Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
“Okay, big brother. You’re the boss, take me inside.” She quirks a brow and her cheeks turn pink against the cooling rain.
“Summer...” My resolve is being tested. “It’s Hailey and the camp and...” I’m at a loss. I have no idea how to explain the turmoil inside me. “No fraternization. Remember?”
She cocks a brow. “You got all your fraternization out of your system last night?”
It sounds ridiculous even to me. What I want to tell her is the first time I saw her, I wanted to marry her. I never in my life thought of having a wife, but when she’s around, nothing make sense and at the same time, everything feels right.
I kick open the door as a roll of thunder rumbles and a flash of lightning punches through the sky.
Inside, we’re both dripping on the bare wood floor as she peels her soaking backpack off and tosses it out the front door onto the small porch, as I silently run through all the reasons I shouldn’t have brought her here, but none of them seem to make much of a difference. Because being here, with her, I’m in so far over my head, I can’t even see straight.
Inside, the damp, closed-up, musty smell mixes with Summer’s sweet cherry scent, making my heart thump in a primal drumbeat.
“You know that will never last, right?” she asks as I step into the small, dark space, shaking the water from my hair as I grab the crank light hanging on the wall next to the door and turn the handle in frantic circles until the dim yellow bulb illuminates the room. “The no fraternization thing, I mean. People are people, and you have a bunch of twenty-somethings stuck in wood shacks for the summer. Things are gonna happen. Nature takes its course, whether you want it to or not—ahhhhh!” Her chirpy speech turns to a scream as she stumbles back, a single finger pointed at the small window above the makeshift sink.
I drop the light, and it rolls like a spinning siren across the rough wood floor. Summer scurries next to me, tucking herself to my side in abject terror as I stare across the room, trying to figure out what’s scared her.
“What?” I say hoarsely, squinting toward where her finger points.
“There! Right there!” she’s practically climbing me like a tree now, to which I have zero objections except I hate to see her frightened. So much so, the same sort of anger I had when I found out Hailey was being bullied at school starts to rise inside me.
As the light on the floor rocks back and forth, I catch the shimmering, undeniable pattern of an intricate web slung between the window and a shelf next to the sink. In the center, there’s the distinctive shape of a fairly impressive wolf spider.
“Spiders are the devil,” she hisses as I ease her off my side, grabbing a piece of kindling left near the cast-iron wood stove and sweeping it through the outer strands of the web, wrapping it like cotton candy on the end of the stick, encasing the spider in its own web.
I spin on my boot, heading toward the door as she races in an arc around me to the faded brown sofa, jumping onto the center cushion. “What are you going to do with it?”
I shrug on a frown. “Put her outside. She’s not here to hurt you. I’m not going to kill her, just rehome her.”
“Her? How do you know it’s a her?”
I hold up the stick into the light as I pull the door open, seeing the inch-wide spider frantically trying to free herself from her own prison. “Females are bigger. A male wouldn’t be this big.” I gently toss the piece of wood out the door, knowing the rain will actually help release the web from around the spider, and she will make her way to safety somewhere else.
“Jesus. I do not belong out in the woods.” She shakes her head, palming the water back into her hair off her forehead, the ends of her braids seeping water in two points just above each of her tits. “New York rats I can take, but not spiders.”
I do a quick walk, poking my head into the small bedroom, making sure there are no uninvited guests, then unlock the metal cabinet that stows a small amount of food and water.
Summer falls with a bounce on her ass in the center of the sofa, crossing her ankle over her knee and working the laces loose on both her boots before setting them on the floor.
She wiggles, tucking her legs up under her perfect ass and watching me as I wander around like I’m lost.
I need to do the one thing I don’t want to do. Tell her this can’t happen. “Summer…it’s just…we can’t—” I start, not knowing how to continue. What I need to say feels like daggers in my throat.