“No, I didn’t fucking inherit anything,” I said, stifling a laugh. “You have to have a family to inherit something from them.”
“Oh,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
She looked so repentant that I decided to at least give her a little something. It would be better than her starting to ask questions about my fucking family.
“I was a fighter,” I said, not looking at her.
“As in boxing?”
“Something like that.”
“My dad watched boxing all the time,” she mused. “Would he have seen you on television or anything?”
“I seriously doubt that,” I said. I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t miss the past tense reference to her dad, and I wasn’t going to ask about him.
“What happened to them?”
“What happened to who?”
“Your family.”
Fucking hell if she didn’t end up going there anyway. I could feel all the muscles in my body tighten up. I didn’t talk about my past, not with fucking anybody. I didn’t even talk about that shit with John Paul, and he was there for a good part of it. My hands tightened into fists, and I closed my eyes for a second before I looked back at her.
“You ask a lot of questions that aren’t any of your fucking business.”
Instead of cowering like she had every other time I snapped at her, I saw her eyes go dark as she glared daggers at me and stuck her hands on her hips.
“Did I commit some sort of major offense?” she snapped back at me.
“I told you before,” I snapped back. “I’m fucking tense.”
“Well, is there something I can do to help with that?” she asked, “or are you just going to yell at me all the time?”
That was it. I couldn’t hold my temper back any longer.
“Yeah, there is something you can do,” I said coldly, turning my glare at her. “Come here and blow me. That would probably ease a bit of my tension – especially if you swallow.”
Yeah, I know. I couldn’t believe I said it either.
The look in her eyes gave me the idea that – regardless of our size differences – I was in a shitload of trouble.
I guess I really didn’t need relaxation after all.
Chapter 3 - Salt
I watched her eyes as they first widened and then narrowed. Her jaw tightened as she clenched her teeth together. Without taking her eyes from me, she moved herself onto her knees and slowly made her way over to me. If I was a total idiot who knew absolutely nothing about women, I might have been stupid enough to think she was going to take me up on my…um…offer. I wasn’t an idiot, and I knew exactly when someone was about to hit me.
She crossed the four feet between us on her knees and stopped when she was directly in front of me. Then she hauled back and slapped me across the face. It actually stung a little.
“Don’t you ever talk to me like that again,” she snarled. “I don’t care who you are, and I don’t care how much you know about survival, you do not talk to me like that. I haven’t done anything but try to help you, and you have done nothing but act like a complete and total jerk.”
Without another word, she snatched the survival guide out of my hands and turned her back on me. Because I certainly could be a complete and total jerk, the next words jumped right out of my mouth before I had the chance to think better of it and stop them.
“You don’t really think that hurt, do you?”
She turned her head to the side and looked over her shoulder. I watched her glance over towards the opening to the raft right before she moved over towards it. She looked around for a moment and then grabbed the little water cup I had handed her earlier. She stuck her hand out of the opening, held the cup off the side, and then brought a cup of seawater back inside. I narrowed my eyes as she turned back to me, moved just a little closer, and threw the water at my face.
“Fuck!”