Page 81 of Holiday on the Rocks
THIRTY-NINE
ALLIE
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Clint hung up his jeans on a hanger in the closet and then his navy suit. He had enough clothes to stay through the entire Colorado thing.
I didn’t think I liked that. Or did I? My life was currently going at 13 WTF’s a minute.
“I still can’t believe you’re here.” I sat on the edge of the bed.
He zipped up his empty suitcase and set it on the floor of the closet and turned to me.
“Royce and I touch base now and then, and when I found out you were here, I wanted to be also.”
“But when I left, we kind of let everything go.” Yes, I took the new job and left because I have trouble when things get to a certain level. If you’d like to see me do a beautiful swan dive out the window, say Allie, should we move in together?
She’s outta here!
He walked over and pulled me to my feet. “It took letting it go for me to see how much I need you.”
I stood silently looking up at his handsome face awaiting feelings of some sort to follow his utterly romantic statement. Helllooo? Swooing…are you in the house? Take-my-breath-away…anywhere?
Crickets.
Clint grinned and a panic shot through my veins as he was about to kiss me. The last lips on mine were Levi’s. I quickly jumped back. “Oh my gosh, ten minutes have already passed? They’re waiting for us to paintball.”
His hands grabbed my waist. “Maybe we skip the paintball and stay here.”
“Oh, uh, well, it’s kind of planned. Yeah, before you arrived.” I shuffled to the door and pulled it open. “You know, magical friend time.”
“Let’s fuckin’ go!” Lexi shouted as “magical time” wasn’t really her thing. Yeah, some girls may be a delicate flower, but she’s like the claw end of a hammer.
We’d all jumped into our white coveralls which were big enough to fit right over our coats and approached the forest beside the house while I kept my eyes peeled for the crazed wild turkeys that were gobbling in my mind.
Evan yelled. “Okay, here’s how this is going to go!” We all gathered around. “I loaded everybody’s guns with jelly balls so it won’t hurt. Every man and woman for themselves. You can get hit five times before you’re dead.”
Levi, who stood across from Clint and I, narrowed his eyes at Clint. “Dead.”
Clint looked around as if to see if anyone else heard the comment as I scolded Levi with my eyes, but the glimmer in his sent a little tingle cartwheeling down my spine.
Evan waved his gun in the air. “Okay, when I say go, everybody gets five minutes to hide, and when you hear me yell, it’s on!”
Rachel grabbed his arm. “Damn straight it’s on, you sexy son of a bitch!”
Kristina giggled as she scurried into the forest. “I’m going to shoot all y’all up, watch out mother hubbards!”
Clint gave me the thumbs up sign. “You know how to work the gun okay?”
While Levi was out of sight, his deep voice bounced around us. “Bet your ass she can work a fuckin’ gun!”
Clint’s eyes locked on me as I shrugged. “I think I’m good.”
I jogged through the crunchy white beneath my feet into the forest where the snow-covered trees glimmered in the sunlight. I kept going until I heard no other running close by. I hid behind a huge oak tree and looked at my gun.
“Hey.”
I spun around to see Levi behind me.
