Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 21010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 21010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 105(@200wpm)___ 84(@250wpm)___ 70(@300wpm)
“Born and raised in Burly, huh?”
“Yep,” she says. “I thought urban legends always had to have a bit of truth to them, so it’s always scared me off of the maze.”
“It’s all bullshit. Besides, if any ghosts show up, I’ll protect you.”
“Lots of tough talk coming from a guy dressed as a taco.”
“My father taught me to always have plenty of hot sauce ready for whatever comes your way. And to be ready to apply it liberally if people want to make things spicier.” I do a bit of shadow boxing to drive my metaphor home.
“I’m somehow doubting he put it like that. My dad just made sure I was ready to kick a guy in the nads if he tried something. Didn’t want any daughter of his unable to defend herself.”
“Good. Everyone should be able to take care of themselves. But they also shouldn’t be afraid to find strength and comfort in others.”
“Yeah. Good values. Guess they’re Burly values. In a tiny town like this, you can’t stand to have a lot of enemies when something goes wrong.”
“You also gotta know who your enemies are, though. They are closer than ever in a small town so you gotta be on your guard.”
Dad got along with everyone pretty well. Mostly. He says he can count on one hand the people he absolutely can’t stand who call Burly home. He usually expresses it by saying what he wouldn’t do if he saw they were on fire.
We travel deeper into the maze. I know how they normally set it up, but I’m deliberately making wrong turns. The longer we’re in here, the more I can get to know the avocado that my taco so direly needs.
It isn’t long until we’re totally alone.
“You know, I’d love to see more of you than some googly eyes on a vegetable, Nicole.”
“Fruit.”
“Fruit, whatever. And I’m sure you’d like to see what’s behind these olives and tomatoes, too.”
“I would, I think.” It’s amazing how much our body language communicates even when we are nearly fully covered like this. I want her badly. Even if she turns out to be the mom with the awesome skin routine, it’s going to be hard for me to just walk away from how she’s making me feel.
“Who goes first?” I ask.
“Why don’t we take them off together?”
“Count of three?”
“Sounds good to me.”
We prepare to remove the tops of the costumes. For me, it’s the top fifth of the taco, and for her, the narrow part of the avocado. The heads are zipped on for quick removal, I guess in case the person behind the mascot has to identify themselves.
“One... Two... Three...”
The sound of unzipping follows and I pull the top of my costume off, my face welcoming the cool air of the autumn night after so much time covered.
She takes hers off too.
And what I see?
Well, uh...
As common a name as Nicole is, it still should have set off alarms in me.
I stare at her. Those light blonde locks of hair dangling around her face, those soft blue eyes. She’s beautiful.
But she’s also Nicole McCormick.
Of the Burly McCormick family. The ones who run the farm next to the Rowdys.
The ones who one hundred years ago had a massive shootout that resulted in the death of a Rowdy. “Do... do you think you could put the avocado costume back on?”
Her eyes narrow at me. “You first.”
2
NICOLE
The Rowdys are as redneck as they come. They give rural people a bad name. They marry their cousins and creepily play banjos alongside the river. They have improper relations with their cows, and that’s why we go out of our way to buy all our meat in the city.
I heard these stories endlessly growing up. It all seems overblown, but my father fully believes it. He’s not the type to be lured in by something that’s a blatant lie, so I always thought there has to be something to the stories. That the Rowdys just have to be bad people.
I lack firsthand knowledge, though. My father is very rich, our farm claiming a good quarter of Burly County land. I went to a private boarding school, never meeting the Rowdy boys in the classroom, despite being about the same age as a lot of them. I saw them around town growing up, but my mother always diverted me away from them, saying she was afraid they’d start something.
They seemed like normal enough kids to my young eyes. Nelson? The one who stood in front of me right now? I thought he was kind of cute even back in the day, but I didn’t let myself go down that path. Just because you think someone’s cute doesn’t mean you ignore everything else about them.
Like the rumors about what they do to their cows and their family being more inbred than the Hapsburg Dynasty.