She removed her arm from the hot metal grate, making it to the elbow before things got tricky.
Reaching with the other hand, she tugged her arm. Then harder.
The grate was freaking hot, and her hand was freaking stuck.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Ethan said.
Her pulse pounded, and she probably should stop holding her breath because being lightheaded wouldn’t help. She pulled, yanked, and tried every other maneuver—but she could not get her arm out of the grate.
Oh no, no, no.
“C’mon, Em, you’ve got it,” Ethan said, mimicking the movement that needed to happen.
“I’m stuck.” Emmaline glanced frantically at him, hysterical laughter bubbling in her chest.
Fiona’s jaw dropped way too dramatically, sorta like Emmaline’s stomach. “You’re stuck?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Ethan asked.
“No.” Emmaline tugged harder, but that only wedged her in further. “Any ideas? ’Cause I got nothing.” She had exhausted all of her ideas with the pulling extraction method.
They were quite the pair there beside the road, her arm stuck.
What a mess.
Then she couldn’t hold it in anymore.
She laughed. Laughed until her sides hurt.
She wasn’t even totally sure what she was laughing at. Not really. Just of all the emotions that one popped right out.
“You all right there, Em?” Ethan asked, clearly not at all understanding why she found this whole thing as funny as all that either.
“No.” She pinched her lips to stop the stupid laughter. “I’m not.”
“Annie, run home and get the butter,” Ethan said, jumping in and pulling at Emmaline’s arm. But honest as all hell, it was stuck in the damn grate. Still, she kept a death grip on the bracelet.Don’t let it go.
“Fiona, there’s some butter in our fridge, too,” Em added. “Go grab it, would you?”
She let out a breath through her mouth and closed her eyes. “This is fine. I’ll eventually get used to the smell.”
Annie hustled back with the butter and Em tried harder to pull at her arm, but it was well and truly caught.
“Move the torch,” Ethan instructed, pointing at the flashlight as he rubbed the butter on Emmaline’s arm where the metal held on to it. He did his best not to get it on her shirt, but this was a rag tag job they were both doing.
“I think that’s enough,” he said, sitting back on his heels.
He looked as though he was wishing he had something to wipe his hands on that wasn’t his jeans. But she had nothing to offer.
“Are you ready?” he asked, catching Emmaline’s gaze with his own and getting ready to tug.
He watched Emmaline extra carefully, seeming to wait for her signal. She nodded. “Do it.”
So he pulled. Then he yanked harder. Harder still. He grunted.
She pinched her lips together.
The arm didn’t budge.
