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"What the hell?" Eve said, squinting to peer down the trail.
Ollie barreled out of the woods, without his towel, flapping his arms in the air and screaming again. "Run! It's after me! Shiiiiiiiiit!"
The guests playing badminton froze, their gazes swiveling to Ollie.
He got halfway to Eve and me before we saw the thing that was after him.
A porcupine hustled out of the woods, quills raised, making a beeline for Ollie.
"Shiiiiiiit!" he hollered again.
Eve rushed toward one of the guests, grabbed the gray-haired woman's badminton racket, and bolted toward the onrushing porcupine.
Well, if you could call what the creature was doing "onrushing." Though he moved fast for such a large, bulky creature, he was in no danger of catching up to Ollie.
I hurried after Eve, but she didn't need my help.
Eve stopped, planted her feet wide, and swung the racket in the direction of the porcupine. She snarled and shouted and stomped one foot, all while brandishing the racket in sharp, whooshing swings.
The porcupine turned around and hustled back down the nature trail.
Ollie fell to his knees, breathing hard and red-faced. He collapsed onto his side on the ground and rolled onto his back spread-eagled. "I think I'm dead. That bright light must be heaven."
Eve approached him, thumping the racket on her palm. "That's the sun, Ollie. You're not dead, though you sure made an unholy ruckus. What happened?"
He shut his eyes. "I was walking down the trail, kind of distracted and not paying attention to where I was going." He opened one eye to peek at me and winced. "I was looking down, and I sort of stumbled into the porky. He wasn't happy about it."
"Why on earth were you staring at the ground?" Eve said. "You know better than that. Keeping an eye on your surroundings is critical in the woods."
"I was—" He flushed even redder, almost crimson, and couldn't quite look at Eve. "I had a problem and needed some alone time."
"But why—"
"Give him a break," I said to Eve. "He's embarrassed enough as it is."
She glanced at me as I came up beside her. "You know what his secret problem was, don't you?"
"Yes, but I'm not going to tell you. It's one of those secrets between men."
Ollie nodded solemnly. "Thanks, man."
Eve's mouth twisted into a half frown. "Manly secrets? What does that mean?"
"It's the bro code," Ollie said. "Don't mess with it, okay?"
Her attention flickered between me and Ollie for a moment before she gave up and shrugged. "Whatever. I guess the secrets of man are not for woman to comprehend."
Ollie pushed up into a sitting position. "Think I'll go take a nap. Getting chased by a crazy porcupine took a lot out of me." He exhaled, his shoulders sagging. "I'm having one crap day."
Eve watched him while he got to his feet. "Did something else happen? I mean, besides the porcupine and your secret manly problem."
He ran a hand over his cheek. "I got an email from Heidi. She's back with her ex."
"Poor Ollie." Eve wrapped her arms around him. "I'm so sorry."
Ollie grimaced.
I decided he was concerned about a recurrence of his manly problem, so I dragged Eve away from him. "Let's go do that private thing we talked about earlier."
