“Having trouble, dear?” Arthur mocked.
“Throw me your other pillow.”
She held out a hand, waiting for her supplies to arrive, but instead, a pair of balled-up socks whizzed through the air and clonked her in the head. She nearly lost her balance then and there. It was a direct hit.
“What the hell?” Wren looked up. “Ew, and these are dirty! You’re disgusting.”
He whizzed another sock ball at her. Wren just barely ducked, nearly losing her balance again.
“I’d hate for you to fall in the lava,” he said. “Anything I can do to help?”
And that’s when he chucked a pair of boxers at her, which landed on her face.
“Underwear?! Too far, Arthur, too far.” She flung them off. “Seriously, I’m about to soak the carpet if you don’t toss me something I can use!”
“Good! Maybe it’ll kill the roaches.”
“Gross.” She retched.
Arthur floated a T-shirt into the air, tossing it like a Frisbee, and it landed over her like a blanket. “ARTHUR!”
When she could see again, Arthur had positioned himself in front of her, kneeling on the pillow closest to hers. They looked into each other’s eyes, both unsure of the next move, and both burst into laughter.
“Hey,” Wren said, “catch me.” She sat up on her knees and fell toward him, hands outstretched in front of her. He did the same. They met in the middle, holding each other up like a human tepee. They tried to kiss, but their balance failed, and they toppled over onto the carpet laughing.
“We didn’t last five minutes,” Arthur said after the laughter had died down, both lying on their backs watching the ceiling fan spin.
“I have an idea,” Wren said. “Since we’re both here. Let’s call it a mulligan. We’ll take two minutes. I’ll pee, you grab all the supplies you think we’ll need, then we meet back in bed. Deal?”
“What kind of supplies—”
“Go!” Wren looked at the alarm clock: 10:04. “Ten-oh-six and not a minute later!”
Wren sought the sweet relief of the bathroom. Arthur slipped and slid his way to the kitchen in his socks, rooting through the pantry like a madman. Mere seconds before the deadline, they both dove back into the bed.
“We did it!” Wren yelled triumphantly.
“We? All you did was go to the bathroom. I was the one collecting rations to get us through the day.”
“What did you get?”
Arthur unfolded a ratty kitchen towel and revealed a treasure trove of snacks inside. Peanut butter crackers, a pack of Pop-Tarts, a lone banana, two bottles of water, a wrinkled protein bar, and a tub of room-temperature mayonnaise.
“Mayo?”
“I don’t know. I was just grabbing stuff. We can toss this.”
“I didn’t say toss it.”
Arthur began ripping into the pack of Pop-Tarts. “Are you sure we can do this? We still have like twelve hours left until we usually go to bed.”
Wren kicked back with the peanut butter crackers and grabbed the TV remote off her bedside table.
“My love,” she said, “this is why they invented Netflix.”
Eight episodes ofCake Islandlater, they were in the exact same place. And all the food was gone. Wren had even dared to eat a fingerful of mayonnaise and then gone back for another.
“Can we take a break?” Arthur said. “My eyes hurt.”
