Page 16 of My Favorite Lost Cause
He’s laughing, but my stomach is in knots. He truly has no clue how far Harvey will go to blame me for a million tiny things.
“It was a joke, Maren,” he says after a moment.
“Harvey wouldn’t stay with me if I lost an arm.”
He’d find a way to blame me for it, and then he’d move on to someone else.
“If you’re married to a man who would leave you for suffering a tragic accident,” Charlie says unhappily, “then maybe the alligator will have done you a favor.”
I sigh as I roll away.
He might have a point.
It’sa tap that wakes me. Three distinct taps to the shoulder, in quick succession—the way an airline attendant might wake you if you were still asleep as the plane is landing.
My eyes fly open in the moonlit room, and I roll toward Charlie, wondering why the hell he’s woken me…except he’s flat on his back and sound asleep. That’s when something furry brushes against my arm.
I scream, scrambling atop the only point higher than me in the entire room.
Which is Charlie.
His arms band around me tight and alarm sharpens his features. His body braces and his arms tighten further. “Is someone in the house?”
“No, there’s something in theroom. Like, a rat or a mouse, or something. It just brushed against my arm.”
His features relax, and a half-smile stretches across his face. “And you decided sex with me would take your mind off of it. I knew we’d get to this point eventually.”
He’s joking, obviously, but there’s something large and firm pressed to my abdomen, which I shall politely ignore. “No, idiot. I want you to do something about it.”
“Like what? Accuse it of trespassing? Threaten to sue if it doesn’t leave?”
Skittering feet race past again near the top of our heads, and Charlie jolts at the sound, managing to headbutt me in the process.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry,” he says as he somehow climbs to his feet with me in his arms.
“Not so funny anymore now that you felt it too, huh?” I demand.
He starts walking toward the light switch, holding me aloft, with my legs around his waist. “I could put you down, you know, and let you walk on your own.”
“You are brave and strong, and I won’t even bring up the fact that you probably gave me a concussion just now.”
He flips on the light and, after confirming that anything living in here has departed, sets me down and checks his watch. “It’s three thirty. Probably not worth getting a hotel at this point.So our options are sleep in the car or take our chances with the mouse.”
Hardly even a decision.
Ten minutes later we’ve folded down the third-row seat of the car we rented and are huddled in the back. It would be an okay fit for small people, but neither of us are small people.
“It touched me,” I whisper, once we’re settled in. “Aren’t rats what spread bubonic plague?”
“If it’ll make this trip end faster,” he replies, “I hope they’re still spreading it.”
His breathing evens out within a minute or two—the long, unconscious breaths of someone who’s deeply asleep. It’s only then that I remember that tap on my shoulder. It felt like a warning.
Even if Charlie was awake, I wouldn’t tell him what I’m thinking. It’s too crazy to say aloud.
9
