Unbreakable(7)

Sully always gives me shit for not taking advantage of our situation. At least once every few weeks, he reminds me that I’m missing out on all the fun. What am I supposed to do, tell him I’d rather go home alone with fantasies of his sister and my right hand?

I’m not sure how I’ll manage to get through the next nine days, especially if Emmy’s hell bent on hooking up with some random guy while we’re up here. It will f*cking kill me. I’m walking a fine line trying to talk her out of it because she’s right—it’s not my place to tell her what she can or can’t do. She’s not my girl.

I flip off the taps, dry myself off, and head back into my bedroom. After pulling on my cotton sleep pants, I turn off the light and climb into bed.

Em still hasn’t come upstairs. I almost want to go back down and try to end this night on a better note, but honestly, it’s probably better to let it go and get a fresh start in the morning.

I drift off to sleep with the faint noise of the television in the background and the soft clinking of plates and dishes as she loads the dishwasher.

“Will! Oh my God, Will!”

I jolt awake to Emmy shrieking from the next room. I’m across the hall in two seconds flat, holding the baseball bat I keep stashed under my bed. Emmy stands in the doorway of her bedroom, hopping from foot to foot and shivering.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” I hold up the bat as I scan the room for intruders. Christ, I can barely see.

“On the wall. Above the bed.” She grabs me around the waist and buries her head in the crook of my arm. “Please, Will. I can’t go back in there.”

“Shh. It’s okay, honey.”

I lean the bat against the wall and run my hands up and down her back, and then I peer inside of the room to see why she’s freaking out.

Jesus H. Christ.

The biggest spider I’ve ever seen is crawling slowly along the wall, two inches above the headboard of the bed.

It’s a f*cking monster. If spiders had a king, this one is it. Other spiders would bow down to this goddamn beast. It has a fat blue body, long hairy legs, and is as big as my hand.

Maybe even bigger.

“Holy shit,” I mutter. “Look at that thing!”

She shakes her head, and a few strands of her hair tickle my chest. “No. I can’t. Please, I can’t look.”

Emmy’s notorious for waking people in the middle of the night to kill spiders the size of a dime. This thing is going to give her nightmares for the rest of her life. I’m not afraid of spiders, but even I’m not thrilled with the idea of getting close to that horror.

I attempt to extract myself from her death grip, but she hangs on tight.

“Sweetheart,” I say gently, “you’re going to have to let me go so I can kill it.”

Not that I want her to. If she hung on to me like this all damn night, I’d be a happy man. She’s wearing a clingy blue tank top and matching hip-hugging boy shorts that barely cover her ass. The outfit is sexy and sweet.

The problem is, now that I’m finally waking up, so is my dick. As she snuggles closer to me, I realize that I’m not going to be able to conceal my growing excitement. Pun intended.

“I gotta get in there, Em.”

“Okay,” she whispers, nodding. “Okay, right.”

A few moments later, she takes a tiny step back and releases me.

Gritting my teeth, I step into the room and look around for something I can use to smash the f*cker to death. My eyes land on “The Joy of Sex,” sitting prominently on the bookshelf, and I snort with laughter. I’d stolen this book from the bookshelf on more than one occasion when I’d hit puberty. After this, it’s going in the garbage.

Taking a deep breath, I slam the book against the wall with all my might.

It’s dead on impact—a big, blue smoosh on the once perfectly white wall. The rest of the body sticks to the book.

“Ugh,” I groan, staring at the oversized, gross carcass.

Emmy peeks from between her fingers and lets out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. I’m her hero right now; our previous argument is a thing of the past.

“Oh, God. Thank you so much, Will.”

“No worries.” I toss the book in the garbage can. “I’ll be right back.”

Hunting around in the washroom, I grab a hand towel from the linen closet, run it under the tap, and get to work scrubbing the disgusting evidence off of the wall. Afterward, I pitch the towel in the trash and wash my hands.

Emmy’s still standing in the doorway when I go back out into the room, hugging herself and staring at the bed.

“Em? You okay?”

“Yeah. Just creeped out I guess.” She scans the walls, trying to see if the monster left behind any of his squad.

“That was the biggest spider I’ve ever seen,” I admit. “Even I’ve got a case of the creeps.”

She makes a face. “I know. How do you think it got in here?”

I shrug. “This place has been closed up for a year. But if I had to guess, it probably came in on your suitcase. Crawled up from the dock, most likely. Dock spiders are a thing.”

“Oh, gross!” She closes her eyes. “Do you think there’s any more of them in the house?”

“Christ, I hope not. One is enough.”