Page 16 of Protecting Kelli
“What are you thinking?” Flash asked.
“I’m thinking I don’t ever want to meet your friends.”
Complete silence met her impulsive words, and whenKelli looked over at Flash, she saw his lips were pressed together and his brow was furrowed.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she hurriedly said.
“How did you mean it then?” Flash asked, his green eyes seeming to bore into her.
“Just that…I’m twenty-eight years old, can’t control my urge to eat the Christmas Tree Cakes I’ve got stashed in my freezer, I have no career, no idea of what Imightwant to do, and if I was left in the ocean, or thrown in a cell in a far-off country, or sold into sex slavery, I’d fall on the ground in a heap and not be able to get up again.”
“Christmas Tree Cakes are the bomb, and who cares that you haven’t found your passion yet? I have no doubt you will. And trust me, if you asked Wren, or Josie, or Remi how they were feeling when they were in the middle of the shit that happened to them, they’d tell you that they were completely freaked out.”
Kelli doubted that. “Uh-huh.” She stared at her feet, which she could barely feel; the blood flow had been cut off from her legs because of the way she was sitting with her ass deep in the hole of the tube.
“Look at me,” Flash ordered.
Without hesitation, Kelli did as he asked.
“I have no doubt that if the shit hit the fan, you’d handle yourself with grace, bravery, and courage. You’re resilient, just like them. We haven’t known each other long, but I have a feeling your practicality would be your biggest asset in situations like they were in. You wouldn’t panic. You’d stay calm and think through all your options.”
It was sweet that he thought that, but Kelli wasn’t so sure.
“Right. Tell me this—if your cousin was faced with a hundred-foot waterfall appearing in front of her tube right this second, what would she do?”
Kelli couldn’t help but laugh. “Scream her head off.”
“Right. And what would you do?”
“Bail out of this tube and swim like hell for the riverbank.”
“Exactly.”
Kelli blinked. He had a point. Shewaspractical, levelheaded. At least compared to her cousin and the Three A’s. She was patient and had a tendency to think through all her options before making a decision. It drove her mom crazy sometimes that she couldn’t make decisions quickly at all.
“You might have a point,” she conceded.
“Of course I do,” Flash said with that sexy grin of his.
“Anyone tell you that you’re a little bit cocky?” she teased.
“All the time,” he agreed.
Kelli rolled her eyes at him, but she felt a little better. Besides, it wasn’t as if she would ever actually meet his friends. They were like two ships passing in the night. They were having a good time together right now, simply because they were both so different from the people they were traveling with. When they went home tomorrow, that would be that. They’d go back to their lives and not have a reason to talk to each other again.
They heard some squeals from the girls ahead of them once more, and looking forward, Kelli saw the water they were about to enter was no longer flat and tranquil, but choppy.
“Looks like we’re getting to the more exciting part of the trip the employees told us about,” Flash commented.
Kelli nodded, but since her anxiety was suddenly spiking, and all she could think about was falling off this stupid tube and drowning, she couldn’t speak.
One moment they were lazily floating down the river, and the next they were bouncing along in the whitecaps. It was no wonder the girls had been squealing. Kelli felt a girly squeal rising in her throat too.
“This is awesome!” Flash exclaimed.
He was slightly behind her now, but Kelli couldn’t look at him. She was concentrating too hard on holding onto her tube and not dying.
She had no idea how long they were in the rapids, but when Flash suddenly swore in a tone she hadn’t heard from him before, she whipped her head to the right, looking over her shoulder to see what was the matter.
