“I know, right?” she said excitedly, turning slightly toward him. “And did you happen to catch my landing?”
“Sorry, I missed it. How did it go?”
“It was rad.”
Rad?Rafa snickered and covered his mouth.
“What?” she said with a smile, tugging his arm away from his face.
“Nothing. Just trying to picture your landing.” He couldn’t help but reciprocate the smile.
“Well, it wasperfect.”
“You must have had a good teacher,” he said with a wink. She ducked her head, trying to conceal her smile.
“He was all right,” she said, nudging his shoulder and sending a tingle through his body.
A flutter he quickly pushed away.If you care about her, you need to convince her to leave…His father’s voice repeated in his head. He needed to get up. Sit somewhere else. Somewhere far enough away that he couldn’t engage in pleasant, carefree conversations or feel her heat.
“Ahhhh!” Jerry screamed from across the way. “Get it off me!”
Felix and Logan pinned Jerry down while Rahim plucked the largest spider Rafa had ever seen from his back and tossed it away from the campfire circle.
Miri tsked. “It’s just a goliath birdeater,” she said almost under her breath.
“Um…a what?” Rafa asked, vigorously rubbing his chest.
“It’s a tarantula. Practically harmless,” she said.
Nothing about something called a goliath birdeater soundedharmless.
“Well, I’ve got the creeps just thinking about it,” he said, craning his neck to check his back.
“I’m pretty sure you would feel it if you had a foot-long spider on your back.”
He shuddered. “You say it like it’s nothing.”
Miri looked over at him and snickered. “Well, he’s over there acting like he was about to get his head bitten off by it. At worst, it would be like the sting of a wasp.”
“Which, in my opinion,alsosounds awful.”
Miri smacked her lips again in disagreement. “I swear, it’s like Jerry doesn’t want to be here, you know? Always complaining. Getting in his unsolicited comments.”
He could hear the annoyance in her voice.
“You can’t blame him for being tired and frustrated. It’s a hard job,” Rafa said. “Ninety percent of the population wouldn’t last a couple of days out here, and we’ve been here for over two weeks.”
“Ugh,” Miri said, tossing her head back and resting it against the log, looking up at the sky. “Don’t remind me.”
“Of what? Of how long we’ve been out here?”
Miri tipped her head back and twisted her shoulders to face Rafa. “I just don’t know how much longer this crew has it in them if we don’t find something more definitive soon, you know?”
“Something like what? Like another landmark?”
She froze and her eyes widened.
“Come on, Pringles. What do you know?”
