Cabin Fever

by Annabelle Costa

  _____

  After dinner, the hours stretch in front of me. I can’t believe Jake lives here all on his own with no company, no electricity, and no television, for God’s sake! I’ve been reading my book with my itty bitty booklight, but I’m aching to do something else. Anything else. I know going out to a bar is off the table, but there must be something to do around here.

  I’ve got games on my phone, but I don’t want to play them because they’ll drain the battery, and there’s no way to recharge. If I ever get reception again, I don’t want my phone to be dead.

  I lay down my book on the kitchen table and wander through the living room, which is now lit only by the embers of the fireplace. I stand over Chase, who woke up briefly after dinner to have more soup, then went right back to sleep. He’s waking up intermittently, so I guess he must be okay. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to die, but I’m still worried he might need hospital attention. What if he needs… fluids? Or antibiotics. Or… insulin?

  I don’t know. But I’m not a doctor and neither is Jake.

  I stride across the living room to Jake’s room. The door is ajar this time, which I take as a more welcoming sign than earlier today. I peer into the room, where he’s lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. There’s an unreadable expression on his face, and for a moment, I feel like I shouldn’t have interrupted him. But then he rolls his head in my direction. “What’s up?”

  I push the door the rest of the way open and stand awkwardly in the doorway. “I’m just… I’m worried about Chase.”

  He looks unimpressed. “He’s waking up. What’s the problem?”

  “He’s not himself.”

  “Yeah? Seems like that might be an improvement.”

  I roll my eyes, even though… well, he’s sort of right.

  “Look,” Jake says as he sits up in bed, “if he’s still so out of it by tomorrow, I’ll try to get him to a hospital. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I mumble. It’s not like I have much choice in the matter. I linger at his door, reluctant to go back to my book.

  He frowns. “Anything else?”

  “No.” I glance back at the living room, then back at him. “I just… it’s sort of…”

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “It’s a little… you know…”

  “What?”

  “It’s boring,” I manage. “It’s just a little boring here. That’s all.”

  His mouth falls open. “You’re bored?”

  My cheeks burn. I wish I hadn’t said that. I want to take back my words, but I can’t—they’re already out there. He saved my life yesterday, and now I’m whining that I’m bored. I can see any respect I earned with my gourmet cooking flying out the window. “Well, you don’t have television.”

  Lame, Natalie. So lame.

  At first, I’m certain he’s going to snap at me. But he doesn’t, which says a lot about how grateful he is for my cooking and how much we bonded over that snowman. Instead, he laughs. I have a feeling it’s not a sound he makes very often out here, which is a shame, because he has a nice laugh. I love the way his eyes crinkle.

  “I have a deck of cards,” he says.

  Cards. I’ve played hundreds of games of Spider Solitaire on the computer, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve played with a physical deck of cards, rather than on a computer. But this sounds like fun.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s play.”

  Jake hops off his bed, wincing only briefly as his legs make contact with the ground. He rifles around his drawer until he finds the pack of playing cards. The binoculars I saw earlier have vanished. I’m still not sure what to make of those, but I’m not going to ask. I’m just going to assume he’s an avid birdwatcher. In the middle of winter. In a blizzard.

  “What do you usually play?” I ask Jake as we settle down at his rickety dining table. I’ve already gotten a splinter from this damned table.

  “Usually?” He pulls a rusty lighter from his pocket to ignite the large candle in the middle of the table. “Solitaire.”

  “Oh.” Stupid question.

  “What do you want to play?”

  I think for a moment. “How about gin rummy?’

  Jake stares at me with his good eye. “Gin rummy?”

  What’s so wrong with gin rummy? “It’s a really fun game.”

  “Yeah, if you’re eighty.” He snorts. “Why don’t we grab some tiles while we’re at it and play a game of Mahjong?”

  I know he’s being sarcastic, but my grandmother taught me how to play Mahjong when I was a kid and it was pretty fun. But I’m assuming he doesn’t actually have the tiles, in spite of his comment.

  “Fine,” I say. “What do you like to play when you have company?”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “Poker.”

  I lean back in my seat. “Okay, fine. Let’s play poker.”

  A smile plays on his lips. “You know how to play?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Drew taught me how to play poker when we were teenagers. I didn’t play it very often, but I know the rules. I could get through a game without humiliating myself. Probably.

  Jake looks at me appraisingly. “All right then. We’ll play Five Card Stud.”

  “Don’t we need something to bet with?”

  He nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, I got a bunch of coins.”

  He leaves the room, then returns lugging a big jar of coins. In spite of the fact that he made fun of me for liking an old lady game, he collects coins the same way my grandma does. We sort them on the table, distributing an even number between the two of us. I’m getting excited now—this is much more fun than my boring book.

  Jake takes the cards out of the deck, but he’s having a lot of trouble shuffling them, which isn’t surprising, given what his fingers look like. He tries to do a bridge, but it’s clearly a lost cause. Then he tries to just shuffle them between his palms, but he drops about half of them in the process.

  “You want me to do that?” I ask.

  “Uh…” He looks down at the cards scattered on the table, then at his fingers. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

  I gather the cards. “What do you usually do when you play solitaire?”

  He jerks his head in the direction of the bedroom. “I got a card shuffler. But I thought…”

  He lowers his eyes, and he doesn’t complete his thought.

  I shuffle the cards, distributing them between the two of us—five cards apiece. Jake separates the cards and slides each one just to the edge of the table to pick them up. He fumbles a little with them, but he manages to get them into his hand. I look at his single eye, trying to read his expression, but it’s completely blank.

  Then I look down at my own cards. Ooh, pair of aces!

  Chapter 11

  Jake is destroying me at Five Card Stud. My little pile of change has been completely decimated, and he allowed me a “loan” from the coin jar so we could keep playing, but I quickly lost that too. I’m now on my second loan, which is dwindling with every hand. Remind me never to gamble in Vegas.

  “How are you doing this?” I grumble, as he claims yet another pile of coins from the center of the table.

  He shrugs and smiles. “Lucky, I guess.”

  “Bullshit.” Jake may have gotten good cards, but there have been plenty of hands where I never even saw his cards. I assume he must be lying some percentage of the time, but I’ve never been in a position to call him on it. Whenever I get really good cards, he folds almost immediately. And every time I’ve got bad cards, he seems to sense that too. It’s so frustrating—I can get anything past him. “What’s your secret?”

  “Secret?” He laughs. “No secret. I’ve just played a lot, so I’m good at it.”

  “That can’t be all.”

  His good eye meets mine. “I’m also good at reading people.”

  “A skill that I’m sure comes in handy, living in the middle of nowhere.” I shuffle the cards, reluctant to let my ass get handed to me ye
t again. “So you can read me?”

  He leans back in his seat, considering my question. “Yes. Usually.”

  “In what way?”

  He hesitates even longer before answering this one. “You’ve got a tell.”

  “A… tell?”

  He nods, the shadows flickering across his face in the light of the single candle.

  I stop shuffling and narrow my eyes at him. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” he says, “there’s something you do that tips me off that you’re lying.”

  There is? “You noticed that while we were playing?”

  “Actually,” he says, “I noticed it before we even started playing.”

  What does that mean? “So what’s my tell?”

  He shrugs.

  I let out a huff. “You’re seriously not going to tell me?”

  He grins at me. “Then how will I know when you’re lying?”

  I glare at him across the table. “You’re really irritating sometimes. You know that?”

  He shrugs again.

  “Fine.” I slam the deck of cards down on the table—a reaction that only amuses him. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Okay.”

  I want to try to forget about it, but it’s impossible. Is there really something I do that tips people off that I’m lying? If there is, that seems like it could be a major liability for me. I don’t want people to know whenever I’m lying! If nothing else, it will make it impossible to plan surprise birthday parties.

  Does my eyelid twitch? Do I blink? Wink? Cough? Sneeze?

  Oh my God, what is it?

  “Gah!” I want to smack him. “Come on. Just tell me. What do I do?”

  He laughs. “Okay, calm down, Natalie. I’ll tell you what it is.”

  “Please do.”

  He traces a line on the table with his thumbnail. “You play with the earring on your right ear.”

  My right hand instantly goes to the diamond stud in my ear. “Oh…”

  “So… there you go. That’s your tell. The earring.”

  All right. That’s an easy one. I can definitely control that. “Thanks for telling me.”

  He nods.

  I study Jake’s rugged features in the candlelight, at his blue eye staring directly at me. I may not be any sort of expert gambler (to say the least), but I would bet the farm he doesn’t have a tell. I have a feeling he doesn’t allow other people to know anything about himself that he doesn’t want them to know. I also believe him when he says he’s extremely good at reading people.

  My hand goes back to my earring. Do I really play with it every time I’m lying?

  He nods at the deck of cards on the table. “So now that you’ve lost your shirt in poker, how about a little gin rummy?”

  I raise my eyebrows at him. “You know how to play?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “You said it was a game for old people.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to play.” He leans forward and I get a jolt of electricity down my spine. Why does he have to be so damn sexy? It’s insane how drawn I am to him. I can’t remember ever feeling this way about a man before—even handcredible Chase at the height of our relationship. “What’s wrong? You scared of my gin rummy skills?”

  “No way!” I scoop up the deck of cards. “Prepare to have your ass handed to you, mister.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  I deal out the cards, all the while watching his face. It makes me uncomfortable to realize he might know me better than I know myself.

  _____

  I don’t quite manage to kick Jake’s ass in gin rummy, but then again, he doesn’t kick mine either. But we do have a ton of fun playing. It’s a game I’m more comfortable with, so I can relax a little, and we joke around like we did when we were building that snowman. I wouldn’t have thought it that first night he caught me trying to steal his truck, but Jake has a really good sense of humor. He’s a lot of fun to talk to. We crack open a couple of beers he’s got in his fridge and it’s really nice.

  “Here’s a question for you,” I say as I shuffle the deck in preparation for our twenty-somethingth game of gin rummy—I lost track. “Before Chase and I came along, when’s the last time you interacted with another human being?”

  He smiles at me. “And we’re not counting the voices on the radio?”

  “Do they talk back to you?”

  “Only if I’ve had too much to drink.”

  I laugh and nearly swat him in the shoulder, but stop myself at the last minute. Chase is literally in the room with us. I shouldn’t be flirting with another guy—not this soon. It’s fine to chat to pass the time, but that’s it.

  “It hasn’t been that long,” he says. “I bought groceries just last week because the storm was coming, and I had to pick them up myself. Amazon Fresh doesn’t exactly deliver out here.”

  “So are you and the grocery store owner good buddies?”

  He hesitates. “Not really. I think all I said to him was, ‘Keep the change.’”

  “So who else have you interacted with?”

  He considers this for a minute as he takes a swig of beer. “I picked up a hitchhiker last month.”

  “A hitchhiker?” My eyes widen. “Aren’t you scared to do that?”

  “Scared?” Jake snorts. “Look at me, Natalie. I’m the guy in the scary camping stories. If anyone should be scared, it’s the hitchhiker.”

  I laugh even though I disagree. Yes, I was absolutely terrified of him when he first appeared in front of the Porsche during that blizzard. But now that he’s shaved his grizzly beard and trimmed his hair, he isn’t scary anymore. Intimidating, maybe. But not man-scraping-through-roof-of-car-with-hook sort of scary. Any sighted woman with half a brain would think he was handsome.

  “So where did he want to go?” I ask.

  “The hospital,” he says. “Apparently, he was camping with his buddies and they were drinking pretty heavily and they got into a fight and his so-called friends somehow…”

  I raise an eyebrow. “What?”

  “They set fire to his junk. And then they took off on him.”

  I clasp my hand over my mouth. “No…”

  “Oh yes. I saw his scorched crotch.”

  “But… how would you even…?”

  “I have no idea.” He shakes his head and winces. “I have a feeling it had something to do with his beer-soaked clothing. In any case, he managed to put the fire out before he got severe burns, but he still was pretty uncomfortable and wanted to get treated.”

  “Wow.” I can’t keep from giggling, even though I obviously feel bad for the guy who got his genitals set on fire. It’s funny because he’s okay. “So aside from the grocery store guy, that’s the only person you’ve seen in the last month?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” He smiles crookedly. “Why so curious, Natalie?”

  I avoid his gaze as I sip my beer. “I don’t know. I just can’t imagine living out in the middle of nowhere and not talking to anyone ever.”

  “I like it. It’s peaceful.”

  “But everyone gets lonely sometimes.”

  “Not me.”

  I study his face. He might not have a tell like I do, but I’m not sure if I believe him. Especially after his admission about how much he misses his parents. “What about horny?”

  It’s amusing the way Jake rubs the back of his neck whenever he’s embarrassed. He looks down at his own beer. “Uh, yeah. I guess… that happens.” He nods his head at the deck of cards. “Are you going to deal or what?”

  It’s obvious he’d love to change the subject, but I’m not letting him off the hook that easily after all he’s put me through. “So what do you do?”

  “When?” he asks as I flick cards in his direction.

  “When you’re horny!”

  “Uh…” He scratches at his head. “There’s a tavern about twenty miles down the road…”

  “Tavern or brothel?”

&nbs
p; He shoots me a look. “Tavern. On Saturday nights, they have ladies’ night, and there are a lot of… um, drunk women. So every five or six months, when I can’t stand it anymore, I take a trip there.”

  I finish dealing the cards, but it’s a little hard to focus on gin rummy right now. This story is far more interesting. “You only hit on drunk women?”

  He fingers his own cards but doesn’t try to pick them up. “It’s easier that way. I mean, I’m just looking for one night. Nothing more.”

  Why not? The question is on the tip of my tongue, and I know he’s expecting me to ask. I can tell by the way his shoulders have tensed up. But I won’t ask. I know if he answers at all, his answer will be bullshit. So there’s no point.

  “When you go to the tavern,” I say instead, “do you shave?”

  His shoulders sag, and he smiles. “Not usually. But I shower.”

  I laugh as I organize the cards in my hand. “So women still sleep with you even if you look like a guy who murders hitchhikers?”

  “They sure do.”

  I believe it. Even before Jake lost the beard, when I was terrified of him, there was still something achingly sexy about him. It might not be every girl’s thing, but I bet a lot of random drunk women in a bar would really go for the big, sexy woodsman with an eyepatch look. I bet he doesn’t have any trouble whatsoever.

  “Hey,” he says, “how about you and Abercrombie over there?”

  I wince. I glance over at Chase, who is sleeping soundly on the sofa. I’m still worried about him, and if he’s not more alert tomorrow, I’m going to have to press Jake to get him to a hospital. But right now, I’m grateful for his altered consciousness. I wouldn’t want him to hear us talking. “What about him?”

  “Come on,” he laughs. “That guy can’t possibly be good in bed. I don’t believe it.”

  I put down my cards and fold my arms across my chest. “Why not?”

  “Well, is he?”

  “He’s…” Was Chase a good lover? I close my eyes, remembering our last encounter at his house before we went on this trip. I did have an orgasm, but I admittedly had to give it to myself. But the sex was… well, it was fine. It was really pleasant. It wasn’t rough or uncomfortable. He didn’t try to get into any hole I didn’t want him in. “He’s fine.”