Summary: What happens when Julie Gaffney and Gunnar Stahl are accidentally locked together in a cold room overnight, only to be "rescued" by Dean Portman? The possibilities are endless. Julie's POV. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and no money is made. I think that just about covers it.
Author's Note: Hello again! Many thanks to those who reviewed the first chapter, and also for their recommendations. I quite enjoyed it! But I will keep you here no longer and release you to relish chapter two. I hope it lives up to your expectations. Enjoy!
Sympathy for the Icelanders: Part I
Frozen Hell - Resignation
The next half-hour following our first abrasive encounter was relatively silent, a fact which I appreciated for about the first five minutes as my temper cooled. After that, however, it was not so pleasant. Let's just say that the next time I hear someone talk about "awkward silences," I'm going to tell them that they "have no idea."
I made a sort of makeshift bench by shoving several crates of similar size up against the wall so I could sit and lean back in at least some comfort. Gunnar had started meandering throughout the storeroom, doing or looking for God knows what, and he would periodically wander into my line of sight. I looked away whenever he did.
Not only did I wish to avoid eye contact with him at all costs, but I had found to my utter dismay that my accursed "feminine instincts" were choosing the worst possible time to start acting up. It was just getting hard not to notice certain things, if you get my meaning. You see, when everyone's wearing a helmet, it's difficult to tell one person from another without help from the name and number on their back.
But now, with no helmets and not much else to look at, I was becoming reluctantly aware of just how…attractive my hell-mate really was. I can assure you, it was not a pleasant revelation. But still, he just had one of those faces that you wanted to look at. I even found myself observing that his hair wasn't the sort of pale, bleached blonde one might expect from a Scandinavian. It was more of a dark honey color – almost brown.
No, no, no! Don't do this. You cannot think he's cute! I scolded myself internally. Remember what a conspiracy it was when Coach Bombay went out for ice cream with that Icelandic trainer? Just think of how ashamed you'd be if your teammates knew what was going on in your head right now!
And yet, there I was – noticing it more and more despite myself. This was truly not a night to remember.
But as the minutes ticked by, I was struck by yet another unwelcome and unsettling revelation. It was getting colder. Or, at least I thought it was. If the temperature had dropped, it had done so gradually; I just hoped it wouldn't be a progressive trend. But after a while, I simply couldn't ignore it any longer.
"Is it just me, or is it getting colder in here?" I voiced aloud the next time Gunnar became visible to me.
He paused in his traipsing and turned to look at me. Since I had been the one to ask the question, I found myself forced to meet his eyes again.
"It is colder," he confirmed. "I would guess that we are right underneath the ice rink, and that the heat is turned off at night when no one is here."
"Well, we're here," I grumbled, fully aware of how immature I must have sounded; but frankly, I didn't care. It was getting downright chilly in there, and when we finally got out, I had every intention of alerting the proper authorities about the near-freezing conditions of this storeroom. And if my companion was correct, it was bound to only get worse as the night wore on.
This was not cool. Cold, yes, but not cool. Who could've known I'd be needing anything heavier than a T-shirt when I first embarked on this little endeavor? At least Gunnar still had his jacket; being Icelandic, it was probably second nature for him not to go anywhere without an extra layer of clothing.
I shivered involuntarily and furiously rubbed my hands up and down my bare arms to keep them warm. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, willing the cold to go away, when suddenly I felt something soft and warm drop down over my shoulders. My eyelids fluttered open, and sure enough, there to my own bemusement was a black sports jacket – his jacket.
Gunnar Stahl had just given me his jacket. I hadn't asked for it, hadn't even considered asking. Yet there was no denying it: against all odds, he'd actually elected the "gentlemanly" course of action.
I opened my mouth to thank him, however grudgingly, but he had already moved away, his back to me. So I let it go. The jacket was blessedly warm, though – not so much because it was a heavy material, but because his body heat still lingered on the inside. I had to admit, it was quite nice. I pulled the garment tighter around myself, half expecting it to smell like my brothers' old gym clothes back home, but such was not the case. It actually smelled kind of nice. Not an obnoxious overdose of cologne type of smell…just clean and fresh. It had probably just come out of the laundry, so I could at least thank my lucky stars for that!
Time crawled onward while I sat, and he paced. To be honest, he was making me quite dizzy, and the silence was becoming oppressive.
"So," I ventured at length, "how do you like L.A. so far?"
That got him to stop, at the very least, but his response was little more than an indifferent shrug. "It's too hot."
"Ah, I see." That wasn't surprising. Come on, Julie. Keep him talking! Find some common ground. "Um, what kind of music do you listen to?" I mean, come on, all teenagers like music. Right?
Nevertheless, the question seemed to catch him off guard. My companion studied me closely for a moment, no doubt trying to discern my motives for initiating such random conversation. But he still indulged me by listing a few names, most of which I could never remember, much less pronounce. Icelandic groups, of course.
"I don't think I've heard of any of them," I stammered. Gosh, this was awkward! "Anything a little more universal, perhaps?"
"U2," he tried again.
Well, there you go. I suppose it's hard to get much more "universal" than Bono. But no matter what questions I asked, his answers were always minimal, and I was beginning to feel that dragging on the conversation like this was going to be every bit as effective as a stick-figure goalie. (Sorry, that was one of my old coach's favorite sayings.) But suffice to say, carrying on a one-sided discussion had become increasingly difficult, and I was on the verge of forgetting the whole thing.
"Why do you play goalie?"
As you can imagine, his question took me completely by surprise. "I'm sorry?"
"Why did you choose to play goalie?" he repeated, resuming his previous stance of leaning against the wall while facing me. And believe it or not, he seemed genuinely interested in hearing my answer.
"Well," I began, "my older brothers both play hockey, and when they were younger, they'd want me to fill in as goalie so they could practice. I guess you could say I didn't really 'choose' it at all. I just played it often enough that I got pretty good, and I enjoyed it even more when I joined an actual team in Maine."
He paused. "I don't think I could do that."
"Do what?"
"Play goalie. I have never understood how you can stay in one place for the entire game; how you can stay behind while your teammates go up and attack the net. I do not think I could."
Did I detect a hint of admiration there? I must be imagining things.
"Well," I reasoned slowly, "you're a natural scorer." Natural everything, come to think of it. He and Sanderson had played some pretty wicked defense together, too. Defense: a goalie's best friend.
But hey, at least we were talking now, and it wasn't terribly tense! He'd practically let his guard down as we moved on to a topic of shared interest. Apparently I should've just stuck with hockey from the start.
"My brother is twenty-one," Gunnar continued. "He plays…I believe you call it 'handball.' It's popular in Iceland, and he is very good. But I wanted to do something different."
I nodded, hoping to encourage him on. Though the Icelander had struggled with a couple of words so far in our time together, his English really wasn't all that bad. He'd been harder to understand earlier, when his temper had been provoked.
And to my continued amazement, he did speak again. He even switched subjects on me. "Is there any chance someone will soon realize you are gone?"
He was still preoccupied with getting out of this hell-hole, and to be honest, I didn't blame him. Perhaps that's what he'd been mulling over the whole time he was pacing.
I opened my mouth, about to say that my roommate should have already noticed, but the words died on my lips in horrid realization.
"My roommate thinks I was going to see our team tutor about something before coming back to the room. She probably fell asleep and didn't worry about my not being there. We'll have to hope she wakes up and sees I'm still missing."
Gunnar muttered under his breath in Icelandic a bit before reverting back to English. "At least your roommate will notice. Unless we're still trapped here at six-thirty tomorrow, Olaf won't even know I'm gone. He'll wake up a little after six and think I've just gone on to practice ahead of him. That happens often."
"Your practice is at six-thirty tomorrow morning?"
"Yah, from six-thirty until nine. And then we have a game at three."
I hate to admit it, but that almost made me feel sorry for him. "Our practice time isn't until one in the afternoon, so at least I'll still be able to get some sleep beforehand. What are you gonna do?"
He sighed and quickly ran a hand through his hair. "I am hoping this room will open back up at six, so I can go straight to practice."
"On no sleep? And after your coach already put you through one grueling routine today?" This guy was seriously nuts! Or unhealthily obsessed, take your pick. "What about your game?"
"I should be able to catch a few hours of sleep in between."
"And I suppose you could down a gallon of coffee to get you through practice, too," I chuckled.
"At home maybe," he differed. "But not here. Your coffee in America is too weak."
I briefly weighed whether or not that was a point worth arguing, until I remembered reading somewhere that coffee in Europe was generally much stronger than we Americans were accustomed to. So I ignored the challenge.
What I could not ignore, unfortunately, was that as we'd talked, the temperature in the room had continued its steady decline. I shivered again, wrapping my arms around my stomach for warmth.
Gunnar went back to walking again when our conversation dwindled, but this time there appeared to be a real purpose to it. He was looking for something, that much was clear. Would it get him angry again if I asked? Now, mind you, it's not that I was scared of him. Far from it. But I had come to realize in the past few minutes that he made a much more agreeable companion when he wasn't in a bad mood. Hmph. He was probably thinking the same thing about me.
"Do you think they keep any food in here?" he asked suddenly, answering my unvoiced question.
I bit my lip and truthfully replied, "I don't know. I didn't see any when I was here before, but I wasn't exactly looking for it, either."
He started rummaging through boxes. "I can take an early practice without sleep, but not without something to eat."
I wished him well in his search. Suffering the wrath of Wolf Stansson on zero sleep and an empty stomach was hardly a fate I could wish upon him after he'd given me his jacket and was now walking around in short sleeves. But on the other hand, I was getting hungry myself, and if he found anything, I hoped there would be enough to share.
The familiar wrinkling of a food wrapper captured my attention. "Find something?"
Gunnar walked back over to me, looking not nearly as pleased as I'd thought he might. He held up a food bar of some kind in each hand for inspection before tossing one over to me. I hadn't expected it, but naturally "The Cat" caught it.
I quickly inspected the wrapper, and my appetite vanished. It was a protein bar – a really, really old protein bar that I knew could not possibly have been any good even on the day it was brand new. I turned it over in my hands, in search of an expiration date.
"April 12, 1992? These things expired over two years ago!" I chucked it back at him without warning and was pleasantly surprised when he caught it easily. "So thanks, but I think I'll pass. I can starve until breakfast."
"You're lucky." He opened one, and my wonder grew.
"Wait a second, you're not actually going to eat that, are you?"
"I won't survive tomorrow without it." But when he peeled back the wrapper and caught a glimpse of exactly what he'd be eating, I could've sworn he looked almost fearful. The "protein bar" looked every bit as appetizing as a block of wood, and probably tasted about the same.
He raised the bar to his lips, and I literally braced myself, praying that he wouldn't keel over dead or become violently ill from food poisoning. He forced down one bite, and at that point, I think I really did feel sorry for him. He nearly gagged, his expression perfectly reminiscent of something you would see in any comedy film.
"Good?" I prompted, in response to which he simply glared at me. I couldn't blame him. That bar had to be one of the most disgusting "edible" things I'd ever seen in my life. Yet slowly but surely, Gunnar ate the entire thing. The look on his face as he choked it down was almost enough to make me nauseous.
"You're not gonna be sick now, are you?" I asked when he had finished.
"No." He swallowed thickly. "But I think I will look for some water."
"Good idea," I chuckled, "and while you're at it, could you keep your eyes open for a blanket? It's like a refrigerator in here."
He didn't reply, only went about his search, and I glanced down at my watch. Two a.m. Boy, that was just great. It was freezing cold, there appeared little chance of being "rescued" before morning, and I was exhausted. If it hadn't been so darn cold, I would gladly have used Gunnar's jacket as a pillow. And I could only imagine how he felt. At least our coach was over his evil dictator phase by now.
I closed my eyes, briefly debating the wisdom of falling asleep, when my Icelandic prison-mate unexpectedly returned and dropped something down over top of me without ceremony.
"Here," he announced, sounding rather proud of his discovery. "It's no blanket, but it can't hurt."
It was a plastic tarp – the kind you cover your car with to keep frost from building on it. But if it works for cars…
I wrapped myself up in the thing as best I could, finding to my chagrin that it was already icy cold itself. Definitely not a blanket! I shivered violently, the movement visible despite my best efforts to conceal it.
"You should move around a bit," Gunnar suggested, his keen eyes catching my shudder. "It might help keep you warmer."
Ah, so he hadn't just been restless this whole time. He'd actually been trying to keep warm, and still was now.
"How cold do you think it is?" I'm not sure why I asked him that. Being from Iceland, I guess I just assumed he was an expert.
He stopped pacing but kept rubbing his hands together for warmth, almost subconsciously, and the extremities of his face were gradually turning red. I'm sure the same could be said of my nose and ears.
"I think it is above freezing, but not by much. There was frost on that tarp when I found it."
I shivered again. No wonder this darn thing was so cold! But as he spoke, Gunnar sounded genuinely worried, much more so than he had before when I'd first mentioned the dropping temperatures; and it was his worry that concerned me. He was from Iceland, for crying out loud!
"So, what about you?" I questioned hesitantly. "You can't be any warmer than I am."
"I'll be fine." He drew a deep breath followed by a long sigh, and we both watched in disbelief when a small misty cloud from his breath became visible in the air.
"Fine?" I echoed, incredulous. "Look, Gunnar, you may be from Iceland, but that doesn't exactly mean you're made of whale blubber." Now it was my turn to sigh, the exhalation likewise visible. "I can't believe there isn't a heater or anything like that in here."
"Body heat is as good as any." Said only after a moment's pause, the words were spoken as a statement but clearly intended as a question.
Body heat. Hmm, not very many interpretations to that, are there? It was ridiculous, an utterly absurd suggestion! There was no way I could agree to it. Was there?
I looked back up to study his face. He hadn't reiterated the request, only continued to watch me, gauging my reaction with those cold blue eyes. My own eyes met his and narrowed. There had been no lewd insinuation in his voice, at least that I could tell. But there was something almost akin to pleading in his eyes – shameless, yet still innocent. Was it possible he was just that cold? I probably was, if only I'd let myself admit it.
So I nodded. Didn't say anything – but nodded.
He came over and sat down close beside me without a word, and once again, I had to fight back those hateful hormones that unleashed a swarm of butterflies into my stomach. Not only was Gunnar heavenly warm, he was…(oh, gosh, how can I say this?)…solid. You see, the tricky thing about hockey players is that when you only see them in full gear, it's virtually impossible to tell what kind of build they have. All the pads make them look exactly alike! If it wasn't for the braid sticking out the back of her head, you'd never even be able to tell that Connie was a girl when she played.
Now, considering what I knew of him already, I really shouldn't have been surprised. No doubt Stansson required all of his players to be in tip-top shape, keeping the "whale blubber," as I'd called it, to a minimum.
We rearranged the tarp over ourselves, and it actually seemed to do some good now that there was another body under it with me. At that point, I have to admit, I was honestly glad to have him there. Shows you just how desperate I was, huh?
I felt him relax a little next to me as he likewise took in our shared warmth. Our breathing formed little clouds together; it was rather mesmerizing, especially since I didn't particularly care to look over and catch his eye at the moment. But oh, he was warm!
Against my better judgment – and I needn't add, my conscience – I found myself inching closer to him so that our legs and shoulders touched. If it made him uncomfortable, he didn't say anything. And if I was uncomfortable when I felt his arm reaching across my shoulders, I didn't say anything, either. It was simply too wonderful being warm. And sleepy.
My head slumped to lean against his shoulder just as I felt the weight of his head land gently on top of mine. Good Lord, how were we ever going to play against each other again after a night like this? My last thought as I fell asleep was how incredibly wrong this would look if anyone were actually to discover us like we'd been hoping for just a few moments earlier.
Author's End Note: Hmm, I think it's pretty safe to say that I'm sucker for the fluff-stuff. But gosh, that was fun! And no, it's not over yet. There's one more segment still to come, with the entrance of our favorite Bash Brother. See you then!