Love without a Compass. Lindy Zart

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СКАЧАТЬ the foliage. He spins away, and then turns back to add, “Have you also somehow missed the fact that we are surrounded by trees? How are we supposed to have any idea which way to go?”

      “We’ll find another checkpoint. They have to be all over the place.”

      Ben’s jaw hardens.

      “I guess…” My mouth is terribly dry. “I guess we need a compass or map to find those too?”

      “We’re—”

      “Don’t say it,” I plead.

      “Lost.”

      I close my eyes as my stomach drops. Guilt races through me. This is at least partially my fault. We are surrounded by treacherous earth and unknown danger, pretty much the worst scenario ever to find yourself in when lost. I hate when things are my fault. It makes my stomach queasy. Anger is better than guilt. I can handle anger.

      I snap open my eyes, glare at Ben, and lie. “This isn’t my fault.”

      He laughs at me. He actually laughs.

      “I shouldn’t even be surprised,” Ben says conversationally. “Ever since you stepped through the red door of Sanders and Sisters, my life has been completely ass-backwards.”

      Ben’s words evoke a flutter of disquiet in my chest. Because it’s true. It’s been one miscommunication after another with us since the moment we met. I turn from his view and look at what faces me on all sides. Tall, long-limbed trees, and whatever lives among them. They look ominous; I swear they’re mocking me.

      My voice is weak when I tell him, “That’s a rotten thing to say.”

      “Am I wrong?” Ben counters.

      Not having a comeback, I mutter, “Whatever.”

      “Did you or did you not make sure you had Duke’s favorite breakfast delivered every morning?”

      “So?” I shift uncomfortably when he turns to glower at me.

      He steps closer. “First of all, that’s Anne’s job, and second of all, you were being an ass kisser.”

      “I was—”

      He moves another step closer, until we’re less than a couple feet from each other. “Because every morning when you took his food to him, you made sure you mentioned some great idea you had for one of the companies interested in using our advertising agency. There you sat, chirping away in his ear, making yourself indispensable to him.”

      He raises his voice to a high falsetto. “Oh, Duke, what do you think of this? And I had the most wonderful thought last night. I think if we move the wording around, it will sound better.”

      My face flames. I jab him in the chest. “You purposely set up an appointment with Callie’s Trinkets because you knew I already had one that day.”

      Ben blinks. “So?”

      “Your time overlapped my time already scheduled. You did that on purpose to cut into my time with them.”

      He shrugs, but guilt lines his face.

      “Last month you told me the wrong time for an important meeting,” I add.

      “That was an accident.”

      “Sure it was. You’re no better,” I finish.

      Fire flares to life in his irises. “I wasn’t trying to steal Callie’s Trinkets’s business from anyone, Avery. You were. I’d already done two campaigns for them.”

      “Well, maybe it was time for a change.” I don’t mean the words, and when I see how they hit Ben, I wish I’d never spoken them.

      He steps back falteringly and turns his back on me. “Yeah. Maybe.”

      I clench my fingers to keep from reaching out to him and turn away. There are more important things to think about than whether or not I inadvertently wounded Ben’s pride—okay, and hurt his feelings. I cringe. And maybe, in a way, somehow, sort of, betrayed him. Being lost is not an option. That is not acceptable.

      With or without Ben’s help, I’ll find the compass and map, and I’ll get to the rest of the group. Except, the whole point of this is to work together as a team. If I show up without Ben, or he shows up without me, we’re done. My shoulders slump. We’re stuck together, which is exactly what Duke wanted.

      I scowl.

      The lodge can’t be that far away. I straighten my spine. Duke said this is a simple quest, and if we don’t show up by the time everyone else does, they’ll look for us. We won’t be lost for long. I can do this. I will do this. We will do this. Nothing is impossible, unless you tell yourself it is. My mom told me that once. I haven’t forgotten.

      I tip my chin and head in the direction I think we came from.

      “Where are you going?” Ben calls.

      “I’m going to find the compass and map. I refuse to be lost!”

      “Great idea. You do that.”

      “I am doing that,” I reply.

      “Have fun.”

      “I will have fun.”

      I glance back. Ben faces me, his arms crossed. The sun blazes behind him in a fiery backdrop. I can’t see his expression, but I’m sure it’s unfriendly. I face forward with a sigh, focusing on my feet as the ground steepens. The air cools as I head farther into the trees.

      5

      BEN

      I rub the back of my neck as I take in the monstrous-sized mountains. Damn, it’s an overwhelming view. Mountains high into the clouds, vast and out of focus. Like a painting—an image I’d rather be looking at on a wall instead of witnessing firsthand.

      I cannot even begin to gauge where we are in relation to the path on which we started, but like Avery, I can’t sit and wait. I’ll look for some trace of other humans while Avery goes and gets herself even more lost. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. I ignore the feeling of wrongness that creeps over me as the minutes of our separation grow. It’s her own fault if she vanishes and no one ever sees her again. I tried to tell her.

      Walking a dozen footsteps, I keep my eyes trained on the rocky hill before me, seeing nothing but insects, and a rodent or two. Lots of land, and lots of nothing. My shirt is damp with sweat, the sun unapologetic in its burn. I need food, and a drink or two, preferably of hard liquor. The terrain gets rockier the higher up I climb, and when I reach the halfway point, I know I’m not anywhere I want to be. There’s no trail above me. I skid down the wall and jump back, picking another area of the vast, wooded fortress to check.

      Time seems to drag to the point where I wonder if it’s altogether stopped. We’re supposed to be near Panther Den Wilderness, one of the seven parts of the national forest, but I haven’t seen anything that tells me we are.

      Try as I might, I can’t concentrate, СКАЧАТЬ