Hot Stuff

At this rate, we’ll never get out of this fucking thing.

“I know Garrett’s gone a lot, but that doesn’t have to be such a bad thing, you know? I kind of wish Jake were gone a little more often. Give me time to recover from the dirty socks and coffee cups he likes to leave lying around.”

Man, oh man, Holley sure is laying it on thick…

Jake and I both roll our eyes as lightning strikes in the fake windows of the bedroom and the sounds of a thunderstorm start up.

I pull out a drawer in the dresser, and there are lightning rods carved into the side. I’m sure the two are somehow related, but none of the people assisting me are even remotely focused enough to hear me when I speak.

“Guys, I think I’ve got something.”

Holley keeps talking to Lauren, completely oblivious to me. “Garrett really is the best. And holy shit, the first time I saw a picture of him in Jake’s house?”

“Hey,” Jake says, the smirk on his face belying his words of offense.

“Sorry, babe, but the two of you together is like rat poison to ovaries. It tastes good, so you keep taking it in until—boom, it makes you explode.”

Lauren glances to me, and I try my best to smile. When I picked her up with Holley and Jake in the car, I knew I was taking a risk, but I thought it’d be worth it. The more time that goes by, though, the more I’m starting to wonder if I was still high on smoke and wildfire fumes when I agreed to it.

Holley fumbles around on a desk and picks up a book, and finally, on the inside of it, she finds another actual clue.

“Lightning strikes and leaves its mark. Pay attention to avoid staying in the dark.”

I go back to the drawers in the dresser and examine them again while Lauren takes the book from Holley and flips through more of the pages.

“I think this is another one,” she says, stopping on another page. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Untie the knot to find the key. But careful, my dears, because under the bed, it’s not.”

I shake my head to clear it because I’ll be honest, this shit is confusing as fuck, and Holley grabs the book back from Lauren to look at it again.

“I don’t know,” Lauren continues. “I think maybe when the clue says ‘under the bed, it’s not,’ it really means that it is under the bed. Like, reverse psychology, you know?”

“I’m not sure they try to trick you by telling you the opposite,” Holley tries gently, but Jake, evidently determined to be an all-star wingman tonight, is already crawling through the false back of the toy chest at the end of the tiny bed in the corner of the room to get underneath it.

The space is small as hell, but the big-ass Navy SEAL is resolute.

“Come on, Garrett,” he demands. “Get your ass under here and look where your woman tells you to.”

Lauren covers her mouth with her hand, a suspiciously nervous gesture, and Holley starts cracking up.

“Oh Jesus,” she says through a wheeze. “The two of you under that little bed together. It’s too much. Just, when you come out, would you get on top and roll around a little bit? Finish the visual?”

I shake my head with a taunting chuckle and climb through the toy box slowly. Jake already takes up most of the space underneath, and I’m not exactly tiny, so when I finally fit myself in there, there’s hardly any room to breathe, let alone look around.

“What exactly are we doing under here?” I whisper to my friend.

He smiles, the bastard. “We’re making Lauren happy.”

“I don’t think—”

“Shh,” he says. “Stop talking. Your breath is too hot so close to my face.”

I roll my eyes. “Shut up, dude.”

He shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

“Can we get out of here now? Has it been long enough?”

He sighs heavily. “Sure. I guess so.”

“Thank fuck,” I say, shoving down toward the end of the bed again.

Unfortunately, Jake moves at the same time, and because of the lack of space, jams his elbow right into my nose like a fucking sledgehammer.

“Shit!” I yell, the feel of spurting blood unmistakable.

“What’s wrong?” Holley asks from outside this miniature hell, her voice slightly muffled.

Jake continues his climb outward like he hasn’t just fucked up my nose, his laughter and the blood on my face and hands the only evidence he was ever there.

“What happened?” Lauren questions eagerly, a nervous titter to her voice making her sound more like herself than she has all night.

“Don’t worry, Lauren. It just turns out I’m a little more than your boy can handle,” Jake consoles like a dick as I climb out from the toy box.

“You sucker-punched me in the nose, asshole,” I retort, holding pressure to my nose with two fingers at the bridge.