“For how long?”
“A week? Maybe two?”
I laughed at his offer, admitting it had its appeal. “We’d miss The Pitt.”
“So what? I’ve been there—not worth a repeat. I’d give it two stars.”
“Not just one?”
“I swiped a churro from a cart while I was there last time. It was a damn good churro. Something about the churro from our world mixed with the ash from the dungeon was just amazing.”
His words were absurd, but they helped me laugh about it.
We both knew he wasn’t serious.
No matter what happened, how things went, how little we wanted to deal with The Pitt, that wasn’t an option. We’d have to face that eventually. There wasn’t anything stopping it at this point.
Still, it was nice to play this game, to pretend for a moment.
“What should we do instead?” I asked, nuzzling against his chest.
“Well, I think we could stay here. I’m pretty sure I could keep you entertained for that long.”
“If we stayed here, they’d bother us. We don’t want that.”
He tapped his finger against his chin as though thinking. Hell, maybe he was, given that he wasn’t the sharpest one. “You know, I have a cabin.”
“What?” That had me twisting, rolling to my stomach, still resting against him so I could look right at him. “I thought you only had the beach place?”
He smiled, and the expression made him appear younger than he was. “I have my own place in the mountains, but I never go there. The others aren’t into camping or forests, so they never want to go, but I’ve kept it because I picture spending a nice week there. Have you been to the snow before?”
“My parents rented a place in Big Bear when I was younger, maybe ten years old. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we didn’t do a lot of vacations, but we spent three nights there. The summers are the big tourist time, but that means it’s cheaper inthe winter, so that’s when we went. I remember sitting inside the little cabin, staring out at the snow as it fell. I’d never seen anything like that, the way the white just blanketed everything. It felt calm in a way I really liked.” I leaned my chin against my folded arms, staring at him but seeing the past in my head. I recalled how the yellow from the porch light had reflected off the snow.
“Well, we can’t see the snow right now, but how about this winter we go?”
“You said the others don’t like it.”
“They like you, though, so I’m pretty sure they’ll come so they aren’t left out. We can spend a couple weeks there, no jobs, no dungeons, just us. There are huge windows that overlook the land around it, and trees that are packed in so tight and tall that it feels like walls.”
The way he spoke had me envisioning it, and while I wasn’t what I’d call an outdoor girl, I wanted to experience it.
My phone went off, a chime that had me reaching over to grab it from my nightstand.
A notification from the Guild.
Sleep study in one hour.
The words had me stifling a shudder. It wasn’t from the Guild, not exactly, but rather Mr. Yorn using those contacts. It would keep the communication private, ensure that even if the men saw my phone, they wouldn’t know anything was up.
“What is it?” Kenyon asked.
Having to lie didn’t sit right, but I had no other option. I didn’t bother to smile, I wouldn’t sell it anyway. “I have to get ready for a sleep study.”
“Sleep study?” His gaze moved over me the way it always did when he checked my physical state, to see if I was well. “Why are they doing that? I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“They decided my trouble with sleep was a potential problem, so they want to monitor me all night to see if they can find a cause for it.”
“But we know the cause—anxiety and insomnia due to trauma.”
