Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“I brought stuff to make good coffee, but you have a point.” I nod, exhaling an easier breath. “Okay. So, we’ll put a pin in the real talk until tomorrow.”
And if I refuse to let myself come at least once tomorrow, maybe that pin lasts longer than a night…
“Until tomorrow.” He spins me in a slow circle that makes me feel even lighter. “Tonight, we’re the Mudbug Mating Call champions. And you know what that means.”
I grin. “No clue.”
“It means we have to take an obnoxious number of selfies in our sexy crowns.”
“And then ditch the crowns somewhere funny before we go to bed?” I ask. “I can’t see myself wanting to look at this monstrosity again, can you?”
“Fuck no,” he says. “Race you to the butter mudbug sculpture for selfie number one?”
I giggle. “No racing, psycho. I don’t race men in knee braces. But yeah, we’d better hurry. Before we lose the last of the daylight.”
We spend the next half hour taking progressively more unhinged selfies—in front of the butter sculpture, then by the stage where we put on our award-winning performances, then with Crawly, the giant stuffed crawfish in the beer tent. By the time we’re done, we’re both laughing our asses off, just two idiots at a festival, goofing off and pretending tomorrow isn’t coming.
But it is.
Tomorrow always comes.
And when it does, I’ll have to decide if I’m brave enough to stop running from the one person who makes me want to stay.
Chapter
Fourteen
PARKER
Something scratches against the truck bed liner. The sound pulls me from a dream about hot tubs and promises I plan to keep.
Scratch. Scratch. Scuttle.
My eyes open to darkness. The air mattress lists hard to the left—we definitely should have spent more on the self-inflating kind. My hip digs into the truck bed through the deflated plastic. Makena presses against my right side, one arm flung across my chest, her breath warm against my neck. She smells like bug spray and the sandalwood soap she used at the campground shower, mixed with that Makena smell that makes me want to pull her closer despite the heat.
The scratching comes again.
Closer this time…
“Mack,” I whisper. My voice rasps from too much cheering at crawfish races. “Hey, Mack.”
She mumbles something that sounds like “five more biscuits” and burrows deeper into my armpit. Her hair tickles my chin. Any other time, I’d be thrilled about the full-body contact, but something definitely just moved near our feet.
I reach for my phone, trying not to jostle her. The screen blinds me for a second—3:27 a.m. The witching hour.
That doesn’t seem good…
“Makena.” I shake her shoulder gently. “Wake up. We’ve got company.”
“Mmph. Tell them we’re closed.” Her leg slides higher across mine, and now I’m distracted for entirely different reasons.
But then, suddenly, she goes from unconscious to airborne in half a second, her knee barely missing my balls as she scrambles upright. “Holy shit, what the fuck was that?”
“I think there’s a—”
“Oh my God! My foot! Something touched my foot! With its creepy little legs!” She grabs my arm hard enough to leave marks. Her voice drops to a rough whisper as she hisses, “Parker, there’s something in here.”
“I know. That’s what I was trying to tell you.” I finally get the flashlight on. The beam cuts through the darkness, illuminating our chaos—tangled blankets, the cooler down by our feet, Makena’s hair wild around her face. She’s wearing one of my old t-shirts she stole for sleeping and not much else.
Looks like those shorts she had on when we went to bed vanished sometime in the night…
“There!” She points toward the corner near our feet. “Shine it there!”
I angle the light, and we both freeze.
A massive crawfish sits next to my tote bag, claws raised like it’s ready to start something. It’s got to be one of the racers from yesterday, bred for size and speed, ‘cause it’s way bigger than any wild crawfish has a right to be.
“How…” Makena breathes. “How did it get up here?”
The truck bed is a good four feet off the ground. I eye our uninvited guest with new respect. “I don’t know. Climbed? Flew? Teleported?”
“This isn’t funny, Parker.” But her voice cracks on a laugh. “There’s a fucking lobster in our bed!”
“Crawfish,” I correct. “Louisiana lobster, if you want to get fancy.”
“I don’t want to get fancy. I want to get it out!” She releases my arm to grab my flip-flop from beside the mattress. “What if there are more? What if they’re organizing?”
The crawfish starts scuttling toward our pillows, including the separation pillow that’s now just another casualty of a sleep gone awry. Its claws click against the truck bed liner—a weirdly menacing sound in the dead of night.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Makena lunges, flip-flop raised like a club. She swings and misses, her momentum carrying her forward until she face-plants into the separation pillow with a muffled “Fuck!”