Page 133 of Instant Karma

And that we’re pretty much trapped here… together.

“Do you think we’ll be stuck here all night?” I ask, trying not to sound hopeful when I say it. Because it would be awful, right? Who wants to sleep on a cold, hard floor, when they could be safe at home in a cozy, warm bed?

And yet, I’m in no hurry to leave.

“I don’t know. At this rate…” Quint glances at the window. “It’s not looking good. Were your parents worried?”

“I think they’re okay. They said to stay here until the storm passes.”

He nods. “I guess we can use the blankets from downstairs to make a bed of sorts. It may not be the most comfortable thing in the world, but…”

“It could be worse.”

Which is true. We have shelter and food. It’s warm enough. There’s light for the time being, though the candles are burning awfully fast.

“At least we have cereal.” I pop a handful into my mouth.

The first candle flickers out, leaving a trail of dark smoke curling up through the shadows. We both look at our little collection of candles stuck into the sand. They’ve already nearly burned down to nubs.

“Maybe we should have rationed those,” says Quint.

“Isn’t there a flashlight around here somewhere?”

He considers this. “You’d think so.”

We go on a hunt again, risking the battery life of our phones to dig through every cabinet, closet, and cupboard we can find. Finally—success. We find five flashlights stashed away with some of the rescue nets and other supplies, although only three of them have batteries that work. While we’re downstairs, we fill our arms with as many blankets as we can carry before retreating back to the break room. We push the table against one bank of cabinets, clearing out a space large enough that we can spread out the blankets, building them up into something like a mattress. It occurs to me that maybe we should be making two separate beds, but… I don’t say anything, and neither does he.

“What would you be doing right now if you weren’t here?” Quint asks.

“Sleeping?”

“Really? It’s not even midnight.”

“I’m more of a morning person.”

“That does not surprise me.” Quint sits down on the makeshift bed and rolls up a couple of towels to use as a cushion behind his back. I hesitate for a few seconds before sitting down on the opposite side, facing him. We’re close enough that it feels intimate, especially with the dim lighting of the flashlight reflected off the ceiling, but far enough that I can pretend it isn’t totally awkward. “Okay,” he says, “if you weren’t sleeping, then what would you be doing?”

“I don’t know. Planning the gala? Making sure everything will be perfect?”

Quint clicks his tongue, as if chastising me. “Do you ever think you might be too much of an overachiever?”

My nose wrinkles. “Jude keeps me aware of that, yes. I can’t help it though. There’s always more to do, and I don’t want to settle for less than perfect, you know? Why be mediocre? But it can be hard to know when enough is enough, or how to prioritize my time. Like this summer. I’ve been thinking so much about the center that I’ve done hardly any work on our biology project at all.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” Quint says, his eyes twinkling. “I was sort of hoping you’d forgotten about it.”

“I definitely have not forgotten about it. I still want to do something extraordinary. I actually thought that maybe we could use the gala as a real-world example of how ecotourism can function to help the environment. But I still need to bring more science into it, and that’s got me stumped. So then I set it aside and focus on the center and fundraising… even though I know that by putting it off I’m just creating more stress for myself.”

“What? You? Hold on.” Quint leans toward me conspiratorially. “Are you saying that you, Prudence Barnett… have been…procrastinating?” He says it like it’s a bad word, his face drawn with disbelief.

I can’t help but laugh at the overdramatization, even though it does give me a hiccup of anxiety when I realize the revised project is due in only a few weeks. “Absolutely not,” I say emphatically. “I’ve just been… conducting copious amounts of research.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” He winks at me, sending my heartbeat on another erratic drum solo. “Just so long as you know that whenI’mprocrastinating, research is my go-to excuse, too.”

“I am not procrastinating. That word is not in my vocabulary. But I will admit that it’s hard to spend my time writing a report about saving wildlife when I could be… you know. Helping to save actual wildlife.”

His teeth flash in a gigantic grin. “I couldn’t agree more.”

As he says this, a thought occurs to me. One I can’t believe hasn’t crossed my mind until now.

---