Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
She lifts the old-school wooden latch on the shed door and disappears inside. I should turn around, or stay where I am and wait until she rejoins the party. But I don’t. I slip inside the shed with her. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why do I feel compelled to follow Essie around, even though I behave like a massive asshole with every interaction?
I glance around the space. It’s a typical shed, with a shelving unit that holds a bunch of random items and a few paper products, and next to that is a riding lawn mower—a nice one with a zero-turn radius. I used to fix those a lot when I took small engines in high school.
Essie strains to reach the paper towels on the top shelf as my shadow passes over her. She shrieks and spins around. “What the hell are you doing? You scared the shit out of me.” She shoves my shoulder, and I stumble back a step, bumping into the door.
“Why are you wandering around in the dark on your own?” I fire back.
“I’m getting paper towels.” She throws a roll at me.
It hits me in the chest and falls to the floor.
She props a fist on her hip. “Why are you following me?”
“There are bears out here.” It sounds ridiculous even to my ears.
She gives me a disbelieving look.
“There are signs posted at the dump!” I’ve latched on to this faulty logic like a burr on a wool sweater.
She rolls her big, beautiful eyes at me. “Because it’s the dump, and bears love a free meal.”
I have no defense, and anything else I say will probably make me look even more pathetic or dickish.
She turns back to the shelf and jumps up, nabbing another roll of paper towels. She skirts around me and frowns at the lack of handle. I push on the wooden door, but nothing happens.
“Ha-ha. Open the freaking door, Nate.”
I push again, but it doesn’t budge. I can see very clearly through the quarter-inch gap that the wooden bar, which holds the door closed from the outside, has fallen back in place. That means we’re trapped in here. Together. Just me and Essie and six years of not dealing with the shit I pulled before I left for university. “Okay, I need you to not freak out.” And I need to not say something offensive or hurtful.
She crosses her arms. “You can’t say that and not expect that exact thing to happen.”
I give her a look and mentally plead with my eyeballs to stay above her neck. It’s tough since she’s still wearing only a bikini top, through which I could see her nipple shields earlier.
She returns the look and ups the ante when her pretty, pink tongue drags across her equally pretty, pink bottom lip. “Please tell me we’re not locked in here, Nathan.”
“I can tell you that, but I would be lying.” Good work. Not offensive and truthful.
“Oh my God! Oh my God.” Her voice rises, and her eyes flare with the panic I was hoping to avoid. She throws the roll of paper towels at me, but we’re standing close to each other, so it bumps between us and drops to the ground with the other one. She pokes me in the chest with a manicured nail. “This is your fault.”
“You pushed me,” I remind her.
“You followed me in here!”
“Because you were wandering around in the dark on your own!” Why do I even care?
“There’s a party fifty feet away!” She motions to the other side of the door.
“The bears are real!”
“Why are you obsessed with the fucking bears, Nate?”
“I don’t fucking know!”
“What is this really about? Are you still angry about limbo dick?” Her eyes drop for a second, and she wrinkles her nose. “Stick.”
“That was a dirty move.”
She grins. “So dirty.”
“Pretty proud of yourself for that one, aren’t you?”
She tips her chin up. “Absolutely.”
“I’m already plotting my revenge tour,” I warn.
“And this is where it starts? By locking us in a shed together?” Her voice pitches up, real panic setting in as she pushes me out of the way and starts banging on the wood. “Hey! Someone let us out!” Bang, bang. “Anyone! We’re stuck thanks to fucking Nate.”
I grab her hands before she can slam them against the door again. “Stop! You’ll hurt yourself.” And that would also be my fault, which I can’t have. I already carry around enough guilt when it comes to Essie.
Her eyes are wide, and her voice trembles. “What if we’re stuck in here all night? What if we can’t get out? What if no one realizes we’re missing, and we die in here from inhaling riding lawn mower fumes?”
“We won’t die in here. Where’s your phone?”
“In my yurt, because all the people I text are outside this shed. Where’s yours?” She looks hopeful and less panicked for a second.