Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
WTF a jellyfish stung me and now I’m trying to nap in the rain. I hate everything.
The droplets quickly turned into a full-on rainstorm. I scowled at the sky and covered as much of my face as I could with my arm.
At least I was already wet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Day Ten—Eleven teams remaining
Archer
I hacked away at the branches and large leaves in our path with the machete, stopping to make a second pass with it before moving forward again.
“This is our day, Lo. I can feel it.”
She hummed her doubt. “We’ll see. I think it’s a waste of time. I doubt there are actually anymore buried chests. It’s just a mind game to see if the frustration will break us.”
We didn’t have a competition today, so we’d gone to a new section of the island to look for treasure chests. A couple of hours in, we hadn’t found anything yet, and the worst of the day’s heat was setting in.
“Since when are you a pessimist?” I asked.
“Since my ex stole my faith in humanity.”
I stopped and looked back at her, shocked. A smile played on her lips. I grinned back.
“You had me there for a second.”
“Get over yourself,” she said playfully. “You never had quite that much power over me.”
I used the opening to ask her about something I was curious about. “Do you date much?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t say a lot. I went out on two dates with Jason McGee.”
“Holy shit, are you serious?”
Laughing, she covered her face for a second. “I am. He’s matured since high school.”
I cringed. Jason McGee? The guy had pissed off many guys at our school by taking the only bathroom stall with a door for at least ten minutes of lunch hour every day just so he could jerk off. And he wasn’t quiet about it, either.
“Hey, I’m stopping for a water break,” Lauren said.
She opened her canteen and drank, and I did the same. After about a minute of silence, she said, “Yeah, I did go on two dates with Jason. But it was like three years ago.”
“Wow.”
Despite his active solo sex life, Jason hadn’t been a bad guy. It wasn’t so much that it was weird for Lauren to go on a date with him—it was weird to think of her on a date with anyone but me.
“Guess they weren’t great dates?”
She smiled. “They were fine. We talked about going out again, but never did.”
“Did you sleep with him?” I caught myself immediately. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No.” She glanced back at Linda, who was filming us. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I don’t want to talk about people who don’t know they’re being talked about.”
We continued our search without talking for a few minutes. The only sounds were birds calling and my machete swiping against brush until Lauren broke the silence with a question.
“What about you? Do you date much?”
Hell. I didn’t know how to answer that. I didn’t want to admit to only having casual sex, but that was the truth.
“Nothing serious,” I said dismissively. “I’m on the road a lot for games.”
“Archer?”
Something in her tone made me stop and turn to look at her. “Yeah?”
“Do you think…” She sighed heavily and looked away. “Do you think if I had come with you that we would have stayed together?”
That hit me right in the gut. I took a couple steps toward her and stuck the end of the machete in the ground, then considered my answer as I stretched my arms.
“I don’t know.”
Lauren met my eyes, emotions swimming in hers. “Be honest. If you love the lifestyle and don’t have relationships, it seems like we wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”
I wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, agitated. “That’s different, Lo.”
“Just tell me.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t know. There’s no way anyone can—”
“I’m asking what you think,” she said sharply. “Don’t be so goddamn evasive.”
She wanted me to let her off the hook. To tell her that I enjoyed my commitment-free life and probably would’ve ended things with her even if she had come with me to Minneapolis eight years ago. I couldn’t do that, though.
“Yes,” I said, locking my eyes with hers. “I think we would’ve stayed together. It was different with you, and you know that.”
She looked away, her expression pained. “We were so young, though. Neither of us had ever been with anyone else.”
“And I never wanted anyone else. You—” I stopped talking and held up my palm, distracted by a high-pitched cry.
Lauren’s eyes widened as the sound continued. I put a finger to my lips and then crooked my finger, telling her to follow me.
“What if it’s a snake colony?” she whisper-hissed a couple feet from my ear.
“It’s not.”
“Archer.”
“Hang on, let’s get closer,” I whispered as I crept forward. “If it’s a wild boar and I can catch it, I can kill it with the machete.”