by Lindy Zart
I find his words puzzling, along with the tingling sensation flooding my body. I buck my hips to dislodge him and only better fit our bodies together. We scoot down another inch or so. Ben’s nostrils flare and he sucks in a sharp breath. Oh. I can feel him. And he feels glorious. I involuntarily part my lips as I look at him. Ben curses, shooting upright and away, and I shudder, wanting him back, wanting lots of other things I can’t have.
“It isn’t like I planned on falling.” I sit up, pretending I am not a horny hussy where Ben is concerned. My hands are quickly covered in muck. It’s slimy and cool to the touch. I take a handful of sludge and pat my arm with it. I might as well take a mud bath at this point. “It just happened.”
Ben looks at me, mud smeared across his face and hair. “Right, like you didn’t push me earlier.”
Scowling, I look from him to the scene below, and then I shove off with my arms and careen downward, laughing wildly as I shoot down the mud slide. Head back, I whoop as I fly along the ridges and dips of the hill, jostled and jerked side to side, which makes me laugh more.
“Avery! What the hell?” Ben hollers after me.
“Come on, it’s fun!”
I land on a bump, the air knocked from my lungs, and skid off course, rolling the rest of the way. Peals of ragged merriment leave me as I go. I don’t remember having this much fun ever. Maybe that one time when I was thirteen and my friend and I went on a carnival ride that made us spin upside down. I puked. I hope I don’t puke this time. I land on my back, arms and legs sprawled, eyes closed, laughing so hard I hiccup.
A few short breaths later, Ben lands near me, his arm whacking my leg as he abruptly stops.
I lift my head and grin at him. “Was that fun or what?”
“I suppose sliding the rest of the way down the hill just happened too,” he gets out, panting.
“You rolled all the way down, did you not?”
“Yes,” he admits grudgingly.
“Did you have fun?”
“No.”
I lift my eyebrows.
“Maybe a little.” Ben winces and sits up. “I can’t believe you did that.”
I eye his muddy exterior. “I could say the same about you.”
The rain continues to come down, streaking our faces with tiny, dirty rivers.
“You don’t fit with who you were at the office.” He glares at me as if this knowledge is one more thing to hold against me.
“Yeah, well, neither do you.”
“I am exactly as I’ve always been.” Ben gingerly stands, mud plopping from his clothes to the ground.
Stuffy, by the books, anal. Yeah, he’s probably right.
I sniff the air. It smells like worms, the realization jolting me to my feet in a flash. Worms can stay in the earth, where they belong. When the rain stops as suddenly as it started, and the sun appears, I blink in consternation. We are covered in mud that will soon dry to dirt. Wonderful. But then I notice something to the left of us and I don’t even care about the dirt.
“Ben, look.” I grab his arm without thinking, squeezing as I point to the rainbow above the mountains, spanning forever and ending somewhere in the clouds we can’t see. It’s beautiful, and the sight of it brings me hope. I stand still, drinking it in. This is something I like about outside, along with air.
Ben turns, standing beside me, his arm brushing mine. “I see it.”
“Isn’t it breathtaking?”
He doesn’t answer, but I don’t care.
“In life, remember that rainbows always come after rain,” I murmur as I take in the colorful beam, thinking of my mom.
“You pitched that for an inspirational greeting-card company.”
“I did.”
“After I pitched my own quote.”
I bite my lip, turning away as I wince.
Resentment coats his next words. “The company picked yours.”
“Mine was better,” I retort. It was too; I’m not being conceited. “‘Only after the rain comes the rainbows’ isn’t as catchy.”
“It is almost identical.” Ben sounds petulant.
“Well, Duke thought mine was better.”
“You basically worded yours the same as mine but acted like it was way different because you rearranged the sentence and added ‘in life’. So different.”
I begin to walk, picking up my pace. “What’s your point?”
“You stole my words and tweaked them. You’re a thief.”
My back stiffens. I might be a thief, but it isn’t for stealing Ben’s words.
“But then, I guess I already knew that,” he finishes.
“Keep the barbs coming.” I clench my jaw. “I know they make you feel better.”
“Not especially.”
“All right, Ben,” I shout, throwing my hands in the air as I whirl around, startling him. “Let’s have it!”
He blinks. “What?”
“Tell me all the ways you hate me,” I urge. “Get it all out. Come on, it’s obvious you have a lot of reasons.”
A glower takes over his features. “You act like I shouldn’t be mad about it.”
“Mad? Yes. Yes, you should have been mad. But being mad forever does you more harm than it does me. It’s over. It’s done. I did a shitty thing and I can’t take it back. Either move on or—or get out of my life,” I stammer, not really meaning the words.
His eyes harden. “Hard to do when we’re stuck together.”
“Well, as soon as we aren’t, you can do it.”
Ben nods. “I will do that. Because you know what, Avery? I quit.”
Alarm puts a tight pressure in my chest. “What do you mean, you quit? Quit at what?”
“Sanders and Sisters.” Ben looks as surprised as I am by his words, but then stubborn resolution takes over his features.
“You can’t quit.”
“I can do whatever the hell I want!” He steps closer, an edge to his voice, a glint of danger in his eyes. Ben looks like a swamp demon with the mud covering him and the maniacal glaze over his eyes. “You purposely made yourself indispensable to each Sanders and Sisters employee, but what pisses me off the most, is that for even one second, I actually thought you were genuine. You smiled pretty, and you laughed at the right times, and you acted like you cared.”
I hide my eyes from Ben, my throat working but no sound coming forth.
“Then, you went around and stole contracts right out from under me, looking all innocent and sweet while you did. But that’s not even the worst thing you did.”
Still and silent, I listen to Ben’s wrath.
Ben puts his face directly before mine, close enough that a lump of mud falls off his chin and onto my shoulder. “The worst thing you did, Avery, was make me think you were special.”
My eyes shoot to his. That isn’t what I expected him to say. This goes beyond that last inexcusable act I did before we came here. This is personal, and that means, I did more damage than I realized. Did he really care for me then? I assumed he didn’t. If he cared for me even a little, it makes what I did a thousand times more reprehensible.
“Just tell me why.” Ben stares into my eyes, into my very being. “Why did you do it?”
I want to answer him, but I don’t know how. What words can make this better? I think only actions can really show Ben that I’m sorry.
Ben shakes his head, weariness replacing the anger. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t care anymore. As soon as we’re out of here, I’m gone.”
“G-gone?”
“Yes.” He glares at me. “Gone. You won, all right? You get the job, you get everything I had. I’m done fighting something I can’t win.”
“But…I…Ben.” Sadness stitches itself into my frame. “That isn’t what I want.”
“Don’t fucking care. You got it.” He throws his arms out wide. “Congratulations. You won.”
“Ben—”
He jerks away when I lift a hand, turning his back on me. “We aren’t going to find the lodge
by standing around yakking.”
BEN
Of course, we don’t find the lodge.
What we find is more rain, along with thunder and lightning.
Within seconds, the sun that briefly gifted us with its presence blinks out of existence, the sky turns the color of obsidian, and thunder rolls above our heads. It’s surreal how quickly it happens. I look up just as fingers of lightning streak through the clouds. Rain falls on my face, cool and wet. It starts light, but quickly turns powerful. The wind picks up, slanting the rain. As if we haven’t had enough rain for the day. Another crack of lightning shoots across the sky.
I turn to Avery. “We need to find shelter.”
She darts for cover under a nearby tree before I finish talking.
“Not under there!” I snag her arm and haul her back, glaring at her. “Don’t you know anything about lightning? You’ll get electrocuted.”
Avery turns wide eyes on me. Her face shimmers under the fallen water. “How would I know that?”
“School?” I guess. “Common sense?”
Her mouth pulls down. “I don’t usually go outside when it’s storming.”
“Right.” Or any other time unless necessary, apparently. How can anyone be as clueless as her? I shake my head, water dripping from my hair and into my eyes. “Outside bad. Avery no go outside.”
Avery yanks her arm from my grasp, leans down, gathers a glob of mud in her hand, and then flings it at my head.
It grazes my ear. I stare at her, stunned.
She lifts her eyebrows and crosses her arms.
I fight the urge to smile, instead frowning at her. “You’re lucky you missed.”
“Pfft. I think you’re the one who’s lucky I missed.”
“Fine. I’m lucky.” I wipe the mud from my ear. “We need to find shelter, and fast.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Avery asks stiffly.
My eyes shift over the dark terrain. The rain doesn’t help my already weakened vision as I search for some kind of natural barricade from the elements. As I watch, the sky comes alive as lightning highlights what looks like a small pit or cave partially hidden by bushes and trees. I point. “Over there.”
Mud has replaced the ground, making each footstep a struggle to keep the boots on my feet. My sprained ankle protests each movement. I grit my teeth and keep moving. I am aware of the exact moment Avery clasps my hand. I pretend it doesn’t happen, even as my body tingles. Her hand is soft and small in mine. I want to yank my hand away, and I also want to squeeze it tight. Instead, I loosely hold her hand.
Fuck if I know what I’m doing. If she’d just tell me why she betrayed me, maybe I could get over this. Then again, I made a decision. In anger, yes, but as soon as I said I was leaving Sanders and Sisters, I knew it was true.
I’m at a dead end there. I can’t go any higher up, not with my present mindset, and if I’m being honest, even before Avery showed up, I was restless. Maybe I didn’t want it enough, and maybe she did. Could be that’s what pisses me off more than anything. She’s shown me what I’ve been trying to deny.
She betrayed you. Don’t forget about that.
Avery stumbles and I twist around, grabbing at her to keep her upright. Instead, she takes me down with her, landing directly on top of me. The ground makes a strange sucking sound as my body is implanted in it, muck oozing up to outline my form. I slowly sink farther into the sludge as wide golden eyes stare into mine. It feels as if this has happened before. Strange.
“I’m…um…” she stutters, for the first that I can remember, at a loss for words.
I don’t try to talk.
Even with the cold rain all around us, her body heat scalds me through our drenched clothes. Her breasts are pushed against my chest, her hips flush with mine. There aren’t enough layers of clothing in the world to be enough of a barrier to thwart my body’s reaction to hers. It comes alive immediately and hardens painfully.
I shift, cursing and immediately going still as a soft moan leaves Avery. I don’t want to move, and I want to move like I can’t believe. “You need to get me off—”
Her eyes pop.
“I mean…fuck…”
A squeak leaves Avery.
“You need to get off me—without moving,” I say through gritted teeth. If she moves, I might do something I’ll regret.
“How?” she croaks, sounding as flustered as me.
“Just…stay still. I’ll figure it out.” I close my eyes, the muscles in my neck taut. I lift my hands and clamp them to her waist, but that only pushes her hips down. I groan, in pain, in pleasure.
“Ben?”
I look at her face, see the heady desire pulsing in her eyes, and catapult her from me. A squeak of surprise leaves her as she lands on her ass in a puddle. Brown, thick water splashes up to coat her.
“What the hell, Ben?” Avery cries, spitting out dirty water.
“Sorry.” I’m not sorry at all. It was either that or end up naked, and that is not happening.
With dizziness swimming in my head and my ankle screaming as I shift my weight, I carefully sit up. The position puts our faces inches apart. The salty scent of sweat and woman mixed with rain meets my nostrils, wrapping around me like a drug. Avery’s plump lower lip is captured by her teeth. Fire licks my skin as she slowly releases it.
“Stop it,” comes out hoarse.
Avery frowns. “Stop what?”
As if she doesn’t know the power she has.
I go to my knees, hunch over, and tighten my hands into fists to steady them. Tremors run through my frame and they have nothing to do with being cold. I don’t get how I can want someone so bad while at the same time be unable to stand them. It’s madness.
“You didn’t need to throw me off you like I’m a sack of potatoes,” she grumbles.
I laugh as I get to my feet, looking at her through the rain. “Trust me when I say that no one could ever compare your body to a sack of potatoes.”
“That almost sounded like a compliment.” Avery carefully stands, showing me her backside.
I choke back more laughter at the sight of her brown shorts. They will never be white again.
From over her shoulder, Avery gives me an irritated look. “What’s so funny?”
I simply point.
She cranes her neck and looks down with dismay. And she sighs. That’s it. Just sighs. That anticlimactic response softens me a bit toward her. I expected her to whine, or complain, maybe even cry. Avery is contradictory in every sense of the word.
“Come on,” I say in a voice roughened by need I’ll deny having until my last day on this earth. “The storm isn’t going to stop for us.”
With quick, awkward steps, we navigate toward temporary salvation. Avery finds my hand again. I blink and keep moving, carefully holding it.
She pulls back at the entrance to the cave, forcing me to stop. “Wait. Maybe we should find somewhere else to wait out the storm. We don’t know what’s in there.”
I eye the shallow cave, catching flashes of rock each time lightning pierces the sky. It looks empty to me. “I’m going in. You can stay out here if you want.”
Ducking under the low lip of the cave, I enter a small, dark space that is downright cold compared to the stormy weather happening around it. It only goes back about four feet, and other than dirt, leaves, and other debris, there is nothing inside it. The ceiling is low enough that I have to be hunched over to fit under it. Tight quarters, but mostly dry.
“Did anything eat you, or are you still alive?”
“Yeah, I got eaten by a one-eyed crow. It’s just ghost Ben in here now.”
“Ha ha.” Her golden hair is like a flashlight as she enters the cave. “Maybe ghost Ben can see if there’s any food in the backpack.”
Avery sits across from me, her muddy shoes near my legs. They are no longer pink, that’s for sure. She looks as if she decided to roll around in a mud puddle, jump in a lake, and then roll around in the mud puddle
some more. It’s interesting to see her this unkempt. It’s sexy, and I’m not even sure why. I look longer than I should at her sleek legs, only turning my attention to my own mud-splattered legs when she notices.
“I think there is a big bag of trail mix in the bag.” I grab the backpack and unzip it. For some reason, it seems lighter than it should.
Her nose crinkles. “I’m not that hungry.”
I snort and zip the bag back up. Food doesn’t sound especially good to me right now either. “It’s nice to see you haven’t lost your discriminatory outlook on things you consider beneath you. What’s wrong with trail mix?”
“I eat food that tastes good. I care little about nutritional value.”
“Well, what about when you’re hungry and that’s all that’s around?”
“I might consider it.” Avery brings her knees to her chest. She rests her chin on the tops of her knees and closes her eyes. “Is there any jerky left?”
“No, we finished that earlier. There’s water in the backpack. Do you want some?”
She shakes her head without opening her eyes.
Shifting to get more comfortable on a naturally uncomfortable surface, I watch the grassy scene beyond the opening of the cave, the trees and ground as bright as daylight each time lightning hits. Neither of us speak as the rain competes with the thunder. At least if we aren’t eating or drinking what little supplies we have, they’ll last for a while. I wonder how long it’ll be before we’re found.
I wonder if we will be found.
7
AVERY
My teeth chatter as chills take over my body. I am woman enough to admit that the flimsy T-shirt and shorts I picked out for my hiking outfit wasn’t the most practical wardrobe choice. The wet clothes combined with the coolness of the cave is making me quite miserable. I snap my teeth together to keep from complaining, even though I really want to. Ben looks as dejected as I feel.
He removed his boot and sock not long after we got situated, massaging the swollen flesh of his sprained ankle. Ben’s leg is now straightened, his toes near my hip. They’re cute toes, long with clean, evenly trimmed nails. I inwardly shake my head at the direction of my thoughts. Since when do I have silent commentaries on feet?
