He smiled. “Because you wanted an adventure.”
Then he started walking, and this time he didn’t stop when I called. I stood in disbelief for a few seconds before jogging to catch up with him. My lungs protested from the twenty seconds of almost-running, so I had a feeling they would start an all-out revolution on this “adventurous” walk.
I said, “I can have an adventure without gaining bunions and ruining my pedicure.”
He shook his head. “I’m fairly certain it’s in the dictionary that it’s impossible to have an adventure while worrying about things like pedicures.”
Hunt had picked up a map at the train station, and he said there was a neighborhood not too far away that should have plenty of inns and hostels to choose from. We’d go there first.
It wasn’t exactly my idea of an adventure. I still would have preferred a taxi or the metro. But I did have to admit, it was refreshing to walk the stone sidewalks and take in the architecture. There were plenty of modern buildings and restaurants, but occasionally we’d turn a corner, and I’d feel like I stepped straight into a fairy tale, complete with stone gargoyles staring down at us from half the buildings we passed.
Hunt and I argued over how to pronounce words we saw on signs. Some of them used almost every consonant in the alphabet with only a few vowels. We argued about what the words meant. I always chose the most unlikely meaning possible, just to see how riled up I could get him.
“There is absolutely no way it means that.”
“You don’t know. Do you speak Czech?”
“Maybe I’ll learn, just to prove how ridiculous you are.”
“Good luck with that, soldier.”
It was entertaining enough that I didn’t pay too much attention to the slight ache in my feet or the hitch in my lungs or the pinch in my back from the pulling weight of my bag. Or not for a while anyway. After about an hour, my feet were bitching and my back ready to mutiny. I had to concentrate on breathing and talking so that I didn’t start panting. Then I looked up at one of the buildings we were passing and stopped in my tracks.
“Jackson! Do you know where you’re going?”
He held up the map and said, “Of course I do. We’ll be there any minute now.”
I let my backpack slip off my shoulders and plopped it on the sidewalk. I was not moving one more step.
I pointed and said, “Why is it, then, that we’re passing the Vodka Jell-O Shot place again?”
“I told you, Kelsey. There is no way Minutková Jídla means vodka Jell-O shots. That’s clearly a restaurant.”
“Yeah, a restaurant that serves Jell-O shots.”
“It has to be something to do with a minute or minutes.”
“That’s because it’s instant Jell-O! But the point is … we’ve already been here.”
He looked then at the restaurant, and I saw the confirmation on his face.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“We’re lost.”
“We’re not … well …” He consulted his map again, twisting it in few different directions and said, “We might be a little lost.”
“This is your idea of adventure? I thought soldiers were supposed to be good at navigation.”
“I have a solution,” he said.
My backpack was starting to look like a very tempting chair, but I convinced myself to stay standing. I placed my hands on my hips and said, “Let’s hear it.”
He crossed to me with the map in his hand, and came close enough that he could probably smell the sweat trickling down my back. I should have been self-conscious, but when I craned my head back to meet his gaze, his smile tore through my thoughts like a tornado, and left them scattered and in pieces. He leaned in, and my heart jumped.
He reached out an arm, and dropped the map in a trash bin just behind me. He stayed there, our chests less than an inch away from touching and said in a low, deep voice, “Problem solved.”