Page 39 of Escaping Pirates
He sat and tried to extend his leg through, but the bars were close enough together that he could only go up to mid-thigh, which was almost close enough, but not quite.
“Are any of the bars loose like the one between our cells?” I asked.
He tried all of them, but again, fortune was against us. Harlan heaved a sigh of frustration. I stared at the bottle. If only Harlan’s legs were thinner…
“Move this bar,” I told Harlan, tapping on the loose bar between our cells.
“I don’t think the bar will come out,” he said, wrenching the bottom of the loose bar to the side. “The top is still stuck fast.”
“I know, but I can get through.”
Once the bar was moved, I squeezed through the gap, noticing that it was significantly easier than the first time I’d tried. How much weight had I lost?
“My legs are smaller than yours,” I explained. “I might be able to reach it.”
I didn’t even bother getting up off the ground. I simply pivoted my body around, spinning on my backside, and edged my leg into the next cell. After a moment’s thought, I pulled my leg back and whipped off my shoe and stocking, praying that my feet didn’t stink. I might only have one chance at this; I couldn’t blow it by not being able to feel the bottle through my shoes.
“Okay, I can do this,” I said, more to myself than to Harlan, sticking my leg back through the bars. Harlan quickly turned to look the other way as my skirts were hiked up past my thighs, but my leg fit and my toes could just barely reach the far side of the bottle.
“I can feel it,” I whispered gleefully. My entire face screwed up with the effort, but I finally managed to dislodge the bottle from the recess in the floor and roll it back toward the bars by me.
“I got it!” It was a struggle to keep my voice down. I grabbed the bottle before it could get away again, and Harlan held out a hand to help me up from the floor. Once I was raised up to stand, my breath caught. The cell seemed much smaller when I was face to face with Harlan.
“You’re amazing,” he told me softly.
We couldn’t get distracted, not right now. “Let’s see how amazing you are at throwing this time,” I teased, handing over the bottle.
He stared at it. “What if I miss again?”
I placed my hand against his chest. “You won’t.”
“But if I do?”
“Then we’ll figure it out. But I think you can.”
Harlan locked his jaw, stared out the porthole, andinhaled deeply. He stuck his arm back through the bars, swung the bottle a few times, then released.
It was a clean shot.
The bottle sailed directly out the window, and there was a faint splash.
“You did it!” I did my best to keep my voice low, but I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. I flung my arms around Harlan’s neck, and a moment later, he wrapped his arms around my waist and picked me up, twirling me around several times.
This was true happiness.
“You did it,” I said again, breathless with joy.
“We did it,” he corrected me, finally setting me down, but he didn’t release me, and I didn’t let go of my hold around his neck. We were so close that I could feel his body heat warming the small amount of air between us. The ship creaked around us, water lapping at the hull like the world was holding its breath.
I looked up. His gaze was on my mouth, just for a second. Just enough to make my pulse trip and any semblance of a rational thought to flee.
“Harlan…”
His fingers brushed against my back, running up and down my spine so lightly that I had to focus to feel it.
I didn’t pull away.
“Elena, when we get out of here, I’d like to see you again, and I don’t mean as just a friend. Here, this is for you.” He pulled out a paper from his back pocket and pressed it into my hand.
