Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“Daddy, you gotta shave!” Casper laughed at me.
I grinned, unable to form a fucking word.
“You also, Daddy!” Sam guffawed.
Jesus, it’d only been a week. I had some scruff. Jake, on the other hand, was always scruffy, so he was quickly approaching beard territory.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have razors in the woods,” Jake chuckled. They should see us in two weeks when we’d lost a few pounds too. We weren’t itching for that part. “Are y’all bein’ good for your aunties and Mommy?”
“Yeah, and Aunt Mira is makin’ tacos tonight!” Colin replied triumphantly.
Jake and I groaned with envy.
Three weeks in, I wasn’t a fan of roughing it anymore. I’d proven myself enough. I had fucking bruises from Jake’s fingers digging into my hips.
I was sick of the cold, sick of the constant dampness, the snow, the sleet, the ice, the winds whipping me in the face, running a fucking marathon to perform a simple task, spending six hours checking traps and foraging for a single meal that still tasted like moss and pine needles.
It wasn’t like my hopes had been high to begin with. Jake and I were shit cooks. But I had studied so goddamn hard, and I’d wanted to put together a dinner that actually tasted okay. But nah. I’d done everything in my power. I’d demonstrated how to extract salt from ocean water, I’d made cattail flour, I’d cooked and pan-fried grouse, I’d foraged wild onion, some seeds and nuts, and the softer inner layer of pine bark. Last but not least, I’d made broth from leftover ptarmigan, and I’d stored all the fat to use for tonight’s stew.
Here I was, stirring a gooey fucking mess with a damn stick, and the taste was awful.
I had nothing left to add.
I cursed to myself and contemplated chucking it into the woods—but we needed to eat. This feast from hell had too many nutrients and good calories for us to waste it. Our only other alternative—the one we’d enjoyed the most but were sick of now—was fish. Plain, grilled fish with some wild onion and salt.
We’d had that almost every day for lunch. Fish was plentiful, and we had ten or fifteen in our storage box outside. If only we weren’t so fed up with fish.
“It smells good,” Jake offered.
I sent him a sideways look.
Yeah, well. It smelled better than it tasted.
“Were you able to restore the connection?” I muttered, changing the topic.
We’d been guaranteed internet connection even this far out, but if we’d learned one thing about Alaska, it was that there was no such thing as a guarantee in this state. Today, we’d been offline on and off.
“For the moment,” he replied. “We’re back online anyway.”
He sat in the makeshift bed we’d constructed, which I wouldn’t mind using as firewood. Jake had built the frame out of logs, and I had filled it with the softest material the forest had to offer—before putting our sleeping mats on top.
It sucked. It was lumpy and not at all like our bed at home.
Home.
“Darlin’, survival never tastes good,” he murmured. “As long as it fills our stomachs, we’re one day closer to postproduction.”
I sighed and rose from the ground. I’d give the stew another ten minutes on the fire, and then we’d have to force it down no matter what.
I flicked a glance at the livestream camera in the corner above Jake’s head. Maybe some viewers would get a laugh out of the whole thing. Or maybe they were bored. I didn’t know. Whenever we talked to the kids, Haley assured us our numbers were high, and I didn’t get it. Okay, so survival didn’t taste good? Survival wasn’t about living either. It was just about getting by.
Once we were back in LA, I’d see what a hit this show would be once more. I mean, I knew it would be. Survival shows were popular, and when you squeezed the funny bits out of forty-eight hours of footage, you actually got something worth watching for half an hour. But still. Those forty-eight hours were long.
“If they want another season, we’re picking an exotic island,” I said. “They can strand us in the Caribbean for a month.”
He chuckled and stood up with a grunt. Snow pants stayed on even indoors, despite the roaring fire. Undershirts and hoodies, long johns and soft-shell pants, then snow pants. Layers, layers, layers.
I was sick of layers!
I wanted sweatpants and cargo shorts. LA warmth and my man holding me when I slept.
“Lemme taste this stew,” he said. He bent down next to the fire and grabbed one of the spoons I’d carved.
“It’s your funeral.”
That stopped him in his tracks, and he straightened again. “Are you pouting?”
“No.” I wasn’t fucking pouting. Did I look like a five-year-old? I was…brooding.
“You’ve been off your game all day,” he noted.
I folded my arms over my chest, mindful of the damn camera. Thank fuck we didn’t share any audio.