Page 42 of The Cabin

I turn away and grab my shoes to hide the heat in my cheeks. “Sorry, who was the one that had a meltdown over two strings in my otherwise very much full coverage bathing suit?”

He stomps off, setting a breakneck pace.

“You can run! But you know I’m right, Shnookums!”

Chapter 14

“Let’s play twenty questions,” I call, hanging upside down off my reading chair. I am very bored this afternoon and Grayson hasn’t wanted to play or fight or anything all day.

“Why?” He’s been sitting at the dining room table most of the morning typing away on his iPad. By the permanent scowl on his face, I think it’s divorce stuff.

“Because you need to take a break and I am slowly dying of boredom.”

“It’s noon and you woke up at ten.”

I sit up and glare at him over the back of the chair. “Your point?”

“Does that count as one of your questions?”

With a frustrated grumble I heave myself off the chaise and walk over to where Grayson is sitting. I grab his iPad and close the case over the screen. “Sol, I have a lot of shit to do.”

“And it’ll be there in twenty questions, I promise.”

He does not seem charmed by my presence. Maybe he hit his head at the creek yesterday. I know I haven’t been the same since that mechanical bull debacle.

A sigh dramatic enough for a daytime soap opera show fills the space. “Let’s get this over with.”

“I love your enthusiasm, I really think it brings a unique perspective to this relationship.” His face is so flat and unimpressed I almost start laughing, but I feel like he’ll jump ship if I do and I really am freaking bored. “Okay, do you want to start or do you want me to?”

He slides further down in his seat, laying his head back, looking worn out. I know that feeling. Big time. But I’m not going to let him drown in it like I did. “Ladies first, wasn’t it?”

Oooh. A joke! This is good. “It would be my pleasure.” Now what the hell do I ask him? I probably should have thought this through a bit. “Oh! Okay. Which grade was your favorite and why?” Somehow, everything I talk about is school related. I’m just warming up, I’ll get more inventive.

Grayson thinks for a minute, sitting back up and leaning his forearms on the table. “Senior year. It’s when I stopped being ugly.”

“You’ve tried that one before, buddy. You were not ugly. You were just weird. The onesie thing was a very… interesting choice. I think it’s better to be interesting and fun than stereotypically hot.”

“Tell that to my bullies, lollipop”

“Can’t, too busy telling it to mine. I was just as weird, you know. I was the ‘book girl’.”

“You’re still the book girl.”

I smile. “Old habits die hard. Anyway, people thought I was lame and annoying because I chose to read instead of play and my vocabulary was more advanced than theirs. They called me, ‘Miss Know It All.’ ”

Grayson adjusts himself to lean his head on one hand. “You are a ‘know it all.’ ”

I shrug, “That’s because I know a lot about everything. Why would I hide that? You don’t hide your building skills. People don’t have a problem with a man that can build. They do have a problem with a woman who is smarter than them. I spent years pretending I wasn’t smarter than Brian. I’m not ever doing that again.”

“That’s fair. You’re right…” The smirk of victory I give him makes him roll his eyes. “Fell right into that one.”

My foot bumps his under the table. “Okay, your turn.”

“Mmmm. What is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Oof. I know the answer right away, but it’s a tough one for me to talk about. I already fessed up the real reason for my divorce and nothing bad happened, so I feel like I should probably keep practicing being open. “When I was twenty, right before I met Brian, Cruz and I were home for Thanksgiving. My mom, Cruz and I were in the living room playing cards and my dad was in the kitchen basting the turkey. I had just slapped down a plus five and was gloating in Cruz’s face when we heard a really intenseboom.”

The skin under my armpits is getting clammy. “A fire started, and my mom screamed at us, shoved us out of the house. It happened so fast, the flames were huge in what felt like seconds. Luckily, Cruz had his phone in his pocket and called 911. We couldn’t see our parents, we didn’t know what was going on. It felt like decades before the firefighters came, and there was still no sign of my mom or dad. I was completely panicking. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help. The rescue team did end up getting everyone out safely, and my parents were okay after a few weeks in the hospital. But those twenty minutes, that’s how long they told me it was, where I thought my family was dying… those were probably the worst twenty minutes of my life.”

---