The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,24
army-navy surplus store.”
I snorted again.
With interspersed fits of giggles, she continued. “Ooooh, I have the perfect setup. Store owner looks at our pins and awards and badges and goes, ‘This place is expensive. You’re going to need an IOU. You’ll come back with more money, right?’ The Eagle and Girl Scout say—”
“Scout’s honor!” I finished, and we gasped with laughter. We could barely breathe, the joke was so bad. My mom would’ve loved that one.
Chapter Eight
Kate
I still didn’t fully understand why there was a life-size cutout of my dad in Nate’s closet. It was straight out of one of those Halloween carnival fun-house horror movies, when the light flickers off and on and the murdery thing just appears. Seeing Dad in his closet made my heart nearly stop. Like Robbie Anderson-Steele had somehow followed me to Nate’s, despite the fact that I’d been so careful when leaving the house. Maybe way in the future it’d be kind of funny, but at the time, when sheer terror rippled through my body head to toe, it wasn’t funny at all. Not in the least bit.
I sneaked a few glances over at Nate as he drove. His jet-black hair had a jagged part, and his gleaming white scalp line strongly contrasted it. Through his heather-gray Henley shirt, I could make out his lean muscle definition in his shoulders, arms, and chest. When he turned in my direction, heat rushed to my cheeks, and I stared ahead at the road. Rain pounded the windshield as my heart hammered harder and faster.
“So, why’d you pick me to be your partner again?” he asked. “Surely you had other options.”
I had three reasons, actually. One, I only had a few friends, and ever since Mom died last year, I pretty much went full-on hermit. Second, to win, I needed someone smart and athletic to be my partner. Ideally someone who knew a lot about zombies. Third, I wanted to pick someone I didn’t know too well, someone I wouldn’t feel too bad ditching after the competition when I hightailed it out of Seattle. Nate was perfect.
“You seemed like the right guy for the job. I’m right, right?”
He puffed his chest and nodded.
I combed my loose locks with my fingers, immediately getting them finger-hair snared. I’d considered chopping all of my hair off and going for that pixie look that was always in vogue, but my very round face structure didn’t go with that. “Elongate with a long hair style” was always the advice for me in beauty magazines.
Same for my short, squatty body. My legs especially.
Elongate your look with vertical stripes, never horizontal. Head-to-toe black streamlines your silhouette. Bonus tip: wear fun heels to give you added height!
I placed my hands in my lap, and then moved them to cover both knees, but neither position was natural. What did normal people do with their hands? My palms started to sweat, along with my face and scalp. Oh God. Next was always my upper lip, then armpits. Once the underboob and back perspiration rivers flowed, I’d need to drink electrolytes to preserve my hydration.
To cool myself, I turned up the air conditioner with my damp hand. Nate’s hair flopped around in the AC wind stream, but he didn’t complain. The air stayed warm and never went down in temperature. I fiddled with the knobs, but nothing helped.
He coughed. “Maybe it needs Freon. Lately it’s worked more like a fan than an air conditioner.”
No sense pumping his car cabin with unwanted heat, creating sauna-like conditions. I shut off my cool-down operation. My hands were still a problem, though, overly sweaty and flapping like an American flag on a gusty day. I shoved them under my thighs, palms down, hoping that a little body weight could suppress the sweat-gland eruption and stop me from waving my hands around like a fool.
“Would it be okay if you kept all this gear at your place?” I asked. “I don’t have any room in my home.” It was sort of the truth. Dad would flip his shit if he figured out I’d used some of his emergency cash he stashed in his sock drawer (I mean, who hides valuables in a sock