Page 37 of Off the Grid
“No, it’s fine.”
“I overreacted. It’s just— I woke up and that fucking thing was sitting on my head!”
He turned around and looked down, watching McKenzie run her fingers through her hair and shake her head back and forth with a wrinkled look of disgust on her face.She’s not paying attention to me. She has absolutely no idea that I’m the one who overreacted.The realization calmed him enough to let a smile quirk the edges of his lips. “What fucking thing?”
“That—” She snapped her head up, eyes slightly wild as they scanned the leaves. “Where’d it go?”
“I’d be more helpful if I knew what you were looking for.”
“A squirrel.” She said it as though the animal were the devil incarnate. “A fucking squirrel.”
“You’re freaking out about a squirrel?” he asked, unable to keep the hilarity from his tone. She’d kept her cool during a kidnapping, a gunfight, and a high-speed chase, but a squirrel was her undoing? He couldn’t believe it. “The ones with the cute bushy tails?”
“Don’t be fooled by a bit of fluff,” she muttered, holding her hands before her as though one might come flying through the leaves at any moment. What was she going to do—judo chop it to the ground? “Ihatesquirrels. They’re the assholes of the animal kingdom. One step above rats, one step below pigeons. I had a dog growing up, a golden retriever named Beau. He was the best. Anyway, there was a tree outside my bedroom window, and this fat, instigating mofo of a squirrel would just sit there every day and stare into my room, taunting Beau. Every fucking day. And Beau would lose it, barking and going wild, and thatthingwouldn’t move. It’d slowly chomp on a nut, as though Beau was the entertainment and it had all the time in the world. I swear, the fucking thing smirked.”
“I don’t think they can do that.”
“Well, that one did. And the one I woke up to was the same way, sitting on my head, lounging—hell, plotting. I’m telling you, it was up to no good.”
He crossed his arms and lifted his brows in disbelief as she walked around him in a circle, a hunter on the prowl.
“You laugh now,” she accused. “But just wait.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
She grunted.
A ruffling sound sliced through the quiet, like papers being shuffled.
McKenzie whipped her head around, finding Leo’s eyes. “What was that?”
“Probably a squirrel…in a tree…because we’re in a forest.”
“No, it sounded like plast— Aha!”
She pointed triumphantly toward the ground. Leo slowly dropped his gaze to follow, seeing nothing more than his flattened sweater and his backpack.
“There’s noth— Whoa!” He jolted back as his backpack moved. “It’s in my bag?”
“It’s in your bag.”
They locked eyes and at the same time shouted, “The food!”
“Shoot it!” McKenzie demanded.
He stared at her. “I’m not going to shoot it.”
“Okay, then what’s your grand idea?”
“I’ll just— I’ll—”
McKenzie put her hands on her hips. The backpack continued to move around. Leo scowled and stepped forward. He grabbed the bottom of the backpack, flipped it upside down, and shook it. The squirrel tumbled out—along with everything else in his possession—and landed on its feet with a Twizzler between its teeth. They stared at it. It stared at them. Leo took a step closer. The squirrel hastily stuffed four chocolate-covered almonds into its cheeks, until they were so full they might pop, and took off into the trees.
“Ballsy little bastard,” he grumbled.
“I told you, they’re assholes.” McKenzie sighed and knelt next to Leo, surveying the damage. “Did it get all of our food?”
“Just about.” Leo held up the empty pouch of Twizzlers, then jiggled the almonds. “There’s a few of these left.”
