Chapter 24 #2
“That bad? Is your bed as uncomfy as mine?”
“Yes, but …” Colton hesitates.
“But what?” I ask, my curiosity piqued.
“There’s a hair on my sheets.”
“A hair?”
“Yes. A big red one.”
I try to hold in my laughter. “Maybe it’s a thread or something.”
“Trust me, Missy. It’s a long red strand of hair draped across my sheets like it owns them. I can’t unsee it. It’s all I can think about.”
Unable to contain it any longer, a laugh bubbles out of me. “You poor tortured soul.”
“Are you laughing at my pain?” I can hear the smile in his voice. “It’s gross, Missy. I can’t sleep when Big Bertha is here with me.”
“You named it? Wait, why is it still there? Just pull it off.”
“Why on earth would I touch it?”
My body shakes with laughter. I grab the flashlight from my bed and fling my blanket off, stepping barefoot onto the cement floor. “I’m coming up.”
“To get it?” There is so much hope in his voice that it makes me laugh even harder. I almost lose it as I scale the rusting metal ladder up to his bed.
“You’re my hero. Did you know that?” Colton says, just as I reach the top rung.
“All right, where’s the offender?” I ask.
Colton scootches farther down his bed, taking his thin blanket with him and exposing the fitted sheet beneath. I shine the flashlight across his narrow bed, and, not seeing it, I crawl up onto the mattress that is more apt for the body of a pencil than for a human, especially a Colton-sized human.
“I don’t see it,” I say.
Colton points to the barest sliver of a shimmering hair in the corner of his bed, and I have no control over the snort-laugh that comes out of me.
“It’s just a little hair, is all.” I look up at Colton, who’s moments away from dry heaving, and put him out of his misery, plucking off the red hair that likely came from one of the two redheaded staff members I’ve seen once or twice and let it float to the ground.
“There. All good!” I smile, trying to quell another snort.
He sighs in relief, his shoulders visibly relaxing.
Then a smile curves his lips, capturing my attention from the inside out.
In a single second, I’m overtaken by the Downing genes.
And these are no off-brand, wannabe GQ model genes; these are the gold standard of human genetics shining their full force at me.
While I’ve known Colton for years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite as handsome as he is right now.
The full, tilted lips, his untamed hair, and that beard.
Oh, mercy. It’s the Colton Downing special, and I’m buying.
It’s at this time that I notice I’m crouched on my haunches like a toad on a lily pad.
It’s giving ribbit ribbit, when what I want to be giving is hubba hubba.
Not to mention, my hair hasn’t been properly combed in weeks, and I still can’t find my deodorant, though I think I smell more like dirt than BO at this point.
Regardless, it’s time for me to bounce off this bed and descend into my bunk cave. “Um, okay, well, good night.”
Colton nods his head all sultry-like. “Good night, Missy Jean.”
Feeling all shook up, I scale down the ladder while holding the flashlight in my left hand.
I’m just about to the bottom rung when I sense something in my periphery—something moving. It takes all I have in me to shine my flashlight on the spot of the floor where I sensed movement. And as soon as I do, I scream.
I’m up on top of Colton’s bed faster than a jackrabbit.
“What? What is it?” Colton’s eyes flash wide in surprise.
I scurry to the center of the bed, knocking Colton off his axis, and frantically pull my feet under me. The rusted iron bedsprings burst to life, creaking and squeaking with each sudden movement.
Colton attempts to soothe me by putting his hand on my back; all the while, I pad around his bed like the mattress is made of hot coals and it’s all I can do to not get burned.
“Missy, what’s going …”
In my freak-out, my hand flings wide and the flashlight I’m holding clocks Colton in the face.
“Ahh.” Colton grips the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, stars! Colton, are you okay?” I nearly knock him off the bed in my attempt to give aid, my hand reaching for his nose. While at the same time, my eyes keep flicking back to the floor.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Colton waves my hand away, but by the strain in his voice, I know I’ve hit him good.
“What’s going on, Missy?” He looks directly at me, wiggling his nose that’s now sporting a red mark. It looks painful, so much so that it immediately sobers me, and I finally get full control of my limbs.
“A snake,” I say, breathing heavily. “A big one.”
Colton reaches for the offending flashlight and shines it over the ledge. In tandem, we both lean over, and sure enough, a big ole snake slithers across the concrete until it conceals half its body under my bed.
My mouth runs dry as, this time, I see the snake more clearly. It’s tan, with a distinct black-and-red pattern, and if I had to guess, it’s about eight feet long with a body that’s roughly the circumference of my upper arm.
“Eh, it’s just a little snake, is all,” Colton says, mimicking my earlier comment about the red hair in his bed.
I backhand his chest.
He briefly chuckles, but when he gets another glimpse of the snake, it knocks the humor right out of him. “Okay, so it might be one of the biggest snakes I’ve ever seen.”
A squeak escapes my lips, and my breathing escalates.
“Hey, hey.” Colton places a hand on my shoulder.
“Can snakes climb bedposts?” I shrink away from the edge of the bed until my back is flat against the wall and my knees are tucked against me. I feel as if a dozen baby snakes are slithering up my arms and legs.
“Hey,” Colton says calmly. “Look at me.”
I follow his directive, my gaze colliding with his sapphire eyes, bright with the reflection of the flashlight’s glow.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says, reassuringly.
“And by okay, you mean a snake snack?”
“No, because tonight, we’re sleeping on the top bunk. You okay with that?”
I nod my head vigorously. “Yes.” Because there’s no way in Dollywood I’m going down there now.
It takes a few minutes for my heart rate to decelerate and for Colton and me to find a suitable sleeping arrangement that will allow us to get more than an hour of sleep.
For a half second, we attempt to lie down like chopsticks next to one another, but I immediately start to feel like that arcade game where you drop a token onto a sliding platform full of other tokens in hopes one will fall off the ledge so you can get the prize.
Yeah, well, I did not want to be a falling token tonight, nor a snake’s prize.
Colton and I readjust and sit upright, huddling together as we sit in the sagging center of the bed, our legs and arms squished tightly against one another.
He offers me his pillow, which I quickly stuff in the inch of space between the wall at our backs and the bunk bed, just in case the snake gets curious and decides he wants to climb up here and pretend he’s something other than a snake—like a belt or a necklace, for instance.
Colton and I spend the next ten minutes trying—and failing—
to fall asleep as we lean against a wood wall that feels as thick as cardboard.
“Are you cold?” Colton asks.
I’m so close to Colton I have no doubt he can feel me shivering despite the blanket he draped over our legs.
The night breeze feels stronger on this side of the island than back at our old base camp.
I wish I had my jacket from my backpack, but getting it would mean passing by Sir Hiss himself, and that’s not going to happen.
“A little,” I say as another tremor passes through me.
In one smooth movement, Colton’s hand wraps around my back and tugs at my waist, pulling me closer to him, and I instinctively rest my head against his chest.
“Better?” Colton asks.
I hum, feeling like I’ve just indulged in a spoonful of warm fudge. “Much better.”
I snuggle into Colton, and he trails the soft pads of his fingers up and down my arm.
The motion is soothing and manages to replace the recurring image of a snake under the bunk bed with thoughts of butterfly wings grazing my stomach and making me feel like I, too, could grow wings and fly.
But then I hear the cold-blooded killer slither farther under my bed and my happy butterflies end up getting eaten by a pair of sharp fangs.
“I’m not going to lie, I love this show, but I’m really glad this is our last night on the island.
” I sigh, dreaming of my pink-and-yellow air-conditioned room back home, the feel of burrowing into my large minky blanket that Ji and Paige got me for our high school graduation, the smell of lavender outside my bedroom window, the feel of clean, hot water rushing over me from my showerhead. And above all, the absence of snakes.
“Me, too. Though, it’s going to be weird going back home. I almost feel as if I’ve been living a different life out here. Some of it not so great …” Colton tilts his chin down to look at me. “And some of it very good.”
I feel the soft press of Colton’s lips against the crown of my head and my insides melt like butter on a hot biscuit. A smile lifts my lips. “I couldn’t agree more. Though in just one day, you could be on your way to the future of your choosing.”
He chuckles, breathy and hollow, as if he hasn’t let himself fully imagine that outcome yet. He curls a strand of my hair around his finger. “And you, you could have The Red Curtain. You can finally start Something to Glow About.”
“Something to Glow About,” I repeat dreamily, trying to envision it all going according to my plans. My mind fills with thoughts of its grand opening, seeing the kids come to the classes, building them a safe place where they can grow and gain confidence.
But along with my imaginings comes a twinge of panic. What if I’m not enough for those kids? What if I don’t succeed? What if I lose The Red Curtain in this last challenge?