Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
“I didn’t know your parents got divorced.”
“Yeah, a couple years ago.”
A burst of wind hit, sending sticks and pieces of bark flying into the shelter, along with more rain. Archer put his arm around me, shielding me but not touching me.
“Are you okay?” he asked when the wind gust died down.
“Yeah. What is this fresh hell, anyway? Like this game isn’t hard enough as it is.”
“It’s no good. I bet people will tap out tonight.”
“But not us?”
He smiled. “Not us. My partner’s a badass.”
I laughed lightly. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m just a broke teacher who will never have another chance at this kind of money again.”
“Are you shivering?”
“Yes.”
“Is it all about the money for you?” he asked.
“Mostly. But I also want to prove to myself and everyone else that I can do it.”
After a few beats of silence, he said, “You know what might warm us up?”
My heart raced with shock. That was shock, right? I wouldn’t allow it to be excitement.
“No,” I answered.
He laughed softly. “You mean no as in you don’t know, or no as in—”
“No as in we’re not having sex. I’d rather freeze to death.”
Another laugh. “Ouch. I wasn’t talking about that, actually.”
Well, shit, that was embarrassing.
“I can’t imagine anything else you could have been talking about,” I said.
“You’ve got sex on the brain,” he teased. “I know how you are.”
I rolled my eyes. “I do not have sex on the brain. There’s nothing less sexy than freezing your ass off in a monsoon.”
“You make it look good.”
My heart raced again, but I ignored his comment. He wanted to get me going, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“The whiskey, Lo. I’ve only had one sip of it.”
I scoffed. “Alcohol? After my hangover from hell? I don’t think so.”
“I won’t let you overdo it. I promise. Just enough to warm you up a little.”
I was exhausted, hungry, and on the very edge of defeated. A shot of whiskey might not help, but it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt, either.
“Okay,” I agreed.
Archer got up, put his sopping wet shoes on and retrieved the bottle of whiskey from one of our trunks. When he settled back inside the shelter, his shoes tracked in mud and I had no choice but to laugh.
“This is the dark side of paradise,” I said. “No one mentioned we’d need an ark and an appetite for warthog anuses.”
“Is that the plural for anus?” Archer grinned. “I feel like it should be ani.”
He unscrewed the top of the bottle and took a long swig before passing it to me.
“Hell yeah,” he said. “I’m warmer already.”
I took a generous sip, not feeling the burn until I’d passed the bottle back.
“Doesn’t feel bad,” I agreed.
We passed the bottle back and forth three times. Archer took a fourth drink after that and then screwed the cap back on the bottle.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s it.”
“How else are we going to pass this miserable night?”
A smile played on his lips. “There’s always Tell Me Something.”
I was feeling dangerously comfortable with him right now. In the relentless rain, with nothing but whiskey in my belly, it was hard not to.
“Okay then, tell me something,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself in an effort to stop shivering.
He paused a moment before saying, “My grandpa loved you. He…” He looked out the front of our shelter at the raging storm. “He really loved you.”
My eyes burned with unshed tears. “I loved him, too. Thank you for telling me that.”
“Your turn,” he said. “Tell me something.”
“I’m afraid I’ll never get to have kids,” I admitted, blurting the words out before I’d thought about them. “Sometimes I think about using a sperm donor and having them on my own, without a partner.”
In the moonlight, I could see Archer’s eyes widening comically. He looked so shocked. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. It’s one of the reasons I want to win the money so badly. Insurance doesn’t cover much.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it. Just as he opened his mouth a second time, another powerful blast of wind hit the front of our shelter. The crack of a branch snapping off a tree nearby sent a wave of fear through me.
“Shit, we lost the tarp,” Archer said. “I need to go after it.”
I looked up. The tarp that had kept the worst of the rain from leaking in through the roof of our shelter was, in fact, gone. But with the storm so bad that trees were falling over and losing branches, I didn’t want Archer to risk getting hurt over a tarp.
“No.” I reached out and touched his forearm. “Stay here.”
“Are you scared?”
I stopped myself from outright lying and telling him of course I wasn’t scared. Lack of sleep and food had brought me to a place where my defenses were completely down.