Page 80 of Forbidden to Fall

He chuckled, and we headed back to our sleeping bags. “Have you slept okay?” He yawned.

“Like a baby. Until the evil squirrel. You?”

“Took me a while to get to sleep, but I must’ve been out pretty good for the fire to have gone down so much.” He chafed his hands and blew on them. “Have you been warm enough?”

“Yeah. But you haven’t. Your hands are freezing.” I touched one of them. “James! It’s like ice!”

“I’m okay,” he insisted, but the little bumps all over his skin said otherwise. “I’m going to add some wood to the fire and see if I can get it started again.”

“I’ll help.”

There were enough embers that a little more tinder was all it took to get things going, and a few minutes later, we went back to our sleeping bags. This time, I made sure to get there first so I could take the Batman one.

“My turn,” I said as James opened his mouth to protest.

He snatched it out of my hands, an unapologetic, kind thief.

“I’m dressed much more warmly than you, James. Feel my hands.” I put them out, and after a quick glance at me, he grasped one of them.

“It’s cold,” he said.

“It was warm a few minutes ago,” I argued.

Giving me a skeptical look, he climbed into the Batman bag.

I shot him a peeved look and shimmied into the one I’d been using. The fabric had gone cold, and a shiver ran down my entire body.

I shot a sidelong glance at James, but he’d noticed.

I got situated on my mat, which was still less than a foot from his, thanks to my fish-wriggle.

“It’ll take a few minutes to warm back up,” he said, settling back onto his mat. He lay back, his hands gripping the top of the Batman bag right at his chest like he was about to participate in a gunny-sack race.

Just looking at his fingers made me cold.

I felt so selfish, lying in James’s nice bag, wearing his sweats while he froze in a long-sleeved thermal and a glorified potato sack. My feet were beginning to warm up from the fire, which meant my bag would soon be a capsule of heat. The fire might warm the lower half of James’s body, but everything above his stomach would be in its own microclimate—legs in Arizona, arms in Siberia.

“There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep,” I said.

He turned to look at me. “Too cold?”

“I’m not, but you are. And I’ve taken your clothes and your sleeping bag. Switch me? I’ll sleep so much better without a guilty conscience, James.”

He chuckled. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I can’t stop.”

His eyes searched mine, and the humor ebbed. “I can’t put you in this sleeping bag, Sadie. I promise you, I’ll be fine. I’ve made it through much worse nights than this.”

I pressed my lips together in frustration for a couple of seconds, then pulled my makeshift pillow out from behind my head, shook the blanket out, then draped it over James’s chest and shoulders.

“Sadie.”

I lay back down on my mat, trying to stifle a wince as the back of my skull pressed into a rock now that my pillow was gone. I shifted my head to the side.

James raised up on his elbow and looked at me.

I met his gaze, hoping he’d take the hint that he wasn’t the only one who could be stubborn.