Page 91 of One Adult, Please

"That's Gregory," Grace says, "the cockblocking wrong person. Gregory has a vendetta against my love life and I will not…"

"Grace."

"Gregory doesn't get to be part of this. I'm going to take the friendship paddle and I'm going to…"

"Grace." I put my hand on her face. Turn her back to me. "Gregory doesn't get to be part of this."

"That's what I said."

"So let's not be here when Gregory wanders through."

She blinks. The fury downshifts into something that looks like the word "yes" before the mouth says it.

"The crime boat," she says. "The thinking box. Door locks. Ramp retracts. No Gregorys."

"No Gregorys."

I lift her off the counter. She grabs the friendship paddle. I grab the axe. We leave the dessert armory, check the courtyard, and confirm Gregory has shuffled past the entrance and into the roped-off queue maze near the castle façade. Technically contained. Emotionally at large, completely unaware that he's just become the most hated wrong person in the history of the apocalypse.

We move through Mythic Frontier. Fast. Focused. Grace trips once on a cobblestone and I catch her arm and she doesn't stop walking.

The crime boat rises above the lagoon. The gangplank is down. I pull the rope and the gangplank lifts behind us. The ramp retracts.

The sun is low and the park is quiet. Gregory is behind us doing his stupid fanny-pack shuffle. Kevin is eating something he shouldn't. Joel is checking structural integrity. Grant is tending to the animals.

She takes my hand and pulls me toward the captain's quarters.

The dolphin breastplate stays on.

For now.

22

THE THINKING BOX HAS THOUGHTS

GRACE

The captain's quarters of the crime boat are smaller than I remember.

Probably because the last time I was in here, there were four of us and nobody was closing the door with that look on his face. Apparently sexual tension takes up more room than two additional men.

"So," I say, because silence is my enemy and I fill it compulsively.

He's looking at me the way he looked at me in the dessert armory. "Grace."

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

"I can't stop talking. Talking is what I do when I'm nervous. Talking is my primary coping mechanism. Talking is…"

He kisses me. My hands find his chest, which is still covered by the fish vest.

"The vest," I say against his mouth. "I changed my mind. The vest goes."

"You said it stays."

"I was wrong. The vest is in the way of things I want to touch."