Page 76 of Safari Murder Party
Of course! How hadn’t she thought of it before?
Fletcher swallowed her pride. Took a deep breath.
And whooped like a monkey.
“What do you think you’redoing?” Waylon hissed. “Is this the plan, Spence? Really?”
She bent her legs, imitating the monkey’s gait as she crossed the clearing. The chimp hooted, and so did she. Her eyes met Waylon’s, her lips finding a smiling curve. Daring him.
Waylon’s head hung toward his chest, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. When he looked back up at her, his gaze dripped with enough affection Fletcher could have drowned in it. It pooled in every nook, every cranny. The bottom of her rib cage, the pit of her stomach.
Three howls later, she’d lured Waylon out of the trees.
Unlike Fletcher, who was plagued by constant scruples, Waylon had none. Totally, blissfully unscrupulous. There were a lot of things Fletcher could say about Waylon, but accusing him of not giving his all wasn’t one of them. For as long as she’d known him, he had been unapologetically himself, inviting anyone and everyone to fuck off if they didn’t like it.
She did. Like it.
Another horrifying realization to add to the multitude of horrors she’d faced this week.
He crouched low, taking broad steps to catch up with her. Lifting his face to the sky, he let out three wild cries. His fists beat against his chest, and Fletcher fought the blush that crept up her neck at the mere thought of his pectoral muscles.
Normally, Fletcher would have worried about the way her skirt wrinkled, about dirt beneath her fingernails, about being seen as anything less than perfect and proper and prepared.
But here she was, stranded on a private island in the Indian Ocean and impersonating an ape with the bane of her mortal existence who turned out to not actually be that baneful. Normal was a long-forgotten concept.
“What the hell is going on out there?” Opal asked from inside.
Adrenaline lanced through Fletcher, hot and sharp. Fun over. Waylon’s arm soccer-mommed against her middle and dragged her against the wall behind the crates of drupes and bromeliads. Fletcher was almost preoccupied enough by trying not to die that she barely registered this was technically the first time he’d ever touched her breasts. Almost.
Above Fletcher and Waylon, Opal’s head jutted through the open second-floor window, surveying the clearing and the gnarled greenery beyond.
Fletcher had never wished to be smaller. Not when the Fi-Douches manspread on the 6 train and invaded her personal space. Or that time Ford had been so enraptured with the ass of a biker with a bottom-lip tattoo that he’d forgotten they’d split the Uber. Or even July Fourth as Kent bent to one knee in front of the entire Spence clan, a horde of barefoot redheads about to fight their new brother-in-law with bottle rockets.
All it would take was one look down, and they’d be finished.
Or one look at the chimpanzee delightfully waving a banana peel in their direction, the insides shoved messily into its mouth. Whichever came first.
Waylon side-eyed her hard.I told you not to trust it.Or its thumbs.
Fletcher’s narrowed eyes didn’t have time to form a silent rebuttal because Opaldidglance in their direction. Waylon and Fletcher shrank behind the crates. His arms crossed over her stomach, pulling her into his lap.
Opal looked, unseeing. Squinted. A million years later, she shookher head and any thought of intruders away, returning her attention to the chimp—now juggling papayas. Only then did Fletcher let her shoulders lower with relief.
“Get out of here,” Opal called, annoyance threading her words.
The monkey barked back, equally annoyed.
And then, it lobbed a papaya straight toward Opal’s head. The ripened fruit splattered against the side of the building in a pulpy explosion. Papaya gunk dripped toward Fletcher and Waylon, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the goop clinging to Opal’s cheek.
Opal swiped it off with a finger, disgust on her face. “Ohhhhh. You. Are.So. Dead.”
Her head vanished from the windowpane. Faint footsteps thundered through the house, growing louder and closer as Opal ran.
Thankfully, Fletcher’s crisis response kicked into gear. Instead of obstacles, she saw only solutions.
First, she rolled a handful of kiwi far enough past the chimpanzee that it turned, abandoning them to hunt seemingly sentient fruit. Hopefully, it would dart off into the jungle and never look back.
Waylon moved toward the cracked kitchen door, but Fletcher stopped him with a hand to his bicep. The back door would inevitably be Opal’s first destination on her manhunt. (Well, chimp-hunt.)
