Page 31 of The Legend

“Youclearly have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I knowwhat I’m doing.” Tour Ted advised me, his eyes never leaving Emma’s legs. “Thisis part of the adventure.”

“Gettingslammed into rocks that could kill me is part of the adventure?” he shot me aglare. At least he actually looked at me. “I must’ve missed that in thebrochure.”

Sway puther face right in my ear. “Do you think his name is really Tour Ted?”

“I don’treally give a shit.” I mumbled sitting back in the raft and wondering if todaywould be the day I died. I always thought I would die doing something I lovedand I didn’t love white water rafting.

We were onthe raft maybe twenty minutes when we went through a number of tight turns.Tour Ted would shout out what they were, not as if I could hear him, and I waspretty much done with hitting my ass on rocks. Having to hold Sway in the raftand watching Tour Ted molest my sister with his eyes, we came to a sandy bankand he maneuvered the raft to the shore.

“This isValle delPacuare.” He said with a coy smile. “Rest alittle.”

We all stoodas though we were getting out when he smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

With asmile, he shoved the raft from the bank with his hands, tossed a map at us, andthen disappeared into the thick tree line of the exotic forest.

“Where thefuck is he going?” I looked at the map and then tossed it over my shoulderwhere it apparently took off with the wind.

“I thinkwe needed that.” Sway said watching it fly away. Leaning forward, she took thecap off her Benadryl, took a long drink from it, and then opened a mini barthat was in her bag.

Aidenshoved a handful of peanuts in his mouth. “So let me get this straight…thatdouchebag left us, didn’t he?”

I didn’thear anything else he said. Those said peanuts were all over my skin that wasall I cared.

“What’s inthat bag of yours?” I craned forward looking over Sway’s shoulder to peer intoher bag. My arms wrapped around the front trying to steal it from her. “Do youhave any wipes or a towel?”

She tosseda towel over her shoulder and a travel size bottle of Tequila. “You’re gonnaneed this too.”

As theraft floated away, we drank a good portion of Sway’s mini bar and debated abouthow stupid this white water rafting was. That was about the time our patiencefor Tour Ted was wearing out. We could barely see shore now and thoughts ofdying in a river were surfacing, well for me anyway. The other three in theraft seemed to care less as they soaked up the sun and laughed.

It wasn’tlong when it dawned on these drunken fools that we were nowhere near the shoreanymore, in fact at it was least a mile from the shore and floating into theCaribbean for all I knew.

“Shit,we’re really far from shore now. Jameson,” he looked at me as if he wascomplete appalled that I let this happen. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Oh shutup, Aiden,” I told him. “Where the fuck were your navigating skills, spotter,oh right, drinking.”

“I thinkhe left us.” Emma said throwing back another shot.

Don’tthink it didn’t occur to me that we shouldn’t be drinking here in the hot sunin the middle of a river with no supervision because it didn’t. It just wasn’tenough to stop myself.

“Good workdetective.” I took the bottle from Emma. “You shouldn’t be drinking so much.It’s hot and you’ll get dehydrated.”

My focuswas more on my skin than the alcohol. I’m not sure how it happened, but I hadso much sweat and sand on my skin that I was so repulsed, it was the only thingI could focus on. Believe me when I say this wasn’t a trait of mine that I wasproud. I hated, actually despised, anything on my skin, always had. I went asfar that I only had certain soaps that I could use because I didn’t want anyresidue left over. In addition, lotion never used it because it left a film onmy skin that might as well be battery acid as far as I was concerned.

“MaybeI’ve had a little too much,” Sway hiccupped agreeing with me some five minuteslater. Aiden handed her another drink from what looked like his own stash. Emmalaughed and snapped a picture of Sway.

Convincedthis was Emma’s fault that we were now stuck in a raft in the middle of theriver, I gave her a piece of my mind. “I will never vacation with you again,Emma.”

“Whatever.That was hardly my fault. You should have taken the map he handed to you.”

“I heardthat!” Sway waved her fifth coconut drink around splashing me in the face.

Great, nowI not only had sand on my skin but now I had sticky coconut on me, fantastic.

“Someoneget control over her.” I mumbled wiping my face with my shirt.

“She’syour wife.” Aiden pointed out.

---