Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
“Give it here,” he said, and I laughed again, tripping over something on the forest floor and flailing backward, landing on the soft backpack I was wearing and wheezing out another laugh.
“Never!” I repeated, attempting to bring the almond to my mouth again. Tuck lowered himself on top of me and grabbed my wrist, halting the almond near my mouth. We wrestled, fighting for the almond as I laughed and squirmed, the grin on Tuck’s face wolfish with excitement.
He pinned my arm and went toward the almond with his mouth as I laughed and struggled, both of us panting and writhing in ways that were dialing my sexual frustration up to a hundred. But I couldn’t deny that I loved it. Fighting with Tuck had always been thrilling, and apparently, I’d never grown out of it. And, if his flushed face and rapid breathing were any indication, he felt the same way. He bit off the almond and I let out a gasp of outrage before he brought his face up, the piece of almond between his straight white teeth. I lifted my hand, realizing he’d split it in half.
“Humph,” I said, and popped the other half in my mouth, both of us chewing and smiling stupidly at each other. “Consider that your payment for helping me get home,” I muttered.
“Paid in full,” he said. Then he chuckled and got off me and held out his hand to help me up.
“Good, now get us out of—” I spotted something over his shoulder. “Oh my gosh, Tuck, look.”
He turned, peering at the spot where I’d pointed. “A tree house.”
I moved around him, hopping over a rotting trunk and rounding a feathery fir, its branches tickling my cheek as I passed. The ladder looked sturdy and didn’t wobble when I shook it, and so I looked over my shoulder at Tuck who had arrived on my heels. “I’m going up.”
“Careful,” he said.
I quickly climbed the ladder, and then crawled into the small space that was a platform surrounded by four short walls that you could hide behind or look over. Just beyond, I could see a row of roofs, proving we weren’t so lost after all.
A cardboard box sat near the corner, and I moved toward it as I heard the sound of Tuck ascending behind me. I looked inside the box and let out a sound of glee.
“What is it?” Tuck asked.
I pulled one of the items out of the box and held it up. “Crackers,” I said and then removed a couple more things. “Spray cheese,” I squeaked, close to crying with joy. “And marshmallows. Beautiful, glorious marshmallows.”
thirty-three
Tuck
“You’re kidding.” But I could clearly see she wasn’t. Holy shit. We’d come across a bounty. I’d been ravenous all day in more ways than I wanted to think about, not able to satisfy any of my myriad cravings. Walking had been a constant torture considering my serious case of blue balls.
I hadn’t even realized how much I was suppressing my attraction to Emily while Charlie was around. Because the moment he went away, and even in the midst of danger and uncertainty, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it’d be like to kiss her and feel her softness beneath me.
Emily ripped open the sleeve of crackers and shoved one in her mouth. Then she tossed one to me and leaned her head back as she squirted the cheese into her mouth.
I laughed and she gestured for me to do the same, so I tipped my head and opened my mouth. Emily grinned as she squeezed a generous serving of cheesy goo onto my tongue. Oh God, that was so good. Not as good as the dinner we’d eaten the night before with Tom and Jane and their family, but it’d been a long twelve hours with only a handful of almonds to fill our bellies, and so this was an unexpected windfall. Before I’d realized we’d turned in the wrong direction somewhere, I’d been thinking about snares and wondering how long it’d take to catch something for dinner.
“Wait,” I said, knowing how easy it would be to gorge ourselves on this. “We need to ration. Who knows if we’ll find anything to eat tomorrow.”
She nodded, her mouth too full to speak for a moment. “I know, I know. Okay. Just one more squeeze.”
We each enjoyed another mouthful of cheese and a few crackers and then regretfully packed them away in my backpack. But it was a relief to know that we had something for tomorrow too. Emily lay back on the wooden floor of the fort and smiled up at the canopy of trees. The sun was setting, the resplendent yellow sky filtering through the tree boughs. Everything looked mildly smudged and slightly out of focus as though we’d found ourselves in a make-believe forest. I lay down next to her, our hips touching as we stared upward. “This light,” I said, “it reminds me of the hayloft at Honey Hill.”