Page 17 of Here for a Good Time

SEVEN

Zwe is a light sleeper. I am not. I don’t wake up until he clamps a hand tightly on my mouth and whispers “It’s me, don’t scream” so close into my ear that each syllable is a hiss of air directly into my eardrum.

My first instinct is to scream, because what else are you supposed to do when you wake up in the middle of the night with a large male palm pressed against your mouth (and not in a sexy way)?

I move just my eyes to make sure that it is him, although it’s hard to do when my eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark yet, and the only light source in the room is moonlight that’s being filtered through a gauze curtain.

But I can smell him, can sense that it is him, and so I nod slowly.

I try to open my mouth to ask a question, but feeling the movement, he shakes his head at me, then motions with his gaze outside.

“Gunshots,” he whispers, his mouth pressed right up against my ear.

It takes several long seconds for me to understand the singular word.

The moment it hits, though, I feel a rush of blood to my head that’s so quick, I would need to lie down if I weren’t already doing so.

That can’t be correct. He has to be carrying out some weird prank.

Or hallucinating. Maybe his drink was stronger than he thought.

Or night terrors. Yes, maybe he dreamt he heard gunshots, but that’s all it is… right?

“Gunshots?” I mumble into Zwe’s palm. I’m about to ask a garbled Are you sure? right as another shot goes off. One that I hear, too.

“Do. Not. Panic,” he says, and I widen my eyes at the glass walls at the foot of our bed, walls that suddenly seem like a terrible idea on the architect’s part. “I’m not going to remove my hand until you promise me you won’t make a sound.” A pause. “So, promise?”

I nod.

“ Promise promise?”

I nod again. Like he’s backing away from a grizzly bear who’s promised not to lunge toward him, Zwe cautiously removes his hand.

My mouth is dry, and I have no feeling in my fingertips even though my hands are visibly shaking. In fact, I can’t really feel any of my limbs. “Maybe it’s the security staff shooting a wild bear that’s wandered into the resort?” I propose.

“I think the receptionist would’ve called us to let us know if that was the case. Instead—” He points at the landline on the table by his side of the bed. “The phone is dead. There’s no dial tone.”

“What do we do?” I whisper.

“We need to get help.” I’m about to reach over for my phone when Zwe adds, “The Wi-Fi is down. They must’ve cut that, too.”

“Fuck,” I exhale. I fight the urge to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep with the belief that this will all turn out to be a misunderstanding by the time I’m awake again.

“There’s no cell service anywhere. Someone must’ve called for help already, right?

Every resort has security— they must have satellite phones… right?”

My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and I can see the groove between Zwe’s brows. Not one to lie, even to give me much-desired false hope, all he replies is “Hopefully.”

“What do you think they want?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did they get here?”

“I don’t—”

“Do you think they’ve gathered all of the resort staff? How many of them do you think there are?”

“Poe.” Zwe pinches the skin between his brows. “How would I know the answer to any of those questions? I have access to the same amount of information surrounding the situation as you do.”

I scoff. “Really? Attitude? Right now?”

“Why would you think I’d know what they want?”

I throw up my hands, straining to keep my voice within whisper territory. “Because you were awake before me! Maybe you heard something!”

“You think there were gunmen stationed outside our room conveniently laying out the whole plan for me to overhear?”

“Don’t be a dick,” I sneer. “I—”

Two more gunshots. Shots that are closer.

“Fuck,” I say, right as Zwe commands, “Get dressed.”

“What’s wrong with my pajamas?” I ask.

He pulls back the covers in one swoop and points at my matching plaid set. “You get cold easily as it is. That’s not going to keep you warm in the woods.”

“The w—” In a moment of distraction, I raise my voice, and Zwe’s palm swiftly slaps my lips. “Ow!” I mumble.

“We have to go to the woods,” he says, leaning in and dropping his voice as though demonstrating to a kindergartener the importance of using our Inside Voices.

“Why”—I push his hand away—“do we have to go to the woods?”

“Because we need to find a way to reach the authorities. And remember what Leila said?” I try to remember through my brain fog, but Zwe answers his own question.

“She said her family lives in the mountains. Which must mean there’s at least a village there, and they must have a way to communicate with the mainland.

We also can’t just hide here like sitting ducks.

Whoever these people are, I’m sure they’re already starting to make their way around the resort, and it’s only a matter of time until they reach us.

So before they do, we leave, make our way to the village, we ask for help, and we shelter in place there until the help arrives. Now let’s get dressed.”

“How have you already planned out all of this?” I ask.

“Remember that small business security course I took a few years back?”

“Vaguely,” I say as I try to recall. He had wanted me to join him, but it would’ve involved giving up my weekends for an entire month. Besides, it wasn’t like we worked at a jewelry store. What kind of foolish robbers would want to rob an independent bookstore? I’d asked.

“We were taught that if someone is in the back room while robbers come in, that person’s primary focus should be on getting help, either by escaping or trying to get the attention of your neighbors.

You should not try to be the hero and free everybody,” Zwe is saying.

“The closest source of help right now is Leila’s family. ”

“Leila said her family lives in the mountains, ” I remind him, taking the first sweatshirt and pair of jeans at the top of my suitcase. “How the fuck are we going to know which mountain they’re on? There are, like, fifty of them!”

We’ve got our backs to each other, but I can hear Zwe changing out of his pajamas, too.

“There aren’t fifty, ” he says sarcastically.

“And I imagine there’s a way for them to access the resort too, which means there must be a path somewhere, probably out in the back.

There was a map of hiking paths here somewhere—” He trails off, and I first take a tentative peek over my shoulder to make sure he’s dressed.

He is, in jeans and a long-sleeved henley.

Making his way over to the desk, he quietly checks the drawers until he locates what he’s looking for: a rectangular sheet of paper that’s been folded multiple times (the map, I’m presuming).

I sit down on the bed with rolled socks in one hand, my sneakers in the other.

“You seriously think we can make our way through this massive resort, toward the hiking trail, climb up a whole-ass mountain, and locate a group of people we’ve never met?

And in the cold dark of the night? Do we even know which hiking trail is the correct one? ”

“Do you have a better plan?” Zwe says as he forcefully tugs his own shoelaces tight. He’s sitting on the floor, backpack by his side, map folded into a smaller rectangle that’s already tucked into his pocket.

“I never said I did. I just am asking if yours is… the best.”

“No plan.” He gets to his feet and slings on the backpack. “No input.”

I open my bag with the intention of unloading any items I might not need, but almost instantly talk myself into believing that I might need a pen or mints or wet wipes at some point.

And I certainly can’t leave my water bottle and wallet behind, and you always, always pack a book with you.

In the end, I remove my mini floss and Tide pen.

“Passport?” Zwe asks.

“Yes, Dad,” I say, although I feel for the rectangular bump within the inside zip compartment, just to be sure. Reaching across him, I unplug my laptop from its charger and am putting it inside my bag’s padded laptop compartment when a hand stops on top of mine.

“What are you doing?” His expression is one of utter bafflement.

“What does it look like?” I zip the bag shut, laptop secured. “I’m getting ready to go hike a mountain. We’re going to need to ration the granola bars, by the way. I only have two.”

“You’re not bringing your laptop.”

I blink to make sure I’ve heard him right. “I’m not not bringing my laptop.”

“Poe, you’re going to struggle enough as is to hike a mountain—”

I rear back. “Hey! I can hike—”

“Ssshhh!” he hisses, eyes widening.

Sorry, I mouth. Then, whispering this time, “I can hike! You think I’m leaving my laptop behind in a hotel room that we’re never going to return to? My manuscript is on there!”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re concerned about right now? Your manuscript ?” he hisses out the last word.

“Yes, because I’ve been working really hard, and—”

“You don’t even have a manuscript, though! You hate everything you’ve been writing! They’re all in your trash folder!”

I know he doesn’t mean it as an insult. It’s a fact, one that he heard from my own lips: I have hated every word I’ve been writing.

But still. Even in this particular moment, to hear it said out loud by somebody else—it feels like I accidentally touched a lit candle.

The hurt isn’t massive, but it does still hurt.

On his part, Zwe immediately looks apologetic. “I’m—” he starts.

“I started a new one last night—” I cut in. “And I think it’s got real potential, and I haven’t connected to the Wi-Fi so I can’t email it to myself. Zwe, call me insane or inefficient or stupid, or whatever you want, but I’m not leaving my laptop behind.”

“I would never think any of those things,” he says. “But a laptop is not a priority right now.”

“It’s coming with me,” I state matter-of-factly.