Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
I was disappointed in myself that we couldn’t win, but I wouldn’t quit.
Josh made to ceremoniously unveil the last dish. “Our final delicacy of the day…is warthog anus.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I muttered.
“Fuck this shit,” Rod said from next to me.
Neil put his hands up and walked away. He and Shayla were safe from elimination, but couldn’t win. The win would either go to Rod and Andrea or Maksim and Irina, but I was finishing this competition.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” Rod said under his breath.
“Come on, bro,” I elbowed him. “You’ve eaten ass before.”
“Not warthog ass. Though there was a chick when I was a rookie that may have been part warthog.”
Josh called the start time, and we both grabbed what was on the plate in front of us and bit off a piece. Maksim, a fucking crazy Russian, shoved nearly the entire thing in his mouth at once.
It was chewier than I’d expected. As soon as I thought I could get the first bite down, I swallowed, but it was a definitive no for my gut.
I made it to the bushes before I puked, Rod right behind me.
“Fuck that,” I said, still bent over and waiting for the next wave of nausea to pass.
For all my worries about Lauren not being up to a competition today, her determination had saved both our asses.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Day Fourteen—Eight teams remaining
Lauren
“Did you catch anything?” I asked Archer as he returned from fishing.
He shook his head, droplets of water flying from the ends of his hair. Two days after I’d eaten some of the most disgusting things imaginable, I hadn’t eaten much since. We’d had a cup of beans and a cup of trail mix each yesterday, and a cup of trail mix each this morning.
It had been raining nonstop for nearly twenty-four hours, though, and without a fire, we wouldn’t be able to cook beans for our evening meal.
“I’m so fucking hungry,” he grumbled. “I’d probably eat that warthog asshole if I could.”
“You’ll be able to fish again when it stops raining.”
He nodded and looked up at the sky. “Yeah, hopefully it’ll be clear by morning.”
A gust of wind shifted the direction of the rain so it was hitting me straight in the face. Our shelter was closed in on three sides by rudimentary walls of stacked branches, but it was open in the front. That meant we could never fully avoid the rain. We’d been soaked since it started and had both hardly slept last night.
“It’s getting windy out on the water,” Archer said, carrying his fishing gear to the side of the shelter and setting it down. “I’m going to reinforce the tarp on the shelter’s roof. Can you pack everything you can into the trunks?”
I nodded, pushing the wet hair out of my face. He was no weatherman, but Archer was an outdoorsman, and I could tell without him saying it that he thought this storm was going to get worse before it got better.
Eight hours later, the rain was coming down even heavier than before. It was after midnight, and I was curled up in a ball on my side of the shelter. Every few minutes, a torrential gust of wind would blow rain through the exposed front of the shelter, and our makeshift roof was leaking.
“You okay?” Archer asked from beside me.
“Freezing,” I said, lacking the energy to put together a full sentence.
Every item of clothing I had here was drenched. Wet clothes made me feel even colder, so I was shivering in my swimsuit.
“Hey,” Archer said. “Will you turn around?”
I turned to face him and saw that he was lying on his side facing me, arms folded over his chest.
“Tell me something,” he said.
My heart clenched, a flood of memories pouring through me. When we’d been together, in quiet moments, especially ones when we were naked and sated, one of us would tell the other person to tell me something, and it had to be something we didn’t already know about the other.
I wanted to tell him he’d lost the right to play this little game, but I couldn’t do it. Instead, I answered him.
“Yesterday was Sunday dinner back home,” I said. “My mom always cooks for me, my dad, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my nephews. And it’s always something amazing like lasagna. I spent a lot of time yesterday wishing I was at my parents’ house, warm and dry, and in the dining room stuffing my face with my family.”
“You miss them?”
“I do. Who do you miss?”
The corners of his lips turned up in a small smile. “My teammates. They’re pretty much my family now. Since my parents got divorced and my mom moved to Florida, I don’t see her much anymore. My dad’s in Minneapolis now, so he comes to all my home games, but I usually don’t get to see him after. We get together for dinner at least once every couple of weeks though.”