Page 86 of Resilient Love

“Alright, let’s finish this shi—ahhhhh! Oh, fuck no!” Letty screeches, jumping up and onto the back of the couch, plate in hand as she continues pointing and shrieking.

“What?!” I yell at her and watch in horror as Chelsea’s eyes land on the thing causing Letty’s outburst.

Chelsea’s massive blue eyes are the size of saucers as she stares down at a spider so fucking big, I swear to god it’s making eye contactwith me.

“Oh, hell,” I say, pulling Chelsea up and into my lap.

Adhira shakes her head, rolls over the back of the couch, and sprints up the steps with her plate of food. “You lot can deal with that mess yourselves,” she deadpans.

“Oh, great! Just leave us down here to be eaten alive!” Letty hollers at her, but her words are met with the sound of Adhira’s bedroom door slamming shut.

I take a deep, calming breath before pushing Chelsea’s bony ass, scooting her onto the centre cushion. “It’s fine,” I say, but I’m pretty sure my lip is wobbling as I do. I’m trying to put on a brave face.

“It’s big, but it’s not like, you know, cat-sized or anything, right?” I ask, trying to reason through this.

“We’re going to die here, Elise. That thing is moving in, and we’re going to pay its rent in exchange for our safe departure.Thatis what’s happening here,” Letty says, shaking her head at me.

“We’re not. I’m gonna kill it,” I tell her, climbing off of the sofa. It turns to face me, jolting forward a couple of inches as if it’s a full-grownhumanman ready to compare the sizes of ourdicks.Newsflashbut this spider has a bigger prick than I do, even on my most courageous day.

I sprint around the coffee table, swinging the pantry door open and grabbing the broom before slowly approaching the spider. I raise the broom but before I can smack it over the spider, Chelsea shouts at me, putting a frantic hand out to stop me. “Wait! The fucking thing has babies on its back,” she yells on a full-blown sob.

“What the fuck do you mean?!” I ask, shouting as I tiptoe backward and climb onto a barstool.

“If you hit the fucking thing, it’ll explode with babies everywhere, and she’ll have an army to do her bidding against us in her honour!”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. New plan.” I wiggle up onto the kitchen island and pull out my phone, dialling Rafael’s number.

He answers on the first ring. “Hey, baby. Want me to come over?”

“God, yes!” I shout. “Get here fast.”

“Everything okay?” he asks, his voice deepening with concern, any hint of flirtation now gone.

“Just hurry!” I say before hanging up to stare our assailant down.

A few short minutes later, a timeframe that should be entirely impossible given the distance from Rafael’s place to mine, he’s banging on the door, shouting for me to open up.

I hop down from the counter, bringing the broom with me for safety, and unlock the door, pulling it open.

Rafael’s eyes are wild as he inspects my face. “Sunshine, what’s wrong?” he asks.

I hear gasps from behind me. “I fucking knew ‘sunshine’ and ‘Sunny D’ were code names!” Letty yells at us, pointing a manicured finger in our direction.

Chelsea swats her hand down. “Doesn’t matter anymore. He’s here, and he’s our saviour!”

“Saviour? What’s going on in here?” he asks, taking a tentative step into the living room.

He looks down to where we all point, and he physicallyjumps.It looks like his soul just left his body, and I’m suddenly realising that he may not be the saviour we’d hoped he’d be.

“Excuse me, are you afraid of spiders?” I ask, sounding incredulous.

His dark eyes swing to mine. “Uh-uh. Don’t do that,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t make me feel like an idiot when you called me here because you’re afraid of those creepy little bastards too!”

At precisely that moment, the spider lunges at him, sprinting directly toward his feet. Rafael jumps over it and crawls his massive bulk onto our kitchen island, which looks so much smaller with his giant frame lying overtop of it.

“I’ll give you a blowy to kill the damn thing! Let that give you strength,” I urge him, thrusting the broom into his hands, but he shakes his head adamantly, letting the broom clatter to the ground.

“You would’ve given me a blowy anyway!” he yells back at me. “That”—he points to the spider—“isnota spider, Elise! It’s a small dog with rabies. You’re better off burning the bloody house down!”

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