Page 30 of The Unlikely Pair

“We’ll manage. I saw some survival blankets in the kit. They will help us retain heat.”

“Great. Glorified tinfoil is going to be our savior.”

“We can move around if we need to keep our blood flowing.”

“Oh, a night of pacing and shivering. How delightful. And here I thought our little jaunt in the woods couldn’t get any better.”

“Our body heat should hopefully be enough to keep us warm.” Harry studiously ignores my sarcasm. “We’ll need to find something to insulate the ground we sleep on, maybe use the pine needles?”

“I guess there’s a chance we could rummage up a few pine needles from around here,” I say, taking an exaggerated look around the clearing where there is, of course, pretty much nothing besides pine needles.

Harry’s lips don’t even twitch, reinforcing my idea that Harry’s sense of humor was amputated at birth. Perhaps a sense of humor is one of the casualties of the inbreeding in the British aristocracy?

“I’m open to changing our strategy if we discover the warmth we generate is insufficient,” he says.

Fuck. I’m tempted to mock his words.

I’m open to changing our strategy if we discover the warmth we generate is insufficient.Who actually talks like that?

“You mean, we’ll light a fire if we begin to freeze to death?” I say.

“Yes, that is what I meant. Well done for having grasped it,” he says crisply.

“I probably deserve a medal for having grasped an explanation of yours, given most of the Conservative rhetoric is nonsensical,” I say.

“I, of course, have a different opinion of what is nonsense in the political discourse between us,” he says.

I have a flashback to some of the arguments Harry and I have had over the years, him always standing ramrod straight,looking down his nose at me like I’ve just suggested we solve world hunger with a global pizza party.

He’s doing it now, and despite what we’ve been through today, somehow, Harry Matheson still has that air of arrogance and untouchability. We had to crawl on the ground earlier, and while his suit jacket and trousers definitely look worse for wear, whatever hair product he uses is obviously super strength because his hair is still immaculate. He’s still wearing his tie, perfectly knotted. And nothing about his superior expression has changed.

I have an overwhelming urge to grab his shoulders and start shaking him, just to see if I can ruffle some of that composure. I want reassurance that I’m not the only one feeling absolute terror and panic right now.

But Harry Matheson is more likely to start hula hooping than share his actual emotions.

So, I choose to ignore Harry as much as I can as I start scouting around the clearing, gathering handfuls of pine needles.

We set up beds for ourselves on either side of my unlit pile of firewood.

Harry takes a survival blanket from the kit and retreats to his mound of pine needles. The light is rapidly diminishing now, so Harry is reduced to an indistinct blob a few feet away.

Which is my preferred view of Harry Matheson, to be honest.

I rip the survival blanket from the packaging and wrap it around myself. It crinkles and rustles like a crisp packet in a quiet theater, announcing my every move to the world. The reflective surface makes me feel like a human-sized burrito.

“Somehow, this campfire lacks a certain ambiance,” I say.

I’m sure I hear a small snort from Harry, but it could just be the wind.

The noises in the forest seem amplified in the dark. Every snap of a twig and rustle of leaves sends my heart racing. I always thought darkness was just the absence of light, but out here, it feels more like a presence—a looming, all-encompassing entity.

I huddle in my survival blanket, and my thoughts flit back to London. I’m sure news our plane didn’t arrive in Oslo is out by now. My head hurts to imagine what headlines the tabloids will generate about our disappearance.

“What do you think is going on back at home?” I ask abruptly.

The rustling of a survival blanket floats across the unlit bonfire.

“I’m sure the Foreign Office is mustering every resource to find us,” Harry replies finally. “I guess the good thing about both of us being missing is there will be no cross-party squabbling about the cost of a search effort. There will be a united effort to bring us home.”