into his arms without hesitating. “I’m sorry. I stink. And I’m dirty.” How mortifying. She was sitting in a hot guy’s lap and she looked and smelled like one of the bison she and Megan had seen from afar while hiking.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I can’t smell you over me anyway.”
He closed her into the delicious, warm cocoon he’d created inside the fleece-lined blanket and eased her back against his chest, partially covering her head since she didn’t have a hat. It should’ve been weird, basically spooning with a complete stranger, but somehow it wasn’t. Sure, some women met a guy in a bar and were naked and sweaty with him twenty minutes later, but even if she’d experienced that kind of desperate attraction, she’d never have let herself act on it. Far too risky.
But Todd wasn’t just some random guy. He’d saved her from falling, and had been keeping her safe and alive ever since, even sleeping outside presumably so she wouldn’t feel threatened.
What better way to learn who someone was than to see how they reacted in a crisis? So far, he’d been nothing but selfless, respectful, and kind. And honest to the point of bluntness. She could be forgiven for trusting so quickly.
“We can clean up in the morning when it’s warmer,” he said.
“That would be great.” The cold bit into the skin of her face, but her shivers had subsided, and she could talk without endangering her tongue. “I feel beastly. I know it shouldn’t matter…”
“It doesn’t make you weak, or even selfish, to want to feel good. Especially after the couple of days you’ve had.”
She sighed and fully relaxed into him. “I just keep thinking about Megan stuck in that compound with JJ and—”
The tears came out of nowhere catching her completely by surprise. Todd held her as she sobbed in a way she hadn’t since her grandmother died, her throat so tight she gulped for air. “Oh, my God,” she said, wiping her cheeks and trying to will the waterworks to cease. “I’m sorry.”
“Lindsey, stop apologizing. You’ve been under extreme strain for days now. Let it out. I can handle it.”
So she did. She cried over losing Megan to JJ and his asshole crew, the stress of being chased, the stark fear of almost dying on the side of a mountain, and the constant worry about whether she’d be able to save her friend. She even cried over the shit that had gone down with Cruz, her asshole of an ex-boyfriend.
And through it all, Todd simply held her close, his rough cheek against hers, his chest rising and falling in a soothing rhythm at her back. When she finally calmed down, she was depleted but alert, acutely aware of the muscled body supporting hers, the arms holding her in their circle of protection.
“Look up,” he said softly, his breath on her ear setting loose a hummingbird in her chest.
She tilted her head back and gasped. The stars were a thousand times brighter than she’d ever seen. Out here—especially now that the moon had set—the dark was pure, unnerving.
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “There are so many layers of stars, it seems endless. Now I understand how sailors could navigate by starlight.”
“Right? It’s no wonder people were obsessed with the heavens in the old days. You could hardly ignore them.”
A satellite tracked across the sky, steady and fast, and disappeared into the trees. Several minutes later, a shooting star streaked overhead in a shower of sparks, followed by dozens more in the space of thirty or forty minutes.
Good thing, because she had plenty of wishes, all of them for the same thing. Keep Megan safe. No matter how soon they found help, nothing could save Megan from whatever was happening now.
“I’m surprised a Sinzian Empire fan like you hasn’t spent more time studying the cosmos,” Todd said in a teasing tone.
“How did you— Oh, my shirt.” Her old “WELCOME TO THE SYZYGY” tee hadn’t been in great shape before the hike, but now it was covered in dirt and had a tear to the left of her belly button