Page 53 of The Unlikely Pair

I’m almost certain that’s heat in his eyes.

I push the thought away as I wrap myself in my survival blanket and then lean down to rummage in the survival kit for the fire-making materials.

“The only fires I’ve ever lit have been metaphorical ones,” I say. “Don’t they say that when you’re in government, your job is to put out fires, and when you’re in opposition, your job is to light them?”

“Then, as a Labour politician, you better start working on your fire-starting technique,” Harry retorts.

“I’m on it.” I triumphantly hold up the ferro rod from the multitool.

“Have you ever made a fire before?” Harry asks skeptically.

“It’s fire, Harry. Humankind has been successfully making fire for hundreds of thousands of years. It can’t be that difficult.”

Famous last words.

My cavalier attitude obviously pissed off the fire gods because they have decided to prove to me that lighting a fire is actually extremely difficult.

My hands are numb and trying to strike ferro rod with the metal produces nothing but a few pathetic sparks, which the wind snatches before they can ignite the dried pine needles and moss we’ve gathered.

“How can this be so hard? It’s just basic physics,” I grit out between frantic strikes, my numb fingers slipping.

Sparks burst wildly this time, nearly singing my eyebrows, but fail to catch the tinder.

“You need better tinder,” Harry says.

“I definitely think society needs a better version of Tinder. But I’m not sure now is the time for scouting for a hookup,” I reply.

He rolls his eyes. “Better tinder material,” he says as he reaches for the survival kit. “We can unravel the paracord and use it as tinder material.”

“Won’t we need it for something else?”

“There’s no point saving it if we die of hypothermia now.”

He has a point.

We unravel the strands of the paracord. Harry is proven correct that it makes better tinder material, as the paracord ignites on my first strike of the rod.

But in our excitement, we add too many twigs, and our baby fire quickly goes out.

My throat grows thick as I stare at the blackened paracord.

“Fuck,” I say.

“We’ll need to build it up more slowly, adding pine needles first,” Harry suggests.

“All right. Let’s try that.”

We unravel some more paracord, and my next strike ignites it again.

“Slowly, slowly,” Harry coaxes as we hunch over the fire, adding pine needles one by one.

“Come on, little fire,” I croon. “You want to grow up big and strong, don’t you? Eat those pine needles. That’s it. Good fire.”

A sudden gust of wind buffets our tiny flame.

Harry and I both hold our hands up instinctively to shield it.

My fingertips touch his fingertips, and a weird jolt goes through me. The spark that jumps between us has nothing to do with the fire we’re building.