Page 23 of Maid for My Billionaire Boss
“Well, look around a bit. Maybe we can find a flat stick or something?” He took a few steps back up toward the tall grass.
I gnawed on my bottom lip, still clenching Trey’s lower arm as we made a pass through the grass in search of anything that would save us. There was no way I was going to risk having him ditch me. “Do you have practice being a superhero?”
Leaving his feet planted firmly on the path, he turned his upper body and looked at me flatly in the eyes. “What?”
“I feel like that’s what we’re missing,” I nervously rambled. “That or Rambo.”
“No, we’re missing the oars. Let’s not get carried away.”
“Right? I wouldn’t want to get carried away . . . By a croc or anything else.”
“Will you stop?”
“I think we need to go back to the last village. I had no idea it would be this desolate and we don’t even have life jackets.” I nervously turned my head back, hoping to catch a glimpse of our tour guide still floating upstream, but unfortunately, there was no evidence he had ever been there.We are alone.
“We can’t paddle upriver without oars, and our guide won’t be back until tomorrow. We obviously don’t want to camp out here in the wild, so our only option is to move toward the village.”
I used my nervous singsong voice to fill in the quiet air and sang out, “I don’t see any sticks.”
Trey appeared to do one final scan of the terrain before stopping his steps. “Me neither.”
“What do we do now?” I gazed up at him from my permanent spot of being attached to his arm. It was a nice arm. Like something a crocodile would enjoy snacking on. Much weightier than mine. Maybe I could take solace in that?
Trey interrupted my thoughts by asking, “Ah, what do you have in your bag?”
“Let me check.” I slipped it off my shoulder, dropped it on the ground, and unzipped it. “I wasn’t going to take any chances on the food here, so I have twenty-two protein bars, three liters of water, and a change of clothes. Oh, and three bottles of sunscreen,” I reported when I looked back at him. “How ’bout you?”
“Three bags of jerky, water, and clothes.”
A new layer of fear washed over me. An ice layer, cooling my lower back despite the scorching temps. “What are we going to do?”
With a degree of assertion, he reached his hand forward. “Give me your bag?”
“Why?” I asked, while clenching the bag protectively.
“I’m going to combine our items into one and use the other as a paddle.” He studied my bag for a minute. “Mine looks to be more waterproof than yours so we’ll use that for a paddle and take our stuff in yours.”
“Aren’t you a Boy Scout?” I relented and opened my bag, squashing the contents down to make room for Trey’s things, but there wasn’t much room left, especially with the giant bottles of water. “I don’t think we have room for yours.”
“Here.” He reached forward again, waiting for me to hand over my bag. “We are going to have to leave some stuff behind.”
“Not the water or food.” I glared back at him as I slowly passed my bag over.
“No, I agree we bring all the water and food we can.” He dug his hand in my bag, pushing the waters back to see how much room he could create. Then he pulled out my sunscreen bottles. “You only need one of these.”
“Fine, but where are we going to leave it?”
“I guess we can set it back on the shore and if it’s still here when we get back, we’ll grab it.”
“Do you know the punishment for littering in an Indonesian swamp?”
“No, do you?”
“No, but something tells me they don’t take Visa.”
“Good thing I mostly have crypto.” He pushed the sunscreen bottles back at me. “We have already wasted too much time looking for the oars and we need to get in the boat before the tide recedes and we are stuck.” The look he gave me burned and not in a good way. He hurriedly dug his hand back into my bag, pulled out my clothes, and pushed them over to me. “Here, put these somewhere.”
My eyes fell over my clothes. Not that they were expensive or anything I was attached to, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving my clothes out in the wild. Still, I relented and walked them over to the edge of the grass, setting them neatly down. Trey was done zipping my bag up and his bag was empty now. “Here.” He reached my bag back to me. “Put this on so it won’t accidentally fall off the boat.”
