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)
“I never thought I’d be sitting around another bonfire with you in this lifetime,” I said to Tuck.
He looked up and smiled at me and again, for just a moment, he looked like the Tuck I knew, and it felt like a sharp poke to a tender spot. “Make that two of us,” he said.
There were some old wooden crates off to the side that Tuck brought next to the fire and then he took a seat on one, removed the switchblade he’d stuck in his backpack, and began slicing into the rabbit. I looked away. “Ugh, how are you even doing that?”
“It’s this or eat dirt tonight. Rabbit sounded more appealing. A gun and this switchblade made it possible. I’m going to give this back to you after I clean it though. It’s yours.”
I thought of Katelyn who’d given the knife to me and knew she’d be happy that her gift had come in handy at just the right moment. I thought of Mrs. Goodfellow too and the fear in Katelyn’s eyes when she spoke of her mother and I hoped to God they’d be reunited.
I watched Tuck’s face as he focused. “Thanks for doing the dirty work. Literally.”
His gaze remained on his hands, but he gave a nod. I felt a new peace between us. We’d seemed to have made an unspoken agreement to cease the bickering after working together so well earlier that day. Even so, he didn’t have to split a small rabbit with us. He could have killed the thing, gutted it, cooked it, and then eaten it himself and Charlie and I wouldn’t be able to say a damn word. Because neither of us was willing to hunt down small animals and prepare the meat and we all knew it. But I wasn’t going to feel too guilty about it, because despite whether our relationship was good or bad or in-between, when we got back home, I’d make sure Tuck had enough to get on his feet some way or another. Happily. And he’d have something with which to start fresh.
I felt a weird emptiness in my stomach that I wrote off as hunger, even if for whatever reason, it didn’t feel like food would fill it.
“Anyway,” I said, as if he’d been following my disjointed inner dialogue, “are we planning on stopping at a house tomorrow to ask if they can spare some food?”
“Maybe. We’ll play it by ear. We’ll be heading into more populated areas over the next few days, so I’m hoping there’ll be an opportunity to purchase some necessities. I have a little bit of cash in my wallet.”
Charlie still had his wallet, but probably didn’t have a lot of cash as he always used credit. The thought of cash made me picture the baggies of drugs that had rained down on the plane when I’d discovered Tuck’s illegal activity. I supposed because cash had been the point of it.
At the memory of that moment, emptiness gaped, but so did a niggling feeling that something was off. Or maybe it was just that today, more than ever, it hadn’t only felt like we were a team, but it’d felt like he was my old friend. And though I couldn’t deny the passion that had sparked to life between us, it was probably a momentary reaction born entirely from the wild circumstances. It would be wise for me to remember that to Tuck, this was a job. I should stop thinking of him as my old friend, or even a savior who would have done what he was doing now for any reasons other than at least some amount of decency, and loyalty to my parents. That was what I found so confusing, and why I kept stumbling emotionally when it came to him. There were parts of him I still recognized, even if, otherwise, he was completely different. “Right,” I said. “Yes.”
He did look up at me then, his gaze assessing. “If you want to make yourself useful, you could sharpen some sticks.”
We roasted the rabbit on sticks over the fire and ate it sitting under the low light of the lavender sunset. And though the meat wasn’t nearly plentiful enough, it remedied the ache of hunger that had burned since we’d eaten hours and hours earlier that day.
I looked over at Charlie sitting next to me, dragging his teeth along the stick in an attempt to get every last piece of meat on the skewer. In the glow of the fire, and with the addition of the stubble on his jaw, he looked like he was playing the part of a sexy mountain man. And I had the feeling I was watching him on a screen, some act that was in no way part of who he really was. Maybe I’d look down and see a bucket of popcorn in my lap, and when I left the theater, I’d think about how incredible it would be if I ever met Charlie Cannon and how I’d die if he even spared me a glance.