I turn back to see if Luke is okay, he’s lying on his side, his eyes closed. Pulling off one of my gloves, I crawl over to him and start to lay my hand on his forehead, but even before I do, I feel the heat.
Oh my god. He’s burning up.
“Luke,” I whisper, grabbing his jacket and shaking him. “Luke! You have to get up.”
His heavy lashes flicker open, and he focuses on me. “Hey.”
“You’re sick. Like, really sick. We have to tell the producers.”
Now he’s starting to stand up. He’s insane. “No. We don’t. Listen, we don’t. I’m fine.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed. You can’t—”
“No. We gotta win this.”
I almost laugh. “Win? We’ve been practically dead last since that first day. It’s only sheer luck that we’ve gotten this far.”
“Right,” he says, his voice gravelly. “And that’s how we’ll win. I brought my lucky Penny.”
He reaches up and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. And I almost break down right there. “I don’t think I can make a shelter for us alone. Can you help me?”
“Yeah.”
We’re slow. Really slow. Luke takes a lot of time to rest. Night comes around by seven, and we end up working in the dark, with floodlights overhead. Everyone else ends up snuggled up in their igloos for hours as we work. And our igloo really leaves a lot to be desired. We only manage to carve out enough space for the two-person sleeping bag and our bodies.
But we finish it.
When we crawl inside, it’s a struggle just to get comfortable. There is snow everywhere and I’m freezing, and I decide I will probably spend the whole night awake and shivering.
“Well, this sucks,” he says.
And I laugh in total agreement.
That is, until Luke reaches out and pulls my body up against his, engulfing me in the warmest, most comforting hug. I don’t know if it’s that he’s sick, but his body is the perfect furnace, even with the many layers of clothing between us. I breathe in his thick, masculine scent, and suddenly I would be perfectly happy staying in this insulated bubble with him forever.
“Come to think of it,” he rasps out faintly in the absolute darkness, “this ain’t so bad.”
I giggle.
“I’ve been thinking about it, Penny . . . ,” he says, his voice listless.
I expect him to talk competition strategy or tell me that he’s feeling really bad and should go to medical after all. I suck in a breath.
But instead he says, “You shouldn’t let your daddy or anyone tell you you’re doing things wrong. You’re good. You’re damn good. You can do whatever you want and be damn good at it. I got no doubt about that.”
He’s babbling, probably half out of his mind, but I don’t care.
Those are just the words I need to hear right now. He’s warming me from head to toe, but those words? They warm me from the inside. I settle into them, and the more I think about them, the more I want to cry. Not from sadness. It’s because I’ve been waiting twenty-five years to hear them.
He holds me tight, and that’s how I fall asleep, my face buried in his chest, calmed by the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
Luke
I was a little under the weather there. I’m better now, and we’re in it to win it. How we got through? That was all Penny.
—Luke’s Confessional, Day 10
An air horn jolts me awake. I’m in pitch blackness, and it takes the smell of the snow and the feel of Penny’s body against mine to remind me where the hell I am. She stirs, and I feel her eyelashes fluttering against my neck. Her skin is warm and dewy and smells sweet, like something I want to taste.
I find her glasses and help her put them on. “You don’t feel as hot.” Her voice is hopeful.
I tense my muscles, and they don’t ache like last night. “I don’t feel so shitty anymore.”
“You don’t?” Her arms tighten around me. Her nose bumps against my Adam’s apple. Her breath is warm on my skin. Her lips move with the words “I’m so glad,” feeling like a kiss.
I dip my head down to seek her lips out, and as I do, the air horn blares again.
Time to start the next leg of the race.
I help her push up and out of the small opening, hardly able to believe that this is what we made last night. I was half-delirious. When I slide out