Page 73 of Charlie and Her Sweet Escape
When I finished and began walking back to camp, he whistled like a bird. I turned to find him waving me over to him. Confused, I approached him, and he pulled me behind the tree.
“You didn’t pee here, did you?”
“Not just now,” he said.
“But earlier?”
He bit back a smile. “We only have a minute. Savannah says we haven’t kissed at all, and people are starting to notice.” The first couple of episodes would have aired already, which was weird to think about. I knew in theory people would be watching us, but it was easy to forget out here.
“We’ve air-kissed at brilliant angles,” I said, feeling more indignant than I had any right to. Especially since we hadn’t kissed.
“Yeah, well, it’s not enough. She says we need to be more affectionate, or the next challenge will be our last.”
Yikes. “That’s ominous.”
“Yep.”
I pictured me and Bennett climbing aboard a wooden box with buoys and being sent out to sea in punishment. I set my shoulders back with resolve. “We’ll have to do better.”
“Is it okay with you? If we kiss?” he asked me, all of his teasing gone.
“Yeah. I think we need to.” Did I sound too eager? We’d kissed on our wedding day, but I hardly remembered it. The whole day was a blur when I looked back on it. Maybe a kiss really was what we needed. Not to sell our relationship to the audience, but for me to get whateverthiswas out of my system.
Like that time I went skydiving. I did it once, and that was enough for me. Bragging rights forever—and the sure knowledge that I never needed to jump out of a plane again.
“Okay.” He slid his hand along my cheek.
Oh. We were doing this now. Right this second. The cameras weren’t even close, but it was better not to overthink this. I held my breath, not sure if I should push up on my heels and meet him halfway or wrap my arms around his neck.
Almost there. He was so close …
But then he darted to the side and picked something out of my hair. He pulled back and showed me a beetle the size of his thumbnail. “This just dropped on you. I didn’t want it to burrow deeper in your hair.”
I shuddered all the way to my soul. I hated bugs. So much.
I went to step to the side, but he grabbed my arm with a wince. “Don’t step there.”
“That’s where you peed?” I said, my voice a little shriller than necessary.
He smirked. “Come on. Let’s get the cameras.” He paused, and this time when he brought his hand to my face, I held completely still, waiting for him to retrieve another bug. Instead, his brushed his thumb along my cheek, sending shivers through me. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.” More ready than I should admit.
“Good.” His smile was the confident one that used to star in my dreams every night. “Me too.”
30
BENNETT
Despite Charlie’s declarations that she was ready to kiss, she threw herself into stuffing the chinks in our shelter with moss like a woman on a mission.
I’d worked on our shelter every daylight moment I wasn’t hunting, and I was proud of it. It was shaped like a triangle, with one side against a huge boulder and the other two sides made from logs that I’d painstakingly sawed and fitted together in log-cabin style. I’d done a rough A-frame roof but hadn’t found the energy yet to fill in the frame with logs, so for now, we’d tied the tarp over it. It didn’t do much to keep the cold out but protected us from the rain and the worst of the wind.
I tried not to think about my dad with every log I’d placed, but it was hard not to. He was the one who taught me how to make a shelter like this. Why couldn’t he have stayedthatkind of dad? Why had he turned into someone who left? Jules claimed our dad was always the kind of person who left, but that wasn’t how I remembered him.
I never should have brought you. You ruined the hunt.Dad’s cruel, distant voice came to me across the fault lines of my memory, along with the image of him stomping on my bow andbreaking it in half, then walking away so fast, I had to run to keep from losing sight of him in the thick forest.
What had I done to make him react that way?
