Page 46 of Chasing Paradise

“On?”

“Is it one of those little white wall spiders? Then no. Is it one of those big, black ones with venom dripping from their fangs when they look at me? Then yes.”

“Venom, huh? Where do you live that has all these fanged spiders?”

“Navesink Bank.”

“New Jersey?” I asked, letting out a huff of a laugh. “The scariest thing in New Jersey is the drivers on the turnpike.”

“Says someone who has never had a showdown with a cave cricket.”

“Who won?” I asked, realizing she was letting me keep my arm around her as we continued to walk. I shouldn’t have liked that as much as I did.

“Well, we came to an agreement.”

“What’s that?”

“He got to have the basement. I would do my laundry at the laundromat.”

“For a badass recovery agent, your insect phobia is kind of cute.”

“I am not cute,” she objected, narrowing her eyes up at me.

She sure as hell was.

But I was getting to know her well enough to know not to push it.

At least we weren’t being acrimonious anymore.

“Oh, hey!” she said, voice going singsong a while later. “Oh, my God. Look at you and your fancy little beard.”

My gaze followed hers up to the trees, seeing an Emperor Tamarin—a small black monkey with an impressively long white beard.

“You look like you are guarding the portal to another world,” Violet went on as the monkey stared down at us. “You need a solid staff and a monocle, yes, you do.”

“Careful. I’m gonna tell Hank you like another animal more.”

“Hank can comfort himself with the fact that he perched on my boob for like an hour.”

“If we’re lucky, maybe we will see some other monkeys,” I told her, hating to try to push her along, but I’d already lost sight of Marco.

He was a very talented but impatient guide. He wouldn’t wait for us, no matter how far we fell behind. Not even for a damn pee break.

I knew.

I’d used him as a guide before.

Back when I first fell in love with the Amazon, before the idea of increasing tourism while limiting the impact on the environment sent me back to the States to start investing in the venture.

“God, can you tell him to slow down?” Violet asked some time later, her hands on her hips as she tried to take deep breaths. The front of her tank was wet with sweat, and her face had gone pink enough that, if it were fully up to me, I would stop.

“I could. But he won’t listen,” I told her, reaching for a bottle of water and passing it to her.

“What’s the rush?” she asked after a long sip.

“He likes to keep his own pace.”

“Shouldn’t he be keeping your pace, since you’re paying him?”

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