That was an image that wasn’t going to leave my head.
It showed the true depths of my talent that I was able to multitask in such a way to be running from certain imprisonment while also fantasizing about Ryan saying things like “I’ve always wanted to try and do the splits. On your cock.”
Running with a boner is no fun. Trust me on that.
Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to do it very long.
Because I stepped into a fairy ring.
Like a douchebag.
“Goddammit,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead where I’d struck a seemingly invisible wall. I looked down and saw a circle of purple mushrooms surrounding me.
I looked farther down the path. Gary and Tiggy were stuck in their own fairy rings.
Ryan, on the other hand, had a large tree bending toward him, wrapping its limbs around his arms, holding them above his head. It’d happened so fast, he hadn’t been able to even reach for his sword.
“So,” he said.
“Don’t.”
“This is what it feels like to be captured with Sam of Wilds.”
“Shut it.”
“No, seriously. I wondered how quickly this would happen. I honestly expected it to at least take a full day.”
“I hope you get splinters in your wrist,” I told him. “Like big ones that get right under the skin and are a bitch to get out.”
“No, but does everyone want to imprison you?” he asked. “Because it sure seems like everyone wants to imprison you.”
“Yes,” Gary called back from farther down the road. “Everyone does. Sam has a tendency to piss people off when he talks. Or breathes. Or exists.”
“Hey! No. That is not even remotely true. I am adored. Maybe not universally. But by some people.”
“Like your parents,” Gary said.
“And me,” Tiggy said.
“Thank you, Tiggy,” I said. “You are a true friend and the feeling is mutual. Unlike, say, the feelings I have for the other two people on our adventure team.”
“Really?” Gary said. “Enlighten me, Sam. Just what kind of feelings do you have for Ryan?” A pause, a hesitation, the longest fucking three seconds in the history of time. “And me?”
“There are at least thirteen ways I could see your life ending in the next four minutes,” I told him. “Three of them involve lava.”
“The youth of today,” he said, shaking his head. “With your bows and arrows and magic fingers and attitude. I worry about the future, especially if you’re all going to be so indifferently bloodthirsty.”
“Uh, guys?” Ryan said.
“Bloodthirsty?” I said to Gary. “If I’m that way, it’s only because you made me that way.”
“Seriously. Guys?”
“Me?” Gary said. “If anything, I am the sunlight in your otherwise darkened world. I bring you the light to chase away the maelstrom that is your soul.”
“Pretty sure the tree is taking me away.”
“Sunlight?” I laughed. “Please. You’re so lucky you have me. I tell you sex puns, which everyone knows are the highest form—”