“Yes,” Garrett said, giving her hand a gentle tug that had her reluctantly walking into the one place that she avoided like the plague.
While most women loved shopping, she didn’t. In fact, she did everything that she could to avoid it. She ordered everything online and when that wasn’t an option, she made late-night runs to the store and she kept those short, to the point, ensuring that she was in and out of the store in under ten minutes flat.
“You do remember that I hate the mall, right?” Kristen asked as she found herself dragged past two coffee shops, a yoga store, a video game store, and a middle-aged man getting the crap slapped out of him by a five-year-old determined to get his hands on a toy.
“Couldn’t be avoided,” Garrett said, leading her further into the depths of hell.
“I’d be more than willing to go back to your house and work while you think of something else that we could do,” Kristen said with a hopeful smile only to grumble when he kept going.
“You’re going to love it,” he said, but something, mostly her intense hatred of all things mall-related, told her that he was wrong.
“Are you going to tell me why we’re here?” Kristen asked even as she searched for the nearest exit.
“And ruin the surprise? I would never do that to you,” Garrett drawled, tightening his hold around her hand when her eyes locked on the set of glass doors to her right.
“You really could, though,” she mumbled, releasing a pathetic whimper as they made their way past the exit.
“If you must know,” Garrett said, sighing heavily.
“I must,” she assured him, turning her head so that she could keep her gaze locked on the direction of those glass doors and-
“We’re here to do that,” Garrett said, drawing her attention in time to watch him gesture towards something to his left.
Frowning, Kristen followed his gaze and-
Oh, crap…
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Kristen said hollowly as she took in the large sign announcing fifteen different escape rooms to choose from, each one more difficult than the last.
“This will be fun,” Garrett said, shooting her a reassuring smile while she struggled to figure out a way to get out of this before it was too late.
“It really won’t,” Kristen mumbled hollowly, knowing that she needed to get out of here before they figured out who she was because she really didn’t think that this was going to end well once they did.
“You’re not getting out of this,” Garrett said, making his way inside the store while she struggled to come up with a way to stop this before it was too late.
“Maybe we should talk about this?” Kristen said, swallowing hard as he led her inside and-
“Welcome to No Escape Game Rooms,” came the warm greeting that left her struggling to remember how to breathe.
“It will be fine,” Garrett said, shooting her a wink as he shifted his attention to the middle-aged woman with the warm smile and a name tag identifying her as Susie.
“I have a reservation for two,” Garrett said, releasing her hand so that he could pull his wallet out of his back pocket.
“What’s the name?” came the question that had Kristen taking a healthy step back.
“Bradford,” Garrett said, only to sigh heavily as he reached back and grabbed her hand again before she could take another step.
“I have you at seven o’clock for Jack The Ripper’s Escape room,” the woman who was in way over her head on this one murmured absently as she typed something. “Have either one of you been to an escape room before?”
“Yes,” Garrett said while Kristen went for a hesitant, “No?”
“You’re going to have a lot of fun,” Susie assured them as she gestured to the tablets that were about to seal her fate. “I just need you both to fill out our disclaimer forms agreeing to our rules and then you can join the rest of the group for Jack The Ripper’s Escape.”
This definitely wasn’t going to end well, Kristen thought as her gaze shifted to the small group waiting on the other side of the large waiting area and took in everyone from the bored-looking college kid wearing a football jacket to the two large men sporting military haircuts wearing matching shirts with the Marine emblem on them and-
This definitely wasn’t going to end well.
Swallowing hard, Kristen forced herself to step up to the tablet in front of her, and after one last hopeful glance at the exit, she reluctantly filled in her information and when she was done, she hitEnterwith a resigned sigh and waited for the words that would lead to questions that she didn’t know how to answer. She watched as Susie shifted her attention back to her screen and-
