AMANDA'S Pov

"Don't make any noise", he pursed my lips with his hand.

"Am I not allowed to breathe?" I rhetorically questioned frowning.

He pointed towards the direction the voice echoed from "Then die alone because I clearly have an empire to handle", he turned towards the voice's direction again.

"Well basically, James can look after your empire very nicely", I taunted and looked away. The voice came closer and closer consequently.

Small droplets started to form on my forehead out of anxiousness. "Okay. This is scaring me", I whispered in Mr. Reynold's ears.

"Shush", he interrupted, and now we could clearly see a predominantly dark, richly brown-colored, moderately sized sub-specie with dark claws. Mr. Reynold's twirled his eyeballs from left to right giving me a signal to stay calm and hold my breath if the creature comes any closer.

I was laying on the ground sticking my back on the huge tree, while Mr. Reynold's back rested on mine, our knees were slightly flexed. He gave me an inward position so as to either protect me or avoid my clumsy nature. My heart kept plummeting after the creature's every consequent step.

I caught Mr. Reynold's hand as tightly as I could. Mr. Reynold gave me a sarcastic look trying to control all his anger but stayed as calm as he could. I hid in his chest as I couldn't bear the animal's face or the thought of him eating us alive. Mr. Reynolds kept his hand on my head to comfort me. He even softly patted.

The thought that Mr. Reynolds was consoling me was scarier than the huge animal. He has always been a complete gentleman when it came to protecting me, but then he has also been a complete jerk, so I never completely got to know what kind of a person he actually was, but I was learning after noticing his little gestures.

Mr. Reynolds later moved his hands from my head freeing me. I lifted my head slightly up, our nose almost touching. I could feel him breathe. "Did it go?" I whispered cautiously.

"Stay in that position. Although he is not clearly visible to my eyes, it's better to stay sure, because, even a little wrong move can cost us our lives", he looked at me, in my eyes, while my baby hair kept traveling on his face subject to the cold breeze.

"Uhmm-mm", I nodded without causing any further movement in my body. My face was yet on his chest, I kept it that way as I was aware of my clumsy nature plus I didn't want to overhear negative things about me from Mr. Reynolds's mouth again and again. We stayed in that position silently for almost 15 to 20 minutes.

"I guess he left", Mr. Reynolds separated me from himself.

"Yes, he left us alive!" I grinned

"Maybe you should practice on your jokes", Mr. Reynolds dusted himself from top to bottom.

"Or maybe you should remove your coat because the only people you can have a meeting herewith will be wild animals", I tried mimicking him "speaking of which, you have any idea which type of an animal it was?"

Mr. Reynolds took off his coat and threw it on the ground "It was a Eurasian bear", he even removed his socks and wore his shoes all over again.

"Bear what?" I interrogated.

"The Eurasian brown bear is from the family of bears Ursidae and is one of the subspecies of the brown bear, Ursus arctos", he answered.

"Woah! You're definitely blessed with a lot of general knowledge", I raised my brows "I must say you must've never skipped any serial from national geographic"

He looked at me, his eyes shined "Yes, I saw it every day with my mo-", he cut his word and regained his original harsh tone "none of your concern Miss Waters, and thanks, but we should keep walking and finding a way before the hooligans track us down"

I agreed with his sentence. It was getting dark now, and the moonlight guided us. Mr. Reynolds bent down and started to rub two stones in order to generate fire "I hope this works", he kept rubbing the stones.

"It has to", I confirmed and within moments there was a small ignition of the fire. Mr. Reynolds pushed the wood stick against the fire spot. There was a flame on the stick which generated a certain amount of light which could be helpful for us to walk and stay protected from the animals.

My leg was severely debilitated, but I gained courage somehow and took shelter from Mr. Reynolds's hand whilst walking. We kept walking for a while without talking with each other. We could only hear the birds chirping, the voice of the dry leaves which encountered our feet, and the soothing dry breeze.

"The more we walk, the deeper the bushes get", I disrupted the silence.

"Certainly you have a point, but we don't have many choices to make until we find a highway", he picked up a long stick from the ground and moved things playfully with it whilst his other hand had the fire-stick which he later handed to me. For a moment I wondered that, is he the impudent boss I was walking with?

"You look amazing", I turned sideways towards him and complimented.

"Maybe I always do Miss Waters", he smirked pushing his dark brown hair back into a spike.

"This certainly is not even closer to what office is, so, you can call me Amanda", I smiled "plus this even restricts you to command me to do something", I raised my brows "and even if you command, I am not listening to you" I continued showcasing a fake smile.

"Well! that's against my ethics, Miss Waters. I give you a certain amount of respect when I call you with a prefix attached to 'Miss'", he loosened up his topmost 3 buttons which could now show some amount of his torso.

It was extremely difficult for me to give up on this gaze, he looked so fine. His dark blue eyes shined from reflections of the moonlight. His messy hair was sexy enough to turn any girl loco but I had to control my emotions. "Control Amanda", I directed my conscious. I quickly turned my glances away when he caught me staring at him.

"We should find ourselves a shelter for this night, probably", Mr. Reynolds suggested.

"OH! do you want me to reserve online so that we could check-in?" I questioned sarcastically.

"Irrelevant", he marched ahead leaving me behind.

"Don't you now think of leaving me here alone", I warned and caught up with his speed and later his arms.

"...so very annoying", he remarked.

"Learning from the best", I instinctively replied. We kept walking for minutes looking for someplace to spend the night safely. My legs were losing their capacity to walk after every consequent step. I didn't show it on my face, though my expressions could say it all.

"Oh look there's a small grassy house right there", I pointed towards the house and marched in that direction.

"It could be dangerous, calm down!" Mr. Reynolds followed me instinctively as he tried warning me.

In a while, we were at the doorway. I tried to push it, but couldn't. It didn't move, even an inch "Maybe it is a bit jam", I examined closely.

"so maybe I should contact a carpenter", he sarcastically remarked whilst shifting me from the main doorway. He then took a position and kicked the door as hard as he could. To our discontent, it didn't move to the slightest. I started to laugh, but then his exasperated face made me shut my mouth. He kept on kicking the door for like three to four times. The jam loosened up a bit, so he kept on kicking, and finally, after like ten attempts, the door knocked off.

"Bravo! Mr. Reynolds", I clapped and hopped out of joy. He looked at me, with his judgemental eyes, so I quickly discontinued doing my actions. I handled the fire-wood stick to Mr. Reynolds and commented "May this light guide you home and me too; after you", I was melodramatic and was enjoying it. The more Mr. Reynolds got annoyed, the more it made me happy.

We then walked around the small house closely examining things. I took a few steps, sat on the floor folding my legs and sheltering my back against the raw wall. Mr. Reynolds started digging in the garbage. I could see him grinning silently.

"What is it?" I questioned curiously.

"Tadaa", he removed the fire lamp from the garbage and ignited it with our hand-made wooden stick "feels like Einstein" he raised his eyebrows and threw away the wooden fire-stick after dimming it.

"I'm starving Mr. Reynold's, and it's getting cold", I rubbed my arms and legs as they were exposed to the cold. I so wished that I wore denim or pants, the previous week.

"Well, me too. Just control for a while. We'll find something to eat and drink tomorrow", an affirmative answer coming from Mr. Reynolds was completely unexpected.

"I wish", I smiled at him. He stood up from his place and moved around the hut. He picked up some old newspapers from the ground.

'The war ends, hoping for peace', he picked up some same articles which were scattered on the floor and read them out loud too. "Okay so maybe this place was set up by some military person for seeking temporary shelter"

"Makes sense", I nodded.

"Of course! he pointed out at the date, it's 2004 inscribed on this newspaper's heading, which means that this place was built exactly 13 years back, gotcha", he half-smiled at his victory.

"Why didn't you join an investigation team from the police department", I tried to be genuine but ended up being sarcastic as usual. We always had sarcasm wars since we met. This kept things interesting between us.

"Maybe destiny wanted me to torture you", he replied and then turned his attention towards the shelves which were half broken.

"Careful", I tried to warn but he obviously didn't listen to me. He started examining little things from the shelf. He finally removed a packed glass bottle.

"This is Rum! What a delight", he smiled and showcased it to me.

"Rum which is 13 years old and may have crossed its expiry date", I took the bottle from his hand.

"Rum supposes to last for an indefinite period of time according to my knowledge", he dragged the bottle away from my hands and took possession of it.

"Well maybe you should update your knowledge rather than just updating your phone", I smirked and wrenched the bottle away again.

"If James and his mates find me then I am dying anyway, and I am not even forcing you to drink so why don't you just mind your own business", He grabbed the bottle twisted its cap, and started to gulp it.

"Fine then", I yanked the bottle and gulped the remaining sips of it.

"Why did you even drink it Miss Waters", his face almost reddened up with anger.

"Your business is my business and if we go down, we're going down together plus old wine tasted nice. I'm starting to feel warmth in my body", I went closer to him and did an evil hair-flip.

He caught my arms tightly with his hands "'You silly girl, you don't even know about the consequences, we can either die or have the craziest night ever", he suddenly started to laugh. Since the day I met him, this was officially the first time I have ever seen him laugh.

"You look beautifully handsome", I had no idea what words were falling from my mouth, but whatever it was, they could not justify how simply amazing he looked while laughing. I knew it was the rum effect that got him losing his senses. I felt glad that I just drank 2 or 3 sips of it but since I wasn't a usual drinker, even a few sips could affect me.

My head started to feel heavy like it was carrying some huge luggage. I felt dizzy but then I saw Mr. Reynolds walking away from the main door of the hut. I ran and followed him as fast as I possibly could.

"Stop", I shouted from back "Stooooooooop", this time I shouted in a louder tone, he turned
around whilst smirking and then started to move forward again.

"Move no more", I caught him from back folding my hands around his stomach to cease him from moving any further.

He caught my eyeballs and gave me a confused look "Who are you giving orders to? Miss Amanda Waters", he pinned me on my shoulder with his pointer finger.

"Like I said earlier" I cleared my throat "This isn't your office premises or any professional outing so we can talk, speak and act independently" I positioned his hand on his body "So come on now, let's go inside", I took his hand again and directed ourselves towards the hut.

"It feels so lively here. I feel like a kid again. Do you know something, Miss Waters?" He looked at me wanting me to hear him.

I looked in his eyes "No I don't, you tell me what's it about", I'm glad I didn't drink much of rum as someone had to take care of the other while they were losing their sense.

He pointed towards the moon "My mom and I used to go every weekend for star and moon gazing. Dad never joined us but Mom was enough for me" and do you know, I nodded wanting him to continue "We took a huge ice cream tub along with us and always had a competition on our eating capacity. Mom used to lose purposely"

"Tell me more about your mother", I could see his happiness when he was talking about his mother, so I let the topic continue, but instead I could feel him agonizing. Tears started to roll from his eyes.

"Hey" I pulled him closer "Hey stop, you are Mr. Reynolds, you don't cry", I patted his shoulder "You make me cry instead", I tried to ease the situation but it didn't help so I pulled him closer into a hug and caressed his back.

"I miss her so much", I felt lost for words so I just kept caressing him. He held me tightly through my waist. It felt like he has been miserable in the past and has never really spoken to anyone about it. His body's warmth made me comfortable in this cool climate.

I separated myself from him and made sure that he was okay. He caught my gaze and hugged me again. I did not react, I just went with the flow. He needed someone to hear him out but not when he was away from his senses, so I tried changing the topic because I didn't want to take any advantage of his situation.

"So who wants to stargaze with me", I pulled away.

"Or can I ask this really beautiful girl a dance?" he interrogated.

"Are you calling me beautiful?" I said aloud. Maybe I should take the rum bottles along with me if any because I'm starting to like this side of him.

"We have no music though!" I tried to make an excuse.

"I can sing", he grinned.

"No way", I went inside the hut and bought the table lamp to create a small campfire. We could see through the moonlight but it didn't just feel sufficient, plus I had studied in history, that fire always keeps wild animals away, so it was a boom-win kind of situation.

"You were saving me a dance", he brushed his hair and started to sing already. 'I CAN ALMOST SEE IT, THAT DREAM I'M DREAMING BUT THERE'S A VOICE INSIDE MY HEAD SAYING', he sang like a small kid without any hymn and chorus but he seems to enjoy it and so did me when watching him like that. He was really carried away because of the rum. This side of him was something I hadn't explored before.

Oh wait, is he singing Hannah Montana?

"Mr. Reynolds, pinch me if I am wrong, but you got to be kidding me", I laughed "You can't sing Hannah Montana at least" I laughed continuously as this was the song I'd least expect him to sing.

"Come dance with me if you want me to sing some other song", he paused for a while and then shouted 'it's a cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimb'

"Fine! Sing no more please", I went closer, agreeing on the dancing condition.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Like I said earlier I've been motivated to write.

Do I extend the jungle scene?

Thanks for reading.

Don't forget to vote and comment, maybe? It inspires me