Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
I pick up my phone and see it’s nine am.
Ugh.
I need to get into the house, and I need to do it sooner rather than later, before the day is away from me completely. I spend a solid half hour sitting in the car, working up the energy to face the inside of that house again. I scroll mindlessly, trying to trick my brain into believing I can delay this day a little longer, but I know there is no avoiding it.
I need to get to work.
First things first, I need food and caffeine. There’s a gas station convenience store about two miles down the road. It’s more a relic than an actual store—faded Coke sign, a gravel parking lot, a single slot machine inside, and a cashier who smells like tobacco. I shuffle in, buy a coffee that tastes mainly of burnt disappointment, and a bagel that actually looks semi-fresh. I also get some bleach, paper towels, rubber gloves, and a big black trash bag, because if I’m going to war with the kitchen, I’m not coming unarmed.
I eat the bagel in the car on the way back, knowing I really need to get myself some better food. Which is why I have decided the kitchen needs to be done first. I need to cook. By the time I get back, it’s hotter, cloudless, the whole world reduced to a blinding white haze broken up by green mountains. I get out, slide on the dish gloves, and let myself in, already holding my breath.
It smells so bad in here that I’m almost scared about what I might find in the kitchen. Hell, there is probably years-old food rotting in the darkest corners. Taking a deep breath, I get to work. I start by blasting every fly I can with the bleached sponge, chasing them around the counter. The first trash bag fills up with rotting food in record time. I try not to retch, but it’s a losing battle.
That’s when it happens.
I’m reaching over the sink, hiking up my shirt sleeve to yank out what looks like an entire mop’s head of cobweb, when I feel something sharp on my finger. Like a bee sting, but meaner. At first, it’s nothing—just a pinch. But two seconds later, my whole hand goes hot, then numb, and when I look, there’s a fat black spider sitting almost innocently in the sink.
Oh. My. God.
My breathing goes tight. I stand there, frozen, clutching my finger, waiting for my face to melt off or my mouth to go slack from venom. It’s probably nothing, but my uncle was always telling stories about brown recluses. I walk in circles for a minute, then reach for my phone with my good hand and call Knox. The phone rings eight times before he finally answers.
“Yeah?”
He sounds grumpy, maybe hungover, but alive.
“I got bit by a spider in the kitchen,” I say. “I think it might have been poisonous. My finger already feels weird. I think this is the end. I need you to come before I pass out, shriveling into nothing on this kitchen floor.”
He goes quiet, and then makes a sound that is something between a snort and a laugh. I can hear something in the background, and I could swear it is a girl giggling. Ugh. He is no doubt in the bed, surrounded by two or three gorgeous women, and I’m here, dirty, fighting for my life.
“You want me to come look?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe? I just don’t want to, like, die in my sleep.”
“Yeah, you sound like you’re on death’s door,” he says, dry. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
I hang up. My finger is starting to throb, purple and swollen at the tip. I have the sudden urge to Google “spider bite necrosis” but stop myself, because I’ll only psych myself out more. Instead, I sit on the porch and alternate between staring at my hand and at the cows in the paddock, who look unfazed by the entire ordeal.
Knox shows up exactly seventeen minutes later, because of course he does, and he’s wearing sunglasses and a tight black tee, no leather jacket, and I can’t help but notice the way it clings to his large, muscled body. He stops at the top of the steps, looking down at my hand.
“Let’s see it,” he says, and I hold out my finger. He holds my hand in both of his, and for a second, I’m weirdly aware of how warm his skin is, how close his knuckles are to mine.
He inspects it like a real doctor, turning my wrist, squinting at the bite.
“Show me the nest.”
I stand, walking into the house, and he follows. I point to the sink, and he goes over, studying it.
“It’s not a brown recluse, and you’re not going to die. It’s just a shitty house spider. It will hurt for a couple of hours, then be good.”