Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
WILDER
“Does anyone care to explain to me what happened?” Sanders asks as he sits on the top of his chair with a tennis racket and tennis ball, bouncing it annoyingly.
I’m not in the fucking mood to watch this man toss a ball around and ask us about our feelings.
Nope, I had the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in a while.
I haven’t spoken but two words to Scottie all morning.
And even when we were on a morning reflection hike with the group, we kept our distance. And everyone felt it. Even Chad, who tried to strike up a conversation with me, but I ignored him and moved toward the front of the group, nearly leading the hike on my own.
I embarrassed her.
Me.
I was the one sticking up for her. I noticed the mob mentality, and I was not putting up with it. Yet I’m the one who got in trouble.
Unbelievable.
“So is no one going to speak?”
Scottie has her arms crossed, sitting on the very edge of the couch, not even attempting to look at me.
Jesus, she wasn’t this mad after the s’mores incident. I’m simply lost as to how it went so downhill after I asked my question about defending her coworkers. But I’m not sorry for what I did, and I’d do it over again. I’d make sure that no one even considers attacking her.
“Okay, I see how this is going to go.” Sanders walks over to a hockey stick positioned against a poster of LeBron James. When was that hung up? I swear with each day that we’re here, this becomes more and more like a man cave.
He brings the hockey stick over to us and says, “Whoever is holding this stick must speak. You can’t transfer it to the next person without speaking. So, Scottie, since you’re practically crawling out of here with every inch you’ve made toward the door, let’s start with you.” He hands her the stick and says, “Why are you mad?”
She takes the stick and answers, “I’m not mad. I just don’t want to be around him.”
Then she tosses the stick in my direction, and I luckily catch it before it nails me in the head. “I don’t want to be around her either.”
I send the hockey stick right back to her, and it hits her in the leg.
“Ouch.” She rubs her thigh.
“Sorry,” I mutter, because I’m not a dick.
Sanders takes the stick and looks between the two of us. “This is not productive. Remember what we talked about? Communication. Do we need to have you sit on Wilder’s lap again?”
Scottie leans forward, snatches the stick from Sanders, and says, “I will tell you right now: I will die before I sit on his lap again. And if you try to make me, I will scream bloody murder. Not happening.”
I take the hockey stick from her and look Sanders in the eyes. “That’s one thing we can agree on. I refuse to have her sit on my lap. Absolutely refuse. No way in hell is she coming near me.”
She snatches the stick from me and looks me in the eyes. “I never want to sit on your lap ever again actually. I even took a poll with myself, and the results are in: your lap is an abomination. Contaminated. An absolute disgust.”
I snatch the hockey stick right back. “Well, I took a poll with myself too, and those results are in as well. Although you have a nice ass, my legs have come to the realization that they don’t want to support ungrateful women.”
“Ungrateful. Why is she ungrateful?” Sanders asks.
“Ask her.” I stick the hockey stick between us and cross my arms over my chest.
She doesn’t reach for the stick this time though. She turns away, causing Sanders to exhale.
“Listen, if we can’t be civil and have a mature conversation, then there will be consequences.”
“Whatever the consequence is, it can’t be worse than this,” Scottie says.
“I wouldn’t say that if I were you,” Sanders says.
“Trust me.” Scottie puts her hand up in dismissal. “Nothing is worse than this.”
“What are we doing?” Scottie asks as Sanders finishes paddling the rowboat to the middle of the lake.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I say, arms crossed. “He’s going to leave us stranded in the middle of the lake with no other option than to work together to get back.”
“That’s idiotic. He wouldn’t do that.”
Just then, a Jet Ski comes out of nowhere and pulls up next to us. Sanders hands the driver the paddles to the boat and then climbs out of it and onto the back of the Jet Ski.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Scottie asks, panic in her voice.
Sanders, with his chin lifted high, says, “We spoke about communication and it being the problem in your relationship. Well, here is where you can learn to communicate.”
“You’re just going to leave us here, in the middle of the lake with no paddles?” Scottie asks.
“Good job stating the obvious,” I mutter, only to cause her to snap her attention in my direction.
“You know, I could do without the snarky comments.”
“I could do without the snide glares,” I snap right back.
“I’ve barely looked at you. How could I give you snide glares?”
“You might not realize you’re doing it, but every time you look at me, there’s side-eye.” And in a guttural voice, I say, “I fucking hate side-eye. Just look at me with regular eyes.”
“You’re delusional,” she says and then offers me the greatest side-eye ever to be achieved by a human being.
“You…wench,” I whisper.
“Enough,” Sanders shouts. “Just…enough. This is not productive.”
“None of this is productive,” Scottie says, tossing her hands in the air. “Do you really think leaving us out here in the lake is going to do anything?”
“It will force you to work together and find a way back to the shore.”
“Yeah.” I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s called swimming, and I tend to be excellent at that, so the minute you leave, I’m jumping overboard.”
“You would just leave me stuck in a boat by myself?”
“After that side-eye you just gave me, uh, yeah, I would.”
“That’s a dick move,” she says.
“Listen, last time I attempted to be your knight in shining armor, I was chastised and punished for it, so beg your pardon if I don’t feel very knightly at the moment. Actually, I’m feeling more like the villain.”
And then without giving it another thought, I toss my body overboard and start swimming for the shore.
Tires peel out and kick up dust as Sanders drives away on his four-wheeler, leaving me and Scottie alone in the middle of the woods with a tent and a cooler.
After I made it to the shore, I headed back to the cabin, took a shower, got changed, and then was met at the door by Sanders, who dragged me onto his four-wheeler.
“Great job,” I say to her. “You just had to test him, didn’t you?”
“You think this is my fault?” she asks. “Uh, you weren’t talking either. And you were the one who stranded me in a boat.”
“Yeah, but you were the one who was like ‘It can’t get worse, nothing is worse than this.’” I gesture to the tent and pile of supplies. “This is worse, Scottie. This is way worse.”
“Do you really think they’re just going to leave us out here?”
“Uh, yeah. They were going to leave us in a boat. What makes you think this is any different? It’s why he took off. Do you think he forgot something and is coming back?”
She folds her arms across her chest. “You know, you don’t have to be so sarcastic.”
“Well, you don’t have to ask ridiculous questions. Of course they left us out here. They…they parent-trapped us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Have you ever seen the movie?”
“Of course I have. I’m just surprised you have.”
“Don’t be sexist,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. “I wasn’t being sexist. I was surprised you’ve seen it given the emo vibe you give off.”
“This is not an emo vibe. This is me being me.”
“It’s emo.”
“Stop,” I say and then take a deep breath. “They parent-trapped us. This is what they did to Lindsay Lohan. They sequestered her away from camp until they got along again. That’s what they’re doing to us.”
“That’s not parent-trapped. Parent-trapped is when you trick your divorced parents into being close together.”
“Jesus fuck, the technicalities don’t matter. Can’t you see what they’re doing?”
“Yes, but I think it’s good to have it on record that I know the proper term for parent-trapped.”
“You’re…impossible,” I say in a seething tone and then walk over to the packed-up tent to start unzipping it.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I ask. “I’m setting up the tent.”
“You don’t actually believe that we have to sleep here…” Her voice trails off. “Oh my God, do you think this is the tent they were talking about last night?”
“If they were, not sure why they wanted this form of torture. Couldn’t think of anything worse than having to share a tent with you tonight.”
“Aren’t you pleasant?” she asks as she sits down on a log.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I ask.
“Uh, sitting.”
“Do you plan on sleeping in this tent tonight?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Then I suggest you come over here and help me set it up.”
“Well, I see chivalry is dead.” She stands from the log and walks over to me.
“This isn’t a chivalrous thing to do. This is team bonding, and isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? Team bonding?”
“We’re supposed to be in our sex cabin, getting ready for dinner. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Yeah, well, your refusal to talk and incessant repetition that this couldn’t get any worse wound us up here.”
“Please, you weren’t talking either. You can’t blame this on me.”
“Oh, I can,” I say as I shake out the tent poles. “This is all on you. This was your idea.”
“My idea? You were the one who paid for the camp up front.”
“You’re the one who brought us together because you were trying to look like you belong.”
“You’re the one who said yes to the idea.”
“Because I was bored,” I shout, raising my arms to the sky. “Because I was being helpful. Sorry for lending a hand.”
“Apology not accepted.”
“You are…insufferable.”
“Say that into a mirror,” she shouts.
“I swear to my left fucking nut, Scottie, if you don’t hold still, I’m going to feed myself to the bears.”
“Well, in that case,” she says, moving the pole I’m trying to connect.
Speaking through a clenched jaw, I say, “I have zero problem sleeping under the stars tonight. You’re the one who requires a tent. Not me.”
“I don’t require a tent,” she says, lifting her chin, as if she’s trying to call my bluff.
Well, guess what? I’m not bluffing. I drop the poles, dust off my hands, and walk over to the cooler, where I pull out a Diet Coke. I pop open the can while taking a seat on the log. “Looking forward to my slumber.”
“As if you’d really sleep without a tent.”
“I would. Try me.”
I challenge her with a stare off, and after a few seconds, she grumbles, “Just come help me.”
“Pole six connects to pole seven,” I yell. “It says it in the instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“The instructions next to your foot. Just find pole six!”
“I did. It’s right here,” she yells back as she holds it up to the sky.
“Then insert it.”
Nostrils widening, anger searing, she says, “And like I said before, it doesn’t freaking fit.”
“It’s supposed to fit. It says so in the instructions.”
“This one doesn’t fit. Maybe it belongs to another set.”
“Let me see that,” I say as I snag the pole from her and take in the number. My expression falls as I look back at Scottie. “This is pole nine.”
“No, it’s six,” she says.
“It’s fucking nine,” I shout back. “See this line under the foot of the number? That indicates it’s a nine.”
“What line?” She takes the pole from me and examines it. “Huh, I didn’t see that. Well, consider me wrong.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What are the odds of that happening?”
“I don’t know, fifty-fifty?”
“You can be so smug at times, you know that?”
“Scottie, just find the fucking six pole!”
“Do you see it right there?”
“Where?” Scottie asks as I point toward a branch on a tree.
“See that big branch that looks like a camel’s back? Three branches up, that spot of red. That’s it.”
She follows my direction and says, “That’s it?”
“Yup, that’s it. A scarlet tanager. Beautiful, right?”
“Stunning.”
“It’s a male.”
“How do you know?”
“The brightly colored ones are male. Females have olive backs and brown wings.”
She shakes her head. “Even Mother Nature represses women. How depressing.”
“Scottie, the pole. Hand me the fucking pole.”
“This is not the right pole.”
“It is. Just hand it to me.”
“It’s not going to work.”
I breathe out a heavy breath, count to five, and then say, “Just…hand…me…the…pole.”
She hands me the pole, and I attempt to insert it into another pole that’s supposed to hold up the tent. When it doesn’t fit, I scream bloody murder and chuck the pole like a javelin straight into the woods.
“You know, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be,” Scottie says as she places her hands on her hips and stares at the erected tent in front of us.
“I think once we found the right poles, it all worked out from there,” I say, feeling the delusion myself.
“And it doesn’t matter that we didn’t fully listen to the instructions, because they weren’t making sense anyway.”
“None of it made sense, yet look. It’s standing.”
“It is,” she agrees and tilts her head to the side. “It’s standing…standing slightly crooked.”
“I know.”
“One gust of wind might send it falling down.”
“Yup, we might die of asphyxiation tonight.”
“As long as you’re aware.”
“Well aware, Scottie. Well aware.”