Hung

The door shakes beneath the force of a new blow. Shit. I’m busted, bagged, and nailed. Okay. Not nailed, although my dreamy Prince Charming was about to give it to me good. Focus.

I stumble toward the bathroom, clutching my getaway goods. I have to pee, I have to run, I have to…

“Emergency intervention!” Lola bellows from outside. Lola is a stage actress and a drama teacher, so her voice carries effortlessly through my locked door. My sleep-deprived brain is still a few pages behind in the script, so I need a moment to process the words. I haven’t been found. Everything’s fine, or as fine as it gets when you’re on the run and nearly broke and the big, bad wolf’s going to bite your butt any day now. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just sit down and wait. Screw the sick anticipation, right?

“Be right there,” I croak out. I’ve spent the last few months trying not to be noticed, so I have to repeat myself—twice—before Lola hears me. At least she stops knocking and goes away, although I know she’ll be back if I don’t make an appearance.

I shove my go-bag/purse back under the bed, grab a sweatshirt, and stagger out. It’s approximately dark o’clock, the sky a dense black like a squid pooped ink all over the stars. The late hour doesn’t seem to faze Lola, who’s now plopped cross-legged in front of our sleek new fire pit.

I’m pretty sure the fire pit is courtesy of Hunter. It showed up one morning shortly after he yelled at us for illegal, unsafe burns in the previous fire pit (which was either a hollowed out, ashy depression in the ground or a metal trash can, depending on our mood and needs). I like Hunter. He’s like a loaner brother, big, grumpy, and protective. I’m not sure what’s going on between him and Lola, but it guarantees he has zero sexual interest in me, so I can just admire his very manly scenery. Plus, since he’s the local Oscar the Grouch, he’s not big on conversation, which guarantees that my secrets stay safe.

Lola huffs out a breath as she stares up at me. “Were you asleep? Or engaged in ‘personal business’?”

“Huh?” I shouldn’t have taken that Melatonin to help me sleep because it’s short-circuited a significant number of brain cells. My tongue is thick and my mouth more parched than the Gobi Desert.

Lola tugs me down beside her. One of the drawbacks to our super-cheap cabin-in-the-woods lodgings is that outdoor seating is extremely minimalistic. In other words, we’re sitting on logs a previous tenant scavenged from said woods. I try not to think about carpenter ants, termites, or any eight-legged friends that could be trying to get into my pants. Yippee. That’s the closest I’ve been to any non-solo panty action in months.

“Mas-tur-ba-tion,” Lola mouths slowly—and at full volume.

Olivia, the third member of our club, raises a brow as she drops a pillow onto the log next to us before sitting down like it’s a freaking throne and she’s Queen Olivia. She’s been sketchy on the details of her qualifying break up, and I don’t think that’s due to her being shy or private. “Are we planning on a group orgy?”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Hunter?” He’s the fourth and newest member of the Break Up Club, although by rights we should have denied him membership. He has a penis and this was a girls-only club. As Olivia pointed out, however, discrimination is never okay, so we let him in because his break up story is pretty darn dismal.

Lola cackles. Right. I guess “group orgy” and “wait for Hunter” shouldn’t be uttered in close proximity. I give her the finger and wait. Lola doesn’t do silence well, which is one of the things I love about her. She’s loud, she’s colorful, and around her I usually forget the shit that’s bothering me.

I’m about to clarify my anti-orgy stance when something rustles in the trees. The problem with Baby Bear Lodge is that it’s approximately in the middle of nowhere—a nowhere surrounded by an insane number of trees. During the daylight hours, I don’t mind all the vegetation. At the very least, I can pretend I’m starring in my very own version of Heidi and that there’s nothing more menacing than a bunch of goats nearby. At night, however, it’s dark.