Page 98 of Summer with My Sexy Ex
I look around the orchard to see if anything at all might work to transport this shit. Unless I pull an entire tree out of the ground, I come up empty. I grabbed about ten bags from the last store we visited. And only because stealing apples was like the backup to the backup plan.
I figured it was more than enough. But these apples are huge—Bristol says they’re normal sized, I’m sure, just to argue, but she’s wrong—so we can only fit about ten apples per bag.
Which means we might have one hundred apples.
“What if we cut them in half?” I ask. “Can they still hold the candle or do whatever Taylor wants?”
“No.”
“You didn’t even think about it,” I protest.
“I didn’t have to. It’s a dumb idea.”
“You have a better one?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“What is it?”
“You should have gotten more bags.”
“Real mature, using retrospect as an—”
“Yeah, if you two want to hold it right there and put your hands up.” A voice sounds from behind me. I turn slowly. Two police officers approach. One speaks into his microphone, “Yeah, dispatch, this is Unit 474 responding to the 211 in progress. We have the suspects in sight.”
“We’re gonna hafta place you under arrest,” the other says as he approaches Bristol.
“Arrest?”Oh fuck.
The first officer, Nelson, frisks me, reads me my rights, puts me in handcuffs, and secures me to the backseat of their modified cop-golf-cart.
Bristol joins me soon after, also in cuffs and secured in the seat next to me.
“What are we being arrested for?” I ask, even though I have a pretty good idea why.
“Dispatch, we have the suspects in custody. Repeat, suspects are unarmed and in custody.” Nelson steps to the side to radio an update.
The second officer, Hamilton, comes over to answer my question. “Let’s see here.” He ticks off his fingers as though the list is long. “We’ve got trespassing, possession of stolen goods, breaking and entering—”
“We didn’t break anything,” Brie says.
“You don’t always have to break it to enter when you shouldn’t, young lady,” Hamilton says, shaking a finger at her like she’s being scolded. “Now then, we’ve got trespassing, possession of stolen goods, breaking and entering, robbery, and unwarranted apple possession outside seasonal limits.”
“Unwarranted what?” Bristol asks. “What does that even mean?”
“Means you were picking apples when it’s not apple season. You also climbed over a fence onto land you don’t own to get those apples you have no right to and stored them in your vehicle and on your person,” Nelson joins the conversation.
We do have apples in our pockets.
“I knew what that part meant,” she mutters.
“That fence is not meant to keep people out,” I whisper to her. It’s a basic four-foot-tall post and rail fence.
“Got something you’d like to say?” Hamilton asks.
“No, sir.”
He nods.
