“I guess we’ll see.” I grab my shovel and keep digging.
Not even five minutes later, Sulli curses loudly, “Fuck.” The handle of her shovel just broke off. I’m more surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.
I look to Akara. “Too strong for her own good.”
“A travesty,” Akara quips. “Do we need to bury her in a third hole?”
“Fuck off,” she curses, frustrated, and she collapses on her ass.
Akara and I stop joking around with Sulli, and we all take a break. Grouped together in the dark, we pass out the only snacks left in the hiking backpack.
Teddy Grahams and applesauce.
With sweaty, bloody clothes and dirtied hands, we eat together, and as I finish off a cup of applesauce, I look around at where we are, what we’re doing, and I start laughing.
Sulli puts a hand to my head. “Are you concussed?”
My chest rises in a bigger laugh. “I was just thinking about how we’re eating food that first belonged to a baby, digging graves with shovels meant for shitholes, and we’re in a meadow with a Meadows.”
Akara and Sulli flash their headlamps around the grassy clearing we chose. Sure enough, they realize we’re in an actual meadow. And they both start laughing with me.
“Shit,” Akara breathes into the light sound. “I needed that.” He touches the back of my head.
“It’s what I’m here for.” I swig my water that I wish were beer. “The Meadows-in-a-meadow jokes.”
Sulli sways into me like she means to slug my arm, but instead, she just leans her weight against my side. I wrap an arm over her shoulder.
Akara keeps a hand on her knee.
Laughter has faded, but resting among each other carries a solace and comfort that I’d rather not leave behind.
24
AKARA KITSUWON
After heaving the cougars in the graves, we shovel dirt on top. Covering their bodies, I crouch down while Banks hangs his head and Sulli presses her fingers to her lips.
I touch the packed-in dirt.
It was you or us.
I’m sorry it had to be you.
After a quiet moment, I rise. Banks makes a sign of the cross, and Sulli exhales a deeper breath.
“Let’s go,” I tell them.
They nod and follow. We make our way back to camp. It’s late. We’re all filthy and cut-up. Most of my pain centralizes on the bite mark around my elbow. Stinging escalates whenever I shift my arm, but I wash the ache down with some over-the-counter pain meds.
Sulli is rigging a makeshift shower. A plastic sack, resembling an IV bag, is full of boiled water that’s been warming in the sun all day. She hooks the bag to a tree limb, but there’s only enough water for one warm shower.
Before the cougar attack, we talked about just washing off in the river. Now that’s not happening. I don’t trust how well we’ve bandaged our wounds, and wading in a river with open cuts is parasite-central.
So I grab a water bottle. “You take the shower, Sul.” Unscrewing the cap, I’m prepared to do a quick clean-off.
“No way.” She steals the bottle, then blocks Banks from grabbing one out of his backpack, a hand to his chest. “The temperature outside has dropped too much—you’ll both have popsicle dicks if you try to bathe with bottled water.”
My lips quirk into a smile.
Banks makes a noise that sounds like a deep laugh.
After this crazy night, I can’t believe we’re still able to find humor. I should probably go check my phone now that we’re back at camp with cell service. Running a security firm and a gym is a full-time gig, and the amount of missed calls, texts, and emails keep piling the longer I neglect them.
But nothing sounds better than being here. With her. With him. Painful parts of tonight will creep back when I leave.
So I stay.
Sulli looks between us. “Do you really want popsicle dicks?”
Banks cracks a smile, his eyes saying words he once told me: Hell have mercy on my soul.
Yeah, the dirty response is right there, and I just say it, “Depends on how much you like sucking popsicles, string bean.”
She slugs my arm.
Pain shoots through my elbow, and I wince for real.
“Oh fuck—I’m so, so sorry, Kits.” Her hands fly to her mouth, then hover over my elbow I’m favoring. “It was just instinct—like I was on automatic. I didn’t think. Fuck.” She groans at herself.
“It’s okay.” I fling a strand of her hair at her face.
Amid her dirt-splotched cheeks, she turns an embarrassed shade of red.
Banks checks my elbow bandages. “It’s not bleeding.”
I slip him a thanks through my eyes.
He nods.
“Maybe you should recheck?” Sulli asks Banks. “Give it a closer fucking look?”
He does, more for her peace of mind. “He’s good to go.”
“But where will I go?” I tease and throw off my baseball hat.
“To hell, probably,” Banks quips. “See ya there.”
We smile, and our eyes plant on Sulli as I say, “Are we going to drag her down with us?”
“Only if she wants to go.”
Sulli is still hyper-focused on my elbow. “How can you guys crack jokes right now?” She doesn’t give us time to respond. “Does your arm hurt more, Kits? Be honest with me.”
“Not much more than it did, and hey, you’re the one who threw out the first joke.”
Her face twists in confusion.
“Popsicle dicks,” I tell her.
“I was being serious.” She wipes a smudge of dirt off her cheek. “You can’t deny that your dicks won’t freeze if you take bottled water showers out here.”
Banks runs a hand across his jaw. “I didn’t deny a thing.”
She holds onto her arms and shivers. She’s cold. I’m about to go really serious and stop the chatter, but she continues fast, “There’s enough warm water if we all just take a shower together.”
Shower together?
I didn’t think we’d go in that direction. My lips flat-line, and I look over her shoulder to Banks again. His eyes are on me.
A thousand questions spinning between us. Can we all three take a shower together? Yesterday, I would’ve probably said no.
But I’m spent. Exhausted. Emotionally, mentally, physically. I want the warm shower. I want Sulli to feel solid. I want Banks to not think about his brother he lost.
I want to shed the night. I want it gone and soaked in the water that falls to the earth.
“As friends,” I say.
“As friends,” Sulli nods and looks to Banks.
“As friends,” he agrees.
I watch as Sulli pulls the Camp Calloway tee over her head. Banks steps out of his pants, and I make quick work shedding my clothes. Until I’m in boxer-briefs like Banks, and Sulli stands in panties and a sports bra. All of us bandaged up. She stares down at her chest for a second, thinking something, and then suddenly, she tugs up and shimmies off her sports bra.
Her nipples are hard in the cold. Shit, I love her tits. She turns quickly to the makeshift shower. The sack of water still hangs from the tree branch. All three of us are shivering and gather close underneath the plastic spigot. She stands between us, facing Banks.